An HIT

Carefx (Scottsdale, Arizona), whose Fusionfx solution suite aggregates patient information across existing systems and offers clinicians single, clinically relevant views of patient information, reported that it has established a base of operations in London.

The company said the move is designed to serve and build upon its client base in the UK and Europe and expand its overall reach in the UK and EMEA markets. Wayne Parslow will lead Carefx's business development in the UK as executive vice president and general manager.

"With the opening of our London office, we enhance our position to serve both government-operated and National Health Service [NHS] Foundation Trust hospitals and fulfill our long-term commitment to the UK and European markets," said Chairman/CEO Andrew Hurd. "With Wayne in place, Carefx can fully leverage our established distribution partnerships and help UK hospitals and their clinicians tap into a centralized electronic clinical record (ECR) system that resolves the problem of data fragmentation."

Carefx already has implemented Fusionfx at Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, where clinicians are using the solution to access the patient information they need where, when and how they need it. Fusionfx also is being implemented at Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.

UK hospitals such as Cambridge and Oxford face many of the same issues experienced by U.S. institutions. "Hospitals use varied combinations of health administration systems (HASs), with some relying on national hosting, and others running systems by themselves or through an external managed services company," Parslow said. "But every UK hospital realizes that it must pursue some action plan to resolve the pervasive and crippling crisis of data fragmentation."

Blood info system licensed in Germany

Global Med Technologies (Denver), an international healthcare information technology company, said that GLI, the German division of the company's Inlog subsidiary, has licensed its EdgeBlood blood information management system and EdgeLab laboratory information system to the University of Saarland Clinic Blood Center (Homburg, Germany).

Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

The University of Saarland Clinic Blood Center collects 30,000 whole blood donations a year. EdgeBlood and EdgeLab will be deployed on 25 workstations in the blood center and laboratory, and up to 50 remote users will access the web result server EdgeNet. Five analyzers will be connected to EdgeLab, Inlog's LIS.

"After detailed market research, the University Medical Center of Saarland has decided to install the LIS EdgeBlood/EdgeLab," said Hermann Eichler, MD, of the Institute of Clinical Hemostaseology and Transfusion Medicine at Homburg/University Medical Center of Saarland. "This decision was made because, among other reasons, the system can completely control the management of all essential services in transfusion medicine. Moreover, the software already is in use in the National German Red Cross Blood Donation Services."

EdgeBlood is used to process more than half the blood drawn in Germany, as well as processing significant parts of the Austrian and Swiss blood supplies. It also is used in Greece as well as five African countries.

EdgeBlood, known as CTS Serveur in the French market, manages all blood that is drawn, tested, produced and labeled in France by the Etablissement Francais du Sang, the French Blood Establishment.