Draeger Medical Announces Implementation of its Electronic Medical Record System at Walter Reed’s New Acute Pain Medicine Center

TELFORD, Pa.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Draeger Medical Inc. announced today the implementation of its Innovian Anesthesia information system at Walter Reed Army Medical Center’s (WRAMC) new Acute Pain Medicine Center, which opened its doors to patients April 18, 2008. According to the press release issued by Walter Reed, the “state-of-the-art Draeger Medical anesthesia system…will be used to monitor patient vital signs and create a real-time electronic medical record.”

The Acute Pain Medicine Center at WRAMC is transforming how the military treats pain by introducing regional anesthesia. Unlike general anesthesia, which completely sedates patients, regional anesthesia targets pain at its source. The use of high-tech nerve-blocking techniques prevents pain signals from reaching the patient’s brain. This alleviates localized pain and prevents the development of maladaptive nerve pathways, which have the potential to cause chronic pain issues.

Innovian Anesthesia is the information backbone that integrates near real-time, life-critical information from patient monitoring, medical therapy devices and other ancillary information systems. It gives clinicians fast access to patient data, which can minimize the duplication of efforts that often occurs with paper record systems.

The Innovian technology improves the user’s ability to monitor and document procedural events and notes as well as patient vital signs. Minimizing the time required for post-op notations allows physicians to treat more patients and frees anesthesiologists to focus on the patient instead of documentation.

Additionally, Innovian functions as a valuable research tool. Together with WRAMC’s clinical question module, physicians can enter research questions for Innovian to track and compile data from all procedures.

About Draeger

Draegerwerk AG & Co. KGaA is an international leader in the fields of medical and safety technology. Draeger products protect, support and save human life. Founded in 1889, in 2007 the Group achieved sales of 1,819.5 million Euro worldwide and an EBIT of 151.9 million Euro. Today, Draeger employs around 10,000 people in more than 70 subsidiaries worldwide and has representation in around 190 countries. The Draeger Medical subsidiary offers products, services and integrated system solutions which accompany the patient throughout the care process – Emergency Care, Perioperative Care, Critical Care or Perinatal Care and Home Mechanical Ventilation. For more information, visit www.draeger.com.