IRVINE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Masimo (NASDAQ: MASI) announced today that it is partnering with Smile Train to help ensure the safety of patients undergoing cleft lip and/or palate surgery in low-resource settings around the world.
Patient monitoring, including the use of pulse oximetry, is a key part of ensuring safe surgical care; however, in lower-resource settings essential monitoring equipment is often unavailable, particularly in the post-operative period.1 Working together, Smile Train and Masimo are helping to remove this barrier by equipping surgical programs in 15 countries in Asia, Africa, Central America, and the Middle East with pulse oximeters.
Smile Train is an international organization that leverages the “teach a man to fish” model to train and empower local medical professionals to provide safe, high-quality, comprehensive cleft treatment for children in their own communities. Through Smile Train’s local partnerships in 85+ countries, the organization has provided more than 1,000,000 cleft surgeries to date.
Through this partnership, Masimo is providing over 460 Masimo SET® Measure-through Motion and Low Perfusion™ pulse oximeters to Smile Train’s nurse training programs and partner hospitals to support improved patient monitoring and safety. Additionally, Masimo and Smile Train will work together to develop additional initiatives to ensure that post-operative pulse oximetry can be scaled across all Smile Train programs.
One of the most common birth defects in the world, a cleft lip and/or palate occurs before a child is born, when the lip and/or roof of the mouth fail to fuse together properly during fetal development. In higher-resource settings virtually all babies with clefts have reconstructive surgery as it is relatively simple, inexpensive, and immediately transformative. This is not the case in lower-resource settings, where, as highlighted by the World Federation of Societies of Anaesthesiologists’ SAFE-T Campaign, an estimated 70% of the world’s population do not have access to safe and affordable anesthesia and surgical care.1,2 This startling gap in surgical access means the estimated 170,000 children born with clefts in lower-resource settings do not receive surgical treatment and live with difficulties eating, breathing, speaking, and, in the longer term, are less likely to enroll in school or hold jobs due to the stigmas associated with physical defects.3
“Proper surgical monitoring, including essential pulse oximetry, is crucially important to ensuring safe surgical outcomes. Smile Train is excited to partner with Masimo to make their high-performing, Signal Extraction Technology pulse oximeters available at Smile Train partner hospitals as we work together to continue providing safe and quality cleft care to children in need all over the world,” said Susannah Schaefer, CEO of Smile Train.
“One of the greatest joys is seeing a smile on the face of a child. Every child on earth deserves to have access to safe surgery, to be treated with dignity and love, and to share their beautiful smiles,” said Joe Kiani, Founder and CEO of Masimo. “Partnering with Smile Train is a fundamental part of our commitment to the Sustainable Development Goals and to our belief that no matter where a person lives or where they were born, access to quality healthcare that is dignified and safe is a human right, not a privilege. We are very proud of the work that Smile Train has done to improve surgical safety and access for cleft patients in local communities around the world. We value their commitment to scaling the use of quality pulse oximetry to all programs.”
Friday, October 7th is World Smile Day®, on which we are reminded to “Do one act of kindness. Help a person smile!”4 The smile is an international symbol of peace, happiness, and kindness that knows no barriers or boundaries. Masimo and Smile Train are proud to be partnering to bring smiles to the faces of children around the globe, not just on World Smile Day®, but on every day of the year. We encourage everyone to participate in World Smile Day® this year!
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References
- Meara JG et al. Global Surgery 2030: evidence and solutions for achieving health, welfare, and economic development. Lancet. 2015 Aug 8;386(9993):569-624
- World Federation of Anaesthesiologists (WFSA) Safe Anaesthesia For Everybody – Today “SAFE-T” Campaign, 2016. http://www.wfsahq.org/get-involved/safe-t.
- Smile Train Medical Advisory Board.
- http://www.worldsmileday.com/.
About Masimo
Masimo (NASDAQ: MASI) is a global leader in innovative noninvasive monitoring technologies. Our mission is to improve patient outcomes and reduce the cost of care by taking noninvasive monitoring to new sites and applications. In 1995, the company debuted Masimo SET® Measure-through Motion and Low Perfusion™ pulse oximetry, which has been shown in multiple studies to significantly reduce false alarms and accurately monitor for true alarms. Masimo SET® is estimated to be used on more than 100 million patients in leading hospitals and other healthcare settings around the world. In 2005, Masimo introduced rainbow® Pulse CO-Oximetry technology, allowing noninvasive and continuous monitoring of blood constituents that previously could only be measured invasively, including total hemoglobin (SpHb®), oxygen content (SpOC™), carboxyhemoglobin (SpCO®), methemoglobin (SpMet®), and more recently, Pleth Variability Index (PVI®) and Oxygen Reserve Index (ORi™), in addition to SpO2, pulse rate, and perfusion index (PI). In 2014, Masimo introduced Root®, an intuitive patient monitoring and connectivity platform with the Masimo Open Connect™ (MOC-9™) interface. Masimo is also taking an active leadership role in mHealth with products such as the Radius-7™ wearable patient monitor and the MightySat™ fingertip pulse oximeter. Additional information about Masimo and its products may be found at www.masimo.com. All published clinical studies on Masimo products can be found at http://www.masimo.com/cpub/clinical-evidence.htm.
About Smile Train
Smile Train is an international children’s charity with a sustainable approach to a single, solvable problem: cleft lip and palate. Millions of children in developing countries with untreated clefts live in isolation, but more importantly, have difficulty eating, breathing and speaking. Cleft repair surgery is simple, and the transformation is immediate. Our sustainable model provides training, funding, and resources to empower local doctors in 85+ developing countries to provide 100%-free cleft repair surgery and comprehensive cleft care in their own communities. To learn more, please visit smiletrain.org.
Forward-Looking Statements
This press release includes forward-looking statements as defined in Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, in connection with the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements include, among others, statements regarding the potential effectiveness of Masimo pulse oximetry. These forward-looking statements are based on current expectations about future events affecting us and are subject to risks and uncertainties, all of which are difficult to predict and many of which are beyond our control and could cause our actual results to differ materially and adversely from those expressed in our forward-looking statements as a result of various risk factors, including, but not limited to: risks related to our assumptions regarding the repeatability of clinical results; risks related to our belief that Masimo's unique noninvasive measurement technologies, including Masimo pulse oximetry, contribute to positive clinical outcomes and patient safety; risks related to our belief that Masimo noninvasive medical breakthroughs provide cost-effective solutions and unique advantages; as well as other factors discussed in the "Risk Factors" section of our most recent reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"), which may be obtained for free at the SEC's website at www.sec.gov. Although we believe that the expectations reflected in our forward-looking statements are reasonable, we do not know whether our expectations will prove correct. All forward-looking statements included in this press release are expressly qualified in their entirety by the foregoing cautionary statements. You are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of today's date. We do not undertake any obligation to update, amend or clarify these statements or the "Risk Factors" contained in our most recent reports filed with the SEC, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as may be required under the applicable securities laws.
