A Medical Device Daily

Significantly expanding its East Coast presence, CoActiv (Ridgefield, Connecticut) reported an agreement with NY Imaging Service (Newburgh, New York) for the distribution of its Exam-PACS, Exam-Vault Quad-Redundant Archiving and related digital image management products throughout the New York and Northern New Jersey regions.

The distributor has already completed nine sales, many to women's health centers.

"CoActiv's Exam-PACS is packed with performance at a very affordable price. It truly is in a class by itself," said Bill Haussmann, CEO of NY Imaging. "There is no better proof than that we have been able to close so many sales in such a short time period. Customers are really drawn to all the advanced features and the reasonable price point."

NY Imaging also decided to partner with CoActiv because of the product line's flexible ability to support imaging centers, small hospitals and specialty practices, including orthopedic, chiropractic and veterinary practices.

"Traditionally, NY Imaging's client base has consisted of radiology clinics, many of which are just now going digital," he said. "However, the adaptability of the Exam-PACS solutions to scale from small clinics to major multi-site hospitals is opening new doorways for our business. Our hospital's joint installations with CoActiv (Sound Shore Medical Center and Mount Vernon Hospital), in addition to the broad customer types mentioned above, show how adaptable the CoActiv product is. Moreover, CoActiv's turnkey offsite archiving program will streamline the implementation and management of advanced primary and back up HIPAA compliant data storage."

In other agreements and contracts news:

• Code Refinery (Research Triangle Park, North Carolina), specializing in the software development used in medical device, clinical diagnostic and lab automation products which are regulated by the FDA, reported a strategic alliance with The Realtime Group (Plano, Texas) to jointly deliver software solutions and risk-based validation testing services to clinical, medical device and pharmaceutical customers.

By working together, Code Refinery and The Realtime Group, will be able to offer customers a broader scope of FDA compliant development and validation capabilities spanning from PC based applications to highly complex embedded systems used as medical devices for diagnostic and point-of-care instruments.

• LaserBand (St. Louis), which makes patient identification wristbands, recently renewed a three year sole-source contract with HealthTrust Purchasing Group (HPG; Brentwood, Tennessee) to provide 1,300 hospitals and other healthcare organizations with the latest laser-generated patient identification wristbands and companion products that improve patient safety, streamline workflow and productivity, and increase printer and patient ID functionality. Effective May 1, all HPG member facilities will have access to LaserBand's laser-generated products

• Premier Purchasing Partners (Charlotte, North Carolina) has signed new agreements for pulse oximetry devices with Masimo Americas (Irvine, California), Nellcor Puritan Bennett (Mansfield, Massachusetts) and Nonin Medical (Plymouth, Minnesota).

Effective June 1, these agreements are available to acute care and continuum of care members of the Premier healthcare alliance.

• Aspyra (Calabasas, California) said that it has contracted with Health Diagnostics (Melville, New York) to provide Aspyra's AccessNET Picture Archive Communication System (PACS) solution.

"Aspyra's AccessNET PACS, with enterprise-wide teleradiology features, promotes business growth and workflow efficiencies, meeting the demands of a large imaging center organization such as Health Diagnostics. By offering a virtual reading environment, the radiologists can read more images with a consistent set of tools," said Rob Pruter, Aspyra's senior vice president of sales and marketing.

• Picis (Wakefield, Massachusetts) reported that it has been awarded a Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) contract for the Veterans Integrated Service Network (VISN) 12, also known as the Great Lakes Health Care System. The system selected Picis Critical Care Manager, part of the CareSuite family of high-acuity solutions, to provide intensive-care unit (ICU) clinicians with the point-of-care information they need to help make well-informed treatment decisions and ultimately help improve patient care.

With more than 30,000 admissions and 2.5 million outpatient visits per year, the VA's Great Lakes Health Care System decided to deploy a comprehensive critical care system across its six VA medical centers to better manage patient information and the complex workflow of its ICUs.