A Medical Device Daily

Laurus Technologies (Itasca, Illinois) has reported its participation in the FairWarning Ready Solution Partner Program, enabling Laurus to deploy, service and resell FairWarning's (St. Petersburg, Florida) healthcare privacy monitoring solutions.

FairWarning is a certification program that empowers value-added resellers and professional service organizations with the ability to deploy, service and resell FairWarning privacy monitoring solution. Laurus is one of seven nationwide solutions providers chosen to participate in FairWarning's program.

"Healthcare providers are under increasing pressure to safeguard patient data," said Dave Durbin, partner, Business Development at Laurus Technologies. "They must concern themselves with requirements imposed by HIPAA, the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act and agencies like the Federal Trade Commission, Health and Human Services and the Office of the Inspector General. These initiatives have imposed an incredible amount of responsibility and accountability on providers in environments that have hundreds of applications and thousands of users that create, store and manipulate protected health information."

Laurus said it is "substantially strengthening" the ability of healthcare providers to meet regulatory requirements, prevent inappropriate access to patient information and automate compliance with privacy provisions. With FairWarning certification, Laurus said it can ease the effort required to spot suspicious activity and report on unauthorized access while tracking authorized access for accounting disclosure requirements.

"We share Laurus' goal of helping healthcare providers improve privacy surveillance," said Shane Whitlatch, senior VP of global alliances at FairWarning.

In other agreements/contracts news:

• Strategic Diagnostics (SDI; Newark, Delaware) and DuPont Qualicon (Wilmington, Delaware) reported the expansion of their distribution agreement to include SDI's RapidChek Select pathogen detection products.

DuPont Qualicon currently markets SDI's RapidChek E. coli O157:H7, Salmonella and Listeria outside the U.S. as the DuPont Lateral Flow System. Under terms of the expanded agreement, DuPont Qualicon will now also market SDI's RapidChek Select tests and enrichment media under the same name. SDI will continue to market its RapidChek and RapidChek Select line of food pathogen test systems directly in the U.S. and through selected distributors outside the U.S.

• Access Scientific (San Diego) has formed a relationship with Teleflex Medical following Access Scientific's receipt of FDA clearance for the PICC WAND. Teleflex will begin distribution of Access Scientific's PICC WAND Safety Introducer with a peelable sheath for peripherally inserted central catheters (PICCs).

"This agreement with one of the world's leaders in vascular access marks a major step in the development of Access Scientific's WAND technology and the Accelerated Seldinger Technique," said Steve Bierman, MD, CEO of Access Scientific.

• CareTech Solutions (Troy, Michigan) reported that it has signed a five-year agreement to provide Marietta Memorial Hospital (Marietta, Ohio) with total IT services management. Under terms of the agreement, CareTech will provide Marietta Memorial Hospital with a full range of IT and service desk solutions.

CareTech Solutions' total IT services management agreement with Marietta Memorial Hospital expands the relationship that began earlier this year, when CareTech was engaged by Marietta Memorial Hospital to assist with ongoing implementation of the hospital's electronic medical record and practice management software within Marietta's affiliated physician's offices.

• NewCardio (Santa Clara, California) said that an unidentified clinical research organization (CRO), has signed an agreement with NewCardio. Under the terms of this agreement, the CRO will receive a license to use NewCardio's QTinno software solution in all TQT studies where fully automated readings are obtained.

This deal enables the CRO to replace semi-automated methods and provide more advanced, higher quality, and more efficient fully automated studies made possible for the first time through the use of NewCardio's QTinno solution.

• Aperio Technologies (Vista, California) and HistoRx (New Haven, Connecticut) have entered into a partnership to provide an integrated solution for whole-slide imaging with fluorescence. The partnership combines Aperio's new ScanScope FL, a multi-slide fluorescence scanning system designed to meet the growing demand for multiplexing with fluorescent biomarkers and quantitative analysis, with the HistoRx AQUA (Automated Quantitative Analysis) software for fluorescent image analysis that provides in-depth scientific insights from biomarker measurements. Aperio will be a value-added reseller of the AQUA software.