Merge eMed Announces Launch Of I-Conference(TM) Medical Presentation Software

MILWAUKEE, Sept. 14 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Merge eMed, a Merge Healthcare company and a leading medical imaging software and services company, today announced the launch of I-Conference, an easy to use medical presentation software application. Following closely on the release of Baby Explorer, a 3D fetal imaging application, I-Conference adds to the growing list of applications available from the Merge eMed eStore.

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I-Conference, created by Cedara Software, also a Merge Healthcare company, is a dynamic medical presentation application. Running on a standard PC, I-Conference streamlines many of the tedious and time consuming steps involved in presentation preparation. Allowing the display and manipulation of diverse file formats including DICOM images, Microsoft(R) PowerPoint(TM), Adobe(R) PDFs, Quicktime, AVI, TIFF, MPEG, web pages and more, I-Conference puts power into the hands of medical imaging educators and product developers, as well as medical professionals involved in patient care and education.

"Technical issues mark a significant point of frustration for medical presentation creation using commonly available presentation applications," stated Greg Girard, Product Manager at Cedara Software. "From converting images to inserting .avi files, I-Conference alleviates issues that exist in commonly used presentation applications. Uniquely designed for medical presentations, I-Conference displays images in their native file formats. Packaged with a standard DICOM viewer, users can even perform the standard functions available from PACS workstations such window/level, magnify and measurements in the application, as well as connect and present from Internet websites."

I-Conference was developed in association with Dr. Osman Ratib at the UCLA Medical Center for the specific purpose of multi-disciplinary consultation. "All the specific features of I-Conference are aimed at optimizing presentations and improving the ability to communicate critical findings through selected image sets," stated Dr. Ratib. "We believe that I-Conference will substantially enhance the quality of multi-disciplinary clinical conferences with a better and more efficient communication of the results of image-based diagnostic procedures. The enhanced communication of these results should also have a major impact on clinical decision-making and lead to an improvement in patient care."

I-Conference can be used in a variety of contexts including professional conferences, grand rounds, educational environments, physician-patient presentations, tumour boards and general healthcare consultation. A free trial of the software is available for download at http://www.merge.com.

"I-Conference supports a significant paradigm shift in healthcare," said Brian Pedlar, Cedara's President. "Multi disciplinary treatment represents the next generation of comprehensive patient care. Following PACS implementation and enterprise wide image access, products like I-Conference serve to further unite divergent clinical specialists."

Merge eMed has expanded the capabilities of its eCommerce website to accommodate I-Conference and other future clinical applications, in addition to its eFilm Workstation software, which is the most widely used diagnostic desktop software in the world. "More than 60,000 software application downloads is representative of our marketplace reception the convenience and distribution advantages of our eCommerce channel," said Richard Linden, Merge Healthcare President and CEO. "As an adjunct to our direct sales and OEM channels, we will continue to be the industry leader of the wide distribution of innovative products delivered via eCommerce."

Merge Healthcare is a market leader in the development and delivery of medical imaging and information management software and services. With over twenty years of leadership in the medical imaging and healthcare information technology markets, Merge Healthcare provides innovative solutions for both OEM and the end-user healthcare markets. We custom engineer clinical and imaging applications and development tools that are on the forefront of medicine and its use of medical imaging for OEM and international customers. We develop innovative medical imaging software solutions that support end-to- end business and clinical workflow for radiology department and specialty practices, imaging centers and hospitals. Our innovative software solutions use leading-edge imaging software technologies that accelerate market delivery for our OEM customers, while our end-user solutions improve our customers' productivity and enhance the quality of patient care they provide. For additional information, visit our website at http://www.merge.com.

Merge eMed, a Merge Healthcare company, is focused on accelerating productivity for radiology department and specialty practices, imaging centers and hospitals. By combining sophisticated RIS, PACS, advanced visualization and clinical imaging applications, Merge eMed delivers integrated end-to-end software solutions and professional services that are transforming the way our customers interact with referring physicians, manage their workflow, position their businesses in their markets and deliver imaging and information services to their customers. We ensure our customers' success in today's competitive healthcare environment by streamlining business and clinical workflow with digital image and information solutions and services.

Cedara Software, a Merge Healthcare company, is focused on the development of custom engineered software applications and development tools for the medical imaging OEM and International markets. Cedara Software is deployed in hospitals and clinics worldwide and is licensed by many of the world's leading medical device and healthcare information technology companies. Cedara Software technologies and expertise span all the major digital imaging modalities including computed tomography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), digital X-ray, mammography, ultrasound, echo-cardiology, angiography, nuclear medicine, positron emission tomography (PET) and fluoroscopy. Cedara Software's medical imaging offerings are used in all aspects of clinical imaging workflow including the capture of a patient's digital image; the archiving, communication and manipulation of digital images; sophisticated clinical applications to analyze digital images; and the use of imaging in minimally-invasive surgery.

All trademarks appearing in this release are the property of Merge Healthcare.

CONTACT: Beth Frost-Johnson, Sr. VP of Marketing, +1-414-977-4254,bfrost@merge.com, or Richard Linden, President and CEO, +1-414-977-4000,rlinden@merge.com, both of Merge Healthcare

Web site: http://www.merge.com/