ORLANDO, Florida – The Orange County Convention Center on International Drive offers a vast exhibition space, easily the equivalent of several airplane hangars.

The large imaging players, such as GE Healthcare (Waukesha, Wisconsin), Royal Philips Electronics (Andover, Massachusetts), Siemens Medical Solutions (Malvern, Pennsylvania) and Toshiba America Medical Systems (Tustin, California), were among those taking up thousands of square feet of that space to show off their latest, biggest and brightest during this week's annual scientific sessions of the American College of Cardiology (ACC; Bethesda, Maryland).

Philips needed that much territory to provide emphasis to its strategy of putting together the oftentimes fragmented aspects of cardiac care and helping to speed work in the cath lab for greater efficiency for both clinicians and patients.

The point of this emphasis is clearly to suggest that the benefits of good products can be turned even higher if those products integrate smoothly and reduce waiting times for patients and care givers.

A key first-step product in this strategy is Philips' Cardiac CT (computed tomography) system, offering the images and data to boost increased usage further downstream, primarily in the cath lab.

That system has been commercialized for two years, but the emphasis on using cardiac CT has received a heightened degree of interest from physicians. New emphasis was given it at this week's ACC meeting with the merger of the Society for Cardiac Computed Tomography and the former Society of Cardiovascular Computed Tomography, the merged organization issuing a statement that cardiovascular CT imaging "is going to grow" and that there is a need for appropriate guidelines in its use.

Philip Prather, marketing director, cardiology products, for Philips, told Medical Device Daily the company "is riding on the crest of that [cardiovascular CT] wave." He added that the company would ride that wave with an emphasis on appropriate use of the technology, with emphasis on limiting scan times and dosage amounts.

He noted the speed of the cardiovascular CT process, from just 10 minutes to 20 minutes for an entire procedure and requiring a patient breath-hold of from as little as five seconds up to 26 seconds.

The result is a 3-D presentation of the heart, with these images easily turned and twisted on the control unit screen for a multiplicity of views with the presentation of sizes and spaces that probably have gotten some assistance from computer gaming.

These images include vivid pictures of the coronary arteries around the heart, with the additional feature of virtual IVUS (intravascular ultrasound), meaning an IVUS-like presentation of the vasculature, even providing a look at each lumen and "what's going on inside," Prather said.

These views also offer a comprehensive presentation of the heart chambers and valves, both statically as well as dynamically – that is, in motion.

The variety of views and graphic displays add up to what Philips calls its Comprehensive Cardiac Analysis (CCA) package. CCA features cage removal, coronary tree extraction, stenosis calculations, and 3-D and 2-D maps of what is termed "bulls-eye presentation of wall motion and wall thickness."

The point of these multiple cardiovascular CT views is to offer precise mapping of the heart which speeds both planning and procedure in the cath lab. Combining these images with views provided with a C-arm in the cath lab, clinicians are provided a real-time, in-process look of catheter placement and other procedural niceties.

The result, said Gary Gaughran, field marketing manager, cardiovascular, is to reduce by a factor of two-thirds to three-quarters the time required in the cath lab. And the overall integration of procedural flow, from CT to C-arm, besides offering a high level of procedural benefit, is a more patient-friendly and cost-effective flow.

While Philips' staff was explaining a large number of other technologies at the exhibit, the company's latest offering is its advanced ultrasound system, named HD11, the HD standing for high definition.

HD11, introduced by Philips late last year, is yet another example of the company's attempt to integrate processes and make them easier to use.

The system enables a full spectrum of ultrasound for applications throughout the body – with a complement of 20 transducers available, five able to be hooked up for use at one time – but was being featured for the first time at the ACC meeting for its ability to do advanced cardiovascular and vascular assessment.

The core of the HD11 system is its high-definition imaging using a digital broadband beamformer with beam steering capabilities and advanced signal processing techniques. Included is Philips' SonoCT real-time compound imaging.

A key integrative feature is the ability to provide both a traditional ultrasound look at the heart and an EKG-like graphical display of the beating heart on the same screen. And the system offers highly useful views of vascular structures – from the quality and extent of the lumen of the carotid artery to the thickness of the artery wall.

This is done by creating a variety of 90-degree-angle views, definitely a tricky procedure when imaging a structure that is essentially a tube.

The HD11 accomplishes this by using an increased number of echo scan lines delivered at a variety of angles. And at the exhibit, the images derived provided the volunteer subject on the scanning table a reassuring assessment showing clean lumens and normal arterial walls.

Besides providing these detailed presentations, the system is highly automated, substituting intuitive push-button processes for the manual procedures of standard systems, said Erica Sniad, a communications representative for Philips.

The total impact of the HD11's automated procedures and more intuitive design is to reduce learning curves for the system to just a few hours, she told MDD, a critical factor in a sector that is experiencing a shrinking pool of trained technicians.

In this regard, another feature of the system is an ergonomically friendly control panel, demonstrated by a Philips technician, to keep people on the job.

The panel can be easily adjusted up and down, and includes a swiveled monitor, key features for technicians who often suffer the pain of muscular stress, frequently forcing them to abandon the job altogether.

Sniad said that studies have shown that the resultant turnover can add up to $750,000 for each technician lost, in terms of medical costs, down time and the need for training new staff.

Philips is touting the HD11's most important feature as the integration of high-quality with a reduced price tag of about $65,000 a unit, compared to equivalent systems ranging to two and perhaps even three times more.

Or as Frank Massa, a Philips sales representative, put it, the HD11's particular value proposition is that it is a system that "does a lot of things really well at a bargain-basement price."