A Medical Device Daily

InGenesis Medical Staffing (San Antonio) reported that the U.S. Army has awarded 12 healthcare staffing contracts – valued at $1.27 billion – to one of its InGenesis Arora (IA) joint ventures and a select few other companies. Collectively the firms will recruit, staff and manage these five-year multiple award task orders. The U.S. Army Medical Command Health Care Acquisition Activity Center informed IA it had won the solicitations on June 8.

The dozen contracts are all part of three larger regional awards: the $510.9 million Nursing Medical Services contract, the $416.4 million Physicians Services contract, and the $347.4 million Allied Health contract. IA employees will be part of a nationwide healthcare workforce serving Army medical treatment facilities (and additional Department of Defense agencies) in the 50 U.S. states, Puerto Rico and Korea. The military will notify IA at a later date which particular locations it will staff.

InGenesis Arora is comprised of InGenesis Medical Staffing and the Arora Group (Gaithersburg, Maryland), a full-service medical staffing firm with a national presence. "We're extremely pleased the Army has chosen us to be an integral partner in these sizable staffing awards," said Veronica Edwards, president/CEO of InGenesis Medical Staffing. "It's truly a privilege for our employees to be part of Army programs providing the highest level of quality health care to thousands of service members and their families throughout the country."

According to InGenesis, no decisions have yet been announced about the precise number of employees required to fill the multiple-vendor contracts. Edwards said she expects most of the employees currently holding positions at the Army's treatment facilities will re-apply for their jobs and transition from the existing vendors to IA. Any additional qualified personnel needed to staff these contracts will be selected from IA's candidate databases and through targeted, nationwide recruiting efforts coordinated by the company's expert recruiters.

These 12 Army contracts represent the largest award package won by InGenesis in its corporate history, the company noted. Earlier this year, IA landed two other substantial awards: a $97.5 million contract staffing dental assistants at Navy facilities on the West Coast; and a share of a $186 million, multi-vendor contract placing healthcare professionals at Navy facilities on the East Coast.

In other agreements and contracts news:

• MedAssets (Alpharetta, Georgia) reported that three health systems have signed multi-year agreements to implement MedAssets' claims management solutions to help increase their net revenue and cash flow. These healthcare providers include: Greenville Hospital System (Greenville, South Carolina), Partners HealthCare (Boston) and Riverside Health System (Newport News, Virginia).

MedAssets' claims management solution offers a web-based suite of workflow tools that help providers improve claims accuracy and revenue capture. This solution increases net revenue and improves cash flow by eliminating errors, reducing denied claims, capturing lost revenue and improving upstream processes, according to the company.

• Syprosoft Engineering (Irvine, California) said it has been selected again by WaveTec Vision Systems (Aliso Viejo, California) for the verification of the software for the ORange intraoperative wavefront aberrometer. ORange is used during cataract surgery to accurately measure the refractive value of the eye. At any point during surgery the surgeon captures a wavefront of the patient's eye. The ORange processor then analyzes the captured data to calculate the refractive value of the eye.

• Apria Healthcare Group (Lake Forest, California) and Perot Systems (Plano, Texas) reported an agreement in which the global technology solutions provider will deliver to Apria Healthcare a range of healthcare information technology solutions, including the management of data center operations and applications solutions, as well as consulting services. The term of the contract is for ten years.

"When we sought and evaluated the IT services providers that could support our growing business, we chose a company with a proven record of providing IT and business solutions to the healthcare industry and the ability to meet our complex needs around-the-clock," said Norman Payson, MD, CEO of Apria Healthcare. "Perot Systems has the capabilities, the scope of services and the experience we need. Our alliance with Perot Systems will provide greater flexibility, quality, and efficiency in our IT operations."

• Satori World Medical (San Diego) reported a new partnership with Integrated Healthcare (Boston). Integrated Healthcare provides point-and-click technology that allows consumers to access details on their Health Reimbursement Account (HRA), Health Savings Account (HSA), and Flexible Spending Account (FSA) to stretch their healthcare dollars.

Steven Lash, Satori president/CEO, said, "This partnership was natural; it just made sense. Both our companies focus on promoting and engaging consumer choice with cost-effective solutions and tools to guide consumers in making informed decisions. Integrated Healthcare focuses on providing solutions to medium sized employers and the brokers and Third Party Administrators who serve them. This is also a market which benefits from Satori World Medical's value-added consumer-directed product which provides significant cost-saving solutions."