St. Jude Medical's Merlin.net PCN Earns Medical Design Excellence Award

St. Jude Medical announced the Merlin.net Patient Care Network (PCN) has received a 2009 Medical Design Excellence Award.

Merlin.net PCN is a secure, Internet-based remote care system for patients with implanted medical devices. This remote care system gathers and stores data from the implant procedure, in clinic follow-up visits and from both patient-initiated and automatic remote follow-up and monitoring transmissions from the patient's home. This information gives physicians better and more immediate access to information to help them manage their patients' devices.

The Medical Design Excellence Awards competition is organized and presented by Canon Communications and is the only awards program that exclusively recognizes contributions and advances in the design of medical products. The award recognizes the achievements of the medical product manufacturers and the engineers, scientists, designers, and clinicians who are responsible for the advancements that are improving our healthcare system. Entries are evaluated on the basis of their design and engineering features, including use of materials, user-related functions that improve healthcare delivery and change traditional medical attitudes of practices, features that provide enhanced benefits to the patient, and the ability of the product development team to overcome design and engineering challenges so that the product meets its clinical objectives.

A comprehensive review of the entries was performed by an impartial, multidisciplinary panel of third-party jurors with expertise in biomedical engineering, human factors, industrial design, medicine and diagnostics.

"We are grateful to Canon Communications for recognizing the efficiency and convenience Merlin.net PCN provides to physicians and their patients," said Eric S. Fain, M.D., president of the St. Jude Medical Cardiac Rhythm Management Division. "This award is indicative of the dedication and hard work our employees demonstrate in delivering on our mission to provide physicians more control and reduce risk. We also wish to thank our partners in the development of this project for their contributions: IBM, Insight Product Development and Plexus Services."

The 2009 Medical Design Excellence Award winners will be honored at a ceremony during the Medical Design & Manufacturing (MD&M) East Conference and Exposition, June 9-11, at New York City's Jacob K. Javits Convention Center.

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