A Medical Device Daily

Kratos Defense & Security Solutions (San Diego) reported that its Public Safety and Security segment has been selected for a $2.7 million information technology, communication system and patient safety contract for an undisclosed major national healthcare provider.

Kratos will be involved in the deployment and installation of a Rauland-Borg nurse call and patient safety, care and communication system, which will be integrated with other critical path hospital communication and information technology systems. The base value of this total potential $2.7 million award is nearly $1.4 million, with up to an additional $1.3 million of work if all options are exercised by the customer.

Kratos' Public Safety and Security segment provides specialized expertise in the design, deployment, integration, operation and maintenance of sophisticated security, communications and public safety systems.

In other agreements/contracts news:

• Guidon Performance Solutions (Mesa, Arizona) has partnered with bioM rieux (Paris) to provide Lean Six Sigma workflow assessment services to microbiology laboratories. The assessments will analyze lab workflow to help identify inefficiencies and uncover opportunities to free capacity, reduce turnaround time and lower costs. The assessment examines the end-to-end process looking closely at workflow as well as overall laboratory efficiency.

• Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC; Boston) and Navigenics (Foster City, California) reported a collaboration to make personalized genomics available to doctors in training. BIDMC has launched the Personalized Genomics and Next Generation Sequencing Training Program, a series of lectures, discussions and presentations designed to promote better understanding of personalized genomics and the next generation sequencing technologies available to today's healthcare providers. And, unique to the program, the participants will be given the opportunity to have their own genomes analyzed through Navigenics genetic testing services. "We believe that genetics and genomics will be critical to the future of health care," said Mark Boguski, MD, PhD, of BIDMC's Department of Pathology and the Center for Biomedical Informatics at Harvard Medical School. "Training our residents on the leading genetic services and technologies will be essential to this future, and we are excited to be in the vanguard of a growing effort to incorporate genetics into medical education nationwide."

• VeriChip (Delray Beach, Florida) has entered into a strategic partnership with the Diabetes Research Institute (DRI; Miami) to combine efforts on the further development of the glucose-sensing radio frequency identification (RFID) microchip in conjunction with VeriChip's development partner, Receptors (Chaska, Minnesota). VeriChip and DRI also intend to create a prospective, randomized, comparative clinical study that will seek to address the lack of appropriate, concise, and up-to-date patient health information available to both practitioners caring for diabetic patients and the patients themselves through the utilization of VeriChip's interoperable personal health record, Health Link, and an electronic medical record system.