Saint Barnabas Medical Center Converts to Masimo SET Technology - Establishing a Foundation for the Future of Pulse Oximetry

IRVINE, Calif., May. 09 /PRNewswire/ --

IRVINE, Calif., May 9 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Saint Barnabas Medical Center and Masimo, the inventor of Pulse CO-Oximetry and Measure-Through-Motion-and-Low-Perfusion Pulse Oximetry, have announced the completion of Saint Barnabas Medical Center's hospital-wide implementation of Masimo SET pulse oximetry. The New Jersey-based hospital performed an extensive comparison and thorough evaluation spanning virtually every department and cited superior performance, technology capabilities and future clinical application as chief reasons for converting to Masimo SET.

"The decision to convert to Masimo SET pulse oximetry was multifaceted, with numerous benefits that we didn't think were possible in one technology," said Shyan Sun, M.D., Director of Neonatology, Saint Barnabas Medical Center. "With Masimo, we now have a standardized technology for oximetry that not only enables sensor consistency and standardization across departments at reduced costs, but also provides the system compatibility necessary to track oximetry inventory and costs -- all in a technology platform that is uniquely expandable to support our current and future oximetry needs."

Saint Barnabas Medical Center is the flagship of the Saint Barnabas Health Care System, New Jersey's largest integrated health care delivery system, and ranks among the top 5 percent of all hospitals in the country. The 601-bed institution treats more patients annually and delivers more babies than any other facility in New Jersey, including more than 40,000 inpatients admissions, over 65,000 Emergency Department visits, and nearly 7,000 births each year. Additionally, the Medical Center and its Ambulatory Care Center provide treatment and services for more than 300,000 outpatient visits annually. The Saint Barnabas Health Care System includes six acute care hospitals, a behavioral health center, ambulatory care facilities, eight nursing and rehabilitation centers, an assisted living facility, geriatric centers, a state-wide behavioral health network, and comprehensive home care and hospice programs.

Prior to their conversion, Saint Barnabas had a handful of various oximetry monitors and technologies that each required different sensors from different vendors -- eliminating the ability to purchase sensors in combined volume. On top of this, these varying technologies were incompatible with the hospital's inventory management program software and could not provide usable data to track inventory movement and oximetry costs. Converting to Masimo SET pulse oximetry helped Saint Barnabas Medical Center to overcome these challenges, while reducing costs and creating process efficiencies that help to improve the process of care.

In addition to Saint Barnabas's hospital-wide standardization to Masimo SET pulse oximetry, the conversion also allows Saint Barnabas clinicians to utilize Masimo Rainbow SET technology -- an upgradable noninvasive blood constituent monitoring platform that is capable of measuring additional blood constituents that previously could only be measured with invasive procedures. Masimo Rainbow SET is the first and only method to continuously and noninvasively measure total hemoglobin (SpHb(TM)) and oxygen content (SpOC(TM)) (both pending regulatory clearances), carboxyhemoglobin (SpCO) and methemoglobin (SpMet), in addition to oxyhemoglobin (SpO2), perfusion index (PI), pleth variability index (PVI) and pulse rate. Developed as a scalable and upgradable technology platform, Masimo Rainbow SET enables clinicians and hospitals to do more with their Masimo devices by building and expanding the noninvasive measurements, capabilities and features within the platform. This allows hospitals to make an investment in patient safety today that won't become obsolete tomorrow.

By making the conversion to Masimo, Saint Barnabas joins many of the top hospitals in the United States -- including four of the top five -- as listed on the US News & World Report Honor Roll, which have all adopted Masimo SET as their primary pulse oximetry platform. Clinically proven in more than 100 independent and objective studies, Masimo SET provides the most trustworthy SpO2 readings, even under the most difficult clinical conditions, including patient motion and low peripheral perfusion. These studies demonstrate that Masimo SET delivers improvements in outcomes, safety and efficiency.

Joe E. Kiani, CEO of Masimo, stated, "Saint Barnabas Medical Center's conversion to Masimo SET pulse oximetry ensures they have the best of the present and are set for the future with the upgradable Masimo Rainbow SET technology platform. They represent a growing industry trend toward pulse oximetry technologies that have value and relevance into the future. Masimo Rainbow SET is the first pulse oximetry technology platform to pioneer this capability and the only one that can provide the innovation to drive this proposition for hospitals worldwide. We value Saint Barnabas for their commitment to patient care, quality and this vision."

About Masimo

Masimo develops innovative monitoring technologies that significantly improve patient care-helping solve "unsolvable" problems. In 1995, the company debuted Measure-Through-Motion-and-Low-Perfusion pulse oximetry, known as Masimo SET, which virtually eliminated false alarms and increased pulse oximetry's ability to detect life-threatening events. More than 100 independent and objective studies demonstrate Masimo SET provides the most reliable SpO2 and pulse rate measurements even under the most challenging clinical conditions, including patient motion and low peripheral perfusion. In 2005, Masimo introduced Masimo Rainbow SET, a breakthrough noninvasive blood constituent monitoring platform that can measure many blood constituents that previously required invasive procedures. Rainbow SET continuously and noninvasively measures total hemoglobin (SpHb(TM)) and oxygen content (SpOC(TM)) (both pending regulatory clearances), carboxyhemoglobin (SpCO(R)), methemoglobin (SpMet(R)), and PVI(TM), in addition to oxyhemoglobin (SpO2), pulse rate (PR), and perfusion index (PI), allowing early detection and treatment of potentially life-threatening conditions. Founded in 1989, Masimo has the mission of "Improving Patient Outcomes and Reducing Cost of Care by Taking Noninvasive Monitoring to New Sites and Applications." Additional information about Masimo and its products may be found at http://www.masimo.com.

Forward Looking Statements

This press release may include forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are based on current expectations about future events affecting us and are subject to uncertainties and factors, all of which are difficult to predict and many of which are beyond our control, including: risks related to our assumption that Masimo SET and Masimo Rainbow SET will deliver a sufficient level of clinical improvement over alternative pulse oximetry and noninvasive patient monitoring systems to allow for further adoption of the technology at other hospitals, risks related to our assumption that this agreement with Saint Barnabas will serve to substantially increase revenues, and risks related to our assumption that Masimo's new noninvasive measurements -- total hemoglobin (SpHb(TM)) and oxygen content (SpOC(TM)) -- will deliver a sufficient level of clinical improvement over alternative hemoglobin testing capabilities to allow for rapid adoption of the technology and risks related to our assumptions regarding the timing or commercial availability of SpHb and SpOC, and will be timely cleared, if ever, by appropriate regulatory bodies, as well as other factors discussed in the "Risk Factors" section of our annual report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended March 29, 2008, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on May 1, 2008. Although we believe that the expectations reflected in our forward-looking statements are reasonable, we do not know whether our expectations will prove correct. You are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date hereof. We do not undertake any obligation to update, amend or clarify these forward-looking statements or the risk factors contained in our annual report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended March 29, 2008, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as may be required under the federal securities laws.

Masimo, SET, Signal Extraction Technology, Improving Outcomes and Reducing Cost of Care by Taking Noninvasive Monitoring to New Sites and Applications, Rainbow, SpCO, SpMet, PVI, Pulse CO-Oximetry and Pulse CO-Oximeter are trademarks or registered trademarks of Masimo Corporation.