VANCOUVER – At the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, GE Healthcare is playing an important role, offering what it says is the "most comprehensive IT solution for healthcare support" in the history of the games.

Among the services GE is providing athletes is its Centricity Radiology-IW technology, which is seeing its first official use at the Olympic and Paralympic Games. The Centricity system offers staff in far-flung medical facilities real-time access to injured athlete's clinical information and imaging scans. Deployed at the Vancouver Polyclinic, and linking to both the Whistler Polyclinic and a mobile medical unit, it's being used to provide immediate access for emergencies.

With the installation of Centricity Radiology-IW, "we have the advanced tools in imaging allowing us the flexibility to view images in both Polyclinics that are more than two hours apart from each other," says Jack Taunton, MD, chief medical officer of the Vancouver Games. "This will also be the first time the medical staff can interface very easily with a large hospital authority like Vancouver Coastal Health that covers the whole Olympic Winter Games Corridor. I believe these multiple benefits will position the medical staff, as a whole, to provide more comprehensive clinical advice for athletes at the Games."

The Centricity Radiology-IW combines GE’s Web-based radiology information solution (RIS), the Centricity RIS-IC, with its precision reporting and its Web-based picture archiving and communication system (PACS), Centricity PACS-IW. This allows the clinical staff of the Games to digitize imaging workflow and lets practitioners in different locations access the same information simultaneously, facilitating efficient and informed decision making.

The ability to connect to other automated systems and facilities could reduce or eliminate the need to transport athletes for medical consultation, ultimately making for a quicker return to competition.

"Unfortunately, broken bones and torn ligaments often go hand-in-hand with heavy competition," says Vishal Wanchoo, president and CEO of GE Healthcare IT. "GE Healthcare IT is proud to play a major role in helping clinicians care for the 2010 Olympians at the Vancouver polyclinics, just as we do everyday in healthcare settings across the globe."