Centricity Cardio Enterprise Unveiled at ACC 2012

22 March 2012

Centricity Cardio Enterprise Unveiled at ACC 2012

 

GE Healthcare’s New Cardiovascular IT Solution Enables Full Clinical Access, Enhanced Physician Productivity, and Improved Charge Capture Accuracy

CHICAGO -- March 22, 2012 – At the 61st Meeting of the American College of Cardiology in Chicago next week, GE Healthcare is introducing Centricity* Cardio Enterprise, a new and comprehensive IT solution that offers cardiologists a single point of access to patient data, images and reports across the continuum of care while enhancing physician productivity and improving charge capture accuracy. Centricity Cardio Enterprise enables the cardiovascular care area with configurable workflow, tools, and reports that can be shared across multiple facilities and organizations.

Cardiologists can be more mobile than ever before using Centricity Cardio Enterprise. Whether a clinician is in the lab, on the floor, in the OR, in their office across town, or at home over the weekend - patient data and diagnostic-quality images are available at their fingertips when they need it. Centricity Cardio Enterprise allows cardiologists to easily and securely access the complete patient cardiovascular record for rapid and more informed clinical decision making - determinations that can often be life impacting for patients.

“The industry needs a web-enabled solution to truly move to the next generation of cardiovascular care,” said Nadim Daher, principal analyst – Medical Imaging and Imaging Informatics, Frost and Sullivan. “Today’s cardiologist doesn’t have time to ensure she’s in the same place every time she wants to diagnose a patient. The industry needs to evolve to meet the clinicians’ needs. Centricity Cardio Enterprise fits that need.”

CIOs and cardiology administrators will appreciate Centricity Cardio Enterprise’s scalability and IT infrastructure, leveraging GE Healthcare’s vendor neutral archiving platform. It provides standards-based image and document storage with an ability to intelligently enforce lifecycle management policies. Centricity Cardio Enterprise also automates post-procedural patient outcomes management to not only help customers in meeting today’s regulatory needs, but also prepare them for upcoming changes in the future.

“We value our partnership with GE and its focus on providing Clinical IT solutions that simplify access to critical patient information for our clinicians,” said Daniel Salzberg, Administrative Director – Information Services at Bon Secours Health System in Virginia. “We are excited about the possibilities of the new Cardiovascular IT platform, Centricity Cardio Enterprise, which provides a comprehensive solution across the cardiovascular care area.”

“This is the future of cardiovascular patient care,” said Michael Jackman, vice president and general manager of GE Healthcare IT. “We’re delivering greater value to cardiologists with Centricity Cardio Enterprise—particularly with its location agnostic access and productivity enhancement capabilities. Less time entering data or manually reporting on a cardiovascular IT solution means more time spent on patient care.”

*Centricity is a registered trademark of General Electric Company.

News Release from EPA

Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Contact: Donna Heron 215-814-5113 / heron.donna@epa.gov

Pennsylvania Company Settles Toxic Chemical Reporting Violations at Nazareth, Pa. Facility

PHILADELPHIA (February 21, 2012) -- The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency today announced that Essroc Cement Corporation has agreed to pay a $82,000 penalty to settle alleged violations of toxic chemical reporting requirements at its manufacturing facility located at 401 West Prospect St., Nazareth, Pa.

According to EPA, Essroc failed to submit three years of required reports on a regulated toxic chemical (lead) which was processed at this facility.

EPA cited the company for violating the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (EPCRA). This law requires companies that manufacture, use or process more than a threshold amount of listed toxic chemicals to file an annual toxic chemical release form with EPA and the state. These reports are used to compile the Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) -- a publicly available EPA database, searchable by zip code, that contains information on toxic chemical releases and waste management activities.

The multi-establishment Nazareth, Pa., plant processes lead as part of the manufacturing process for bulk and packaged cement. Lead and lead compounds are regulated under EPCRA due to the public health effects of ingestion or inhalation of lead, particularly among children, including damage to the nervous system. According to EPA, a June 2011 inspection revealed that Essroc did not submit annual reports for lead for three years (2006 through 2008) when the Nazareth facility processed lead in amounts in excess of 130,000 pounds annually -- significantly exceeding EPCRA’s 100 pound reporting threshold. (This settlement involves alleged reporting violations, not unlawful releases of toxic chemicals.)

The settlement penalty reflects the company's cooperation with EPA in resolving the alleged violations, and its compliance efforts. As part of the settlement, the company did not admit liability for the alleged violations, but has certified compliance with applicable EPCRA requirements.



In a separate matter, the United States recently announced a $1.7 million settlement of alleged Clean Air Act violations at six Essroc facilities nationwide, including the Nazareth plant.
See press release at: http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpress.nsf/d0cf6618525a9efb85257359003fb69d/48aa8dd28f3ab133852579750077751e!OpenDocument.

For more information on TRI and the TRI searchable database, go to: www.epa.gov/tri.

For more information on lead and its health effects, go to: See http://www.epa.gov/lead/index.html.