A Medical Device Daily

Health Net Federal Services (Sacramento, California), the government operations division of Health Net (Woodland Hills, California) has been awarded a contract by the U.S. Army's Western Regional Contracting Office to administer Patient Appointing Services (PAS) for Weed Army Community Hospital (Fort Irwin, California).

"We look forward to the opportunity to deliver secure appointments for beneficiaries with Military Treatment Facility providers in the Fort Irwin area," said Steve Tough, president, Health Net Federal Services. "An important element of the Military Healthcare System is to provide efficient and timely access to quality healthcare providers."

In the Fort Irwin area, Health Net Federal Services will be responsible for verifying and updating registration information in the appointment system, making and canceling patient appointments with Military Treatment Facility providers, and providing performance and management reports on the appointing process for eligible beneficiaries. Delivery of appointment services begins on September 2, 2009.

In other agreements/contracts news:

• PerkinElmer (Waltham, Massachusetts) reported that it has entered into an exclusive agreement with Max Planck Innovation, the technology transfer organization of the Max Planck Society (M nchen, Germany), for the licensing of its ultra-fast, low cross-talk solid state silicon photomultiplier (SiPM) technology.

SiPM offers very high photon detection efficiencies, ultra-short response time and extremely low power consumption, making it applicable to a variety of low light level (LLL) applications.

"This innovative SiPM technology from the Max Planck Society shows promise for several important human and environmental health applications," said Michael Ersoni, vice president and general manager of PerkinElmer's global detection business. "With access to Max Planck's SiPM technology, PerkinElmer is further positioned to serve applications including positron emission tomography (PET) diagnostic scanning and a variety of analytical fluorescence applications."

• HemCon Medical Technologies (Portland, Oregon) said that the hemostatic HemCon Patch and HemCon Bandage were the only two products added to the Hemostasis Products category with Premier Purchasing Partners (Charlotte, North Carolina), the group purchasing unit of Premier (San Diego). The contract is effective Aug. 1, 2009 through Oct. 1, 2011. The agreement makes HemCon dressings available at pre-negotiated terms to all 2,100 Premier hospital members through HemCon's exclusive distribution partner, Cardinal Health (Dublin, Ohio).

Premier also reported a new agreement for pediatric flush syringes with Medefil (Glendale Heights, Illinois). Effective Aug. 1, 2009, the agreement is available to acute care and continuum of care members of the Premier healthcare alliance.

• MedSynergies Surgical Division (MSD), a division of MedSynergies (Dallas), reported a contract expansion with Peak Physical Therapy & Sports Medicine Center (McKinney, Texas) to provide practice management services and revenue cycle solutions to help standardize operations.