University of Missouri and Siemens Partner to Strengthen Research and Train Biomedical Engineers | Education



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COLUMBIA, Missouri – The university system of the University of Missouri and Siemens Healthineers announced Friday the creation of a 10-year partnership to boost Missouri-based research and improve health outcomes.

The goal, according to both entities in a press release, is to "transform the way health care is delivered in Missouri and beyond." The partnership is called Alliance for Precision Health and includes Siemens' supply of "advanced medical imaging equipment" to the Columbia campus.

The partnership had been ongoing for over a year. The research will take place at the long-planned NextGen Precision Health Institute in Colombia. The company will provide training and technology to the other three campuses in St. Louis, Kansas City and Rolla.

Siemens' resources will enable the university to modernize its programs and benefit patients, the press release said. The healthcare technology company based in Munich will in turn use the information from the actual application of its equipment to better inform its practices.

"Both groups have a mission to innovate quickly," said David Pacitti, president and head of the Americas at Siemens Healthineers, in an interview. "In the US health care system, over time, everyone will be committed to ensuring that the patient gets the right test at the right time and the right diagnosis, and reduces the number of errors. And that reduces the costs of the system.

"Cost is a huge burden on the US health care system, and both sides – Siemens Healthineers and the University of Missouri – are committed not just to reducing costs, but to reducing it to improve the results, "he said. I said.

This partnership includes a workforce development component, with Siemens seeking to mobilize biomedical engineering talent to accelerate its efforts.

"There is a shortage of biomedical engineers," said Pacitti. "Biomedical engineers do a lot of different things, but in our world, it's about maintaining equipment in hospitals and we want to create a program where we help develop a biomedical engineering workforce." .

"The intention is that there will be a lot of jobs here," Pacetti said.

"Siemens can not hire enough engineers," said Elizabeth Loboa, dean of the MU College of Engineering.

A copy of the agreement between the company and the university was not immediately available, but a press release indicated that the agreement was "valued at $ 133 million ".

University officials said the agreement could contain confidential information, and that an application for opening files would be needed to obtain the document.

Christian Basi, spokesman for the UM system, said that the value of the equipment provided by Siemens as well as the work needed for its installation were part of the evaluation. Also included are "access to services to help us improve performance", which Basi described as an "intangible" benefit.

Basi said that MU Health Care, under this agreement, had signed a 10-year purchase agreement to replace the outgoing equipment with Siemens' products, as far as possible.

Pacitti said that the revenues generated by the advanced research developed by the two entities would be shared between the university and society.

"If we develop something together, we market it and monetize it together," said Pacitti. "And we will work together to innovate and develop new things as a group.

He said that in most cases, the product would be divided equally between the two.

"I do not have the details, there may be areas in which it might be different, but I think the general theme is that we would share it together," said Pacitti.

The effects of the partnership will be felt in rural Missouri, where in many areas there is a shortage of health professionals, said Mun Choi, president of UM System.

"Out of 101 rural counties in the state of Missouri, 99 have what we call areas of shortage of health professionals," said Choi. "This means that access to health care – this precision and personalized health care – available in rural areas of the state is limited compared to what we get in urban areas of the country. 39; State. "

For example, the university announced that it will install a "virtual cockpit syngo", which will enable radiology technicians to remotely connect to multiple sites, thus helping rural staff, "especially when More sophisticated exams are needed, "according to a statement.

Other areas of collaboration include pediatric imaging, which aims to reduce the time needed to analyze a child and the amount of work to be done due to errors.

"As you can imagine, children do not like to be pictured," said Pacitti. "They do not like being in a scanner of any kind – it's very scary for them and intimidating."

Pacitti said that another priority would be the treatment of obese patients.

"It's a patient population that's very difficult to visualize because of the size of the patient," he said. "So we work together to find the right image and make sure the doctor sees the image he needs."

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