IBM Collaborates With St. Jude Medical on New State-of-the-Art Cardiac Patient Care System

IBM Collaborates With St. Jude Medical on New State-of-the-Art Cardiac Patient Care System

IBM today announced it has collaborated with St. Jude Medical, Inc. (NYSE: STJ) to produce the St. Jude Medical Merlinâ„¢ Patient Care System, a portable system that programs St. Jude Medical’s implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICDs) and pacemakers. IBM provided resources, industry experience, and consulting to St. Jude Medical’s team in the development effort of this state-of-the-art system designed to help physicians conduct tests, analyze therapeutic and diagnostic data, and program implanted devices more efficiently.

The Merlin Patient Care System received approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in April, following a development effort where St. Jude Medical consulted with the engineers of IBM’s recently formed Technology Collaboration Solutions unit. IBM worked with St. Jude Medical on many phases of the project, from the early design and engineering of the housing and printed circuit board (PCB) through volume production.

“We worked closely with our clinician customers and the team at IBM to create a more comprehensive, streamlined patient implant and follow-up system,” said Michael J. Coyle, president of St. Jude Medical’s Cardiac Rhythm Management Division. “The result of this extensive collaboration is the Merlin Patient Care System, which enables physicians to provide the same high standard of care for patients in significantly less time.”

The Merlin Patient Care System supports current and previous generation devices. It is a portable computer with an LCD touch screen that enables clinicians to retrieve and analyze patient information during routine follow-up visits and quickly and easily make programming changes to the implanted devices.

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