Philips Debuts New Affiniti Ultrasound System at the European Society of Cardiology Congress 2014

 Royal Philips ;(NYSE: PHG, AEX: PHIA) today announced the launch of Affiniti, a new ultrasound system designed to enable global hospitals and health systems to overcome the demands of increasing patient volumes and cost pressures. Making its debut at the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) Congress 2014 in Barcelona this week, Affiniti provides innovative technology to help radiology/ultrasound departments facing more patients with fewer resources deliver high quality patient care.

’’Affiniti was designed with the everyday challenges of healthcare professionals in mind,’’ said Vitor Rocha, CEO and Senior Vice President of Ultrasound for Philips Imaging Systems. ’’We have leveraged more than 45 years of ultrasound innovation to deliver a reliable system that combines the excellent image quality our customers expect for fast, confident diagnosis, with advanced tools to help them improve efficiency and workflow and allow for the very best standard of care.’’

Built on the same architecture as Philips’ ground breaking EPIQ ultrasound, Affiniti meets the needs of physicians who are challenged with treating large volumes of patients on any given day. Philips collaborated with hundreds of physicians around the world, who provided feedback to help inform Affiniti’s ergonomic design, which led to an intuitive, easy-to-use system. Philips put the system through 4,500 hours of reliability testing with the demands of a busy medical practice and heavy workload in mind.

’’With our high patient volume, cost pressures and throughput demands, my department/clinic/facility needs a system that offers high performance, a range of configuration options and low total cost of ownership while still offering superior image quality,’’ said Dr. Martin Penicka, Cardiologist at the Cardiovascular Center Aalst, OLV Clinic, Aalst, Belgium.

’’Philips Affiniti enables us to get to the level of detail we need to best serve our patients and enable our clinicians to keep up with increasing demand.’’

Officially unveiled today at the ESC Congress 2014, Affiniti will be showcased at the Philips booth (F500) from Saturday, August 30th through Wednesday, September 3rd. Key features include:

• Crisp, clear images that enable fast, confident diagnosis and reduce the need for additional exams
• Philips’ PureWave transducer technology, delivering excellent image quality with little or no need for image adjustment for technically difficult patients;
• Anatomical Intelligent Ultrasound, providing automatic anatomy recognition and quantification, making it easy to perform exams and quickly deliver new levels of clinical information;
• Automation tools such as AutoSCAN, Auto Doppler and SmartExam to reduce the number of steps required to complete each exam, resulting in enhanced workflow;
• DICOM and PC format capabilities to allow seamless information-sharing

*Affiniti is not yet available for sale, but will be available in several European markets later this year, with the U.S. launch slated for 2015.

To learn more about Affiniti and the full suite of Philips innovative ultrasound solutions, please visit: www.philips.com/affiniti. For more information on Philips’ participation at the ESC Congress 2014, including the speaker program, symposium and workshops, visit: www.philips.com/esc and follow the #ESCcongress conversation @PhilipsHealth.  

* Affiniti is not yet CE marked or available for delivery in the EU.

Royal Philips (NYSE: PHG, AEX: PHIA) is a diversified health and well-being company, focused on improving people’s lives through meaningful innovation in the areas of Healthcare, Consumer Lifestyle and Lighting. Headquartered in the Netherlands, Philips posted 2013 sales of EUR 23.3 billion and employs approximately 113,000 employees with sales and services in more than 100 countries. The company is a leader in cardiac care, acute care and home healthcare, energy efficient lighting solutions and new lighting applications, as well as male shaving and grooming and oral healthcare. News from Philips is located at www.philips.com/newscenter.