Press Release: June 2006

Contact: Steve Ebben
248-551-2667
steve.ebben@beaumontservices.com

Surgical Center Enhances Beaumont's Technology Usability Services

With the recent opening of Beaumont Hospital’s Marcia & Eugene Applebaum Surgical Learning Center, the Beaumont Technology Usability Center can enhance service to medical device manufacturers. The Usability Center can now add to its services by offering full medical simulation capabilities to manufacturer’s product development teams - a significant advancement in the development of superior medical technology.

The usability and surgical learning centers enable device manufacturers to conduct pre-market design testing in an environment that mimics an actual surgical setting. The Surgical Learning Center, with its two fully equipped operating rooms, state-of-the-art classroom with worldwide distance-learning capability and surgical skills lab, expands the Technology Usability Center’s ability to test the effective use of medical technology.

This new capability is expected to contribute to Michigan’s economic development by helping to attract new businesses and creating jobs. It helps establish Metropolitan Detroit as a hub for surgical training at a time when the entire region is working to diversify its economic profile, which has been long dominated by manufacturing.

“The Technology Usability Center works with doctors, nurses and other health care personnel as they actually use devices in development,” says Steve Ebben, Vice President of Beaumont Services Company, the entity under which the Usability Center operates. “We provide our testing results to the device manufacturers and make design recommendations, thus accelerating product development, enhancing patient safety and lowering liability.”

Kenneth J. Matzick, Beaumont Hospitals president and CEO, added: “With these services, I believe we are in a position to help manufacturers contribute to the rapid advancement of health care technology right here in Southeast Michigan."

The Beaumont Technology Usability Center is a multidisciplinary team of health care experts affiliated with Beaumont Hospitals. Beaumont is comprised of two hospitals - including a 1,061-bed tertiary care, teaching, research and referral center in Royal Oak and a 254-bed acute care community teaching hospital in Troy. Beaumont also includes six community-based medical centers, rehabilitation, primary and specialty care clinics, four nursing centers, home care and hospice.

The Technology Usability Center’s mission is to advance excellence in healthcare by improving medical technology and its use. The Technology Usability Center works with manufacturer design teams seeking product evaluations on usability testing, risk assessment/operations improvement, clinical trial protocols and prototype development services.