A Medical Device Daily

SPO Medical (New York), a developer of biosensor and microprocessor technologies for use in portable monitoring devices, has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with SporTracker (Israel), a company that specializes in the integration of heart-rate monitoring with consumer audio and leisure devices. The MOU contemplates bundling SPO Medical monitoring technology in new SporTracker recreational products.

The terms include advance payments for development work to be performed by SPO on behalf of SporTracker and subsequent royalty payments once the developed products are commercially available.

This arrangement follows the recent restructuring of SPO so that it can focus on various new commercial opportunities relating to the implementation of reflectance pulse oximetry for non-medical market applications.

Michael Braunold, president/CEO of SPO, said: "The commercial arrangement with SporTracker demonstrates the portability of our proven technology into markets and applications which can benefit from our experience to date. The sports and wellness sector is a mass-market opportunity for our technology enabling monitoring of certain vital sign information in conjunction with leisure related configurations."

In other agreements/contracts news:

• CompuMed (Los Angeles), a medical informatics and software company, has engaged Liolios Group (Newport Beach, California) to help lead the company's new investor relations and financial communications program.

"We feel the time has arrived given the progression of our business to hire a team of experienced professionals like Liolios Group to help us deliver our message to our shareholders and build our profile in the investment community," said Maurizio Vecchione, president/CEO of CompuMed. "Liolios Group not only understands the medical information and e-health industry, but they also bring a proven track record of assisting growth companies in building quality, long-term relationships with the investment community."

• Sanomedics International Holdings (Miami) reported that the company and South Ocean Growth Equity have executed an agreement where South Ocean will become a 10% stakeholder in Sanomedics. Going forward, both firms will be working closely together, exploring domestic and international distribution opportunities for Sanomedics products. Specific terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

Sanomedics makes diagnostic products targeting professional medical service providers, consumer home healthcare and pet healthcare.

• Kofax (Irvine, California) said it will provide a document capture solution to an international financial services organization offering a diverse range of insurance and investment products and services to individuals and corporate customers. The value of the contract to Kofax is approximately $1 million.

The organization will use Kofax software to capture and extract data from large volumes of medical and dental claim forms received by mail, fax and electronic means. The resulting data and images will be exported into a workflow application for adjudication and a content management repository for archival.

"Medical and dental claims processing are demanding applications that require multiple, sophisticated capture technologies in a cohesive solution," said Alan Kerr, executive vice president of Field Operations at Kofax. "This sale demonstrates our ability to provide that solution while ensuring a customer's rapid ROI."

• Spurred by economic stimulus incentives and a desire to implement an advanced electronic health record (EHR), Citrus Memorial Health System (Inverness, Florida) has chosen to upgrade its hospital information system (HIS) with McKesson's (Atlanta) Paragon community HIS. As part of the agreement, McKesson will remotely host the new solution for the Inverness-based hospital.

The Paragon HIS will be the foundation of the health system's use of McKesson solutions for document management and medical imaging. New for Citrus Memorial will be a computerized physician order entry system, which will enable physicians to electronically submit patient orders – increasing order efficiency and eliminating the chance for errors related to poor handwriting. Additionally, Citrus Memorial plans to connect with physicians in its outpatient clinics using McKesson's Practice Partner ambulatory EHR.