A Medical Device Daily

PatientKeeper (Boston) reported that it has implemented PatientKeeper Sign-Out at new customer sites Virginia Commonwealth University Health System (VCU; Richmond); Mercy Medical Center (Cedar Rapids, Iowa) and Christus Health (Dallas).

PatientKeeper Sign-Out improves communication between physicians at the transition of care to streamline patient hand-off and sign-out and to simplify discharge planning, and provides a standard process as specified by requirement 2E of the Joint Commission 2008 National Patient Safety Goals.

Hospitals use PatientKeeper for a formal mechanism to manage the hand-off process so covering physicians know, at a glance, tasks that need to be done and how to prioritize patient needs.

"The safety of our patients is paramount to everything we do as an organization," said Alistair Erskine, VCU's chief medical information officer. "Our implementation of Sign-Out is helping us to coordinate smooth communication about patient status between shifts, adding simplicity to our care management processes that will positively impact patient care."

In other agreements/contracts news:

• Virginia Mason Medical Center (Seattle) has selected Versus Technology's (Traverse City, Michigan) hybrid infrared (IR) and RFID real-time locating system (RTLS), Enterprise VISion to optimize patient flow, staff working environment and overall efficiencies at the Virginia Mason Kirkland clinic (Kirkland, Washington).

The primary care clinic, set to open this month in a new location, expects between 300 and 400 patient visits each day and will use Versus' real-time patient tracking to manage the patient experience by reducing wait times and increasing staff efficiencies throughout the multi-disciplinary clinical areas.

• Pathology Service Associates (PSA; Florence, South Carolina), a provider of revenue cycle management and other support services to independent pathologists, has entered into a business alliance agreement with Fisher Healthcare, a part of Thermo Fisher Scientific, (Waltham, Massachusetts). PSA's program enables the company's affiliated practices to purchase pathology equipment, supplies and services at significantly discounted rates negotiated by PSA.

• Aetna (Orlando) and Adventist Health System (Winter Park, Florida) reported that they have reached agreement on a new contract that adds four new Adventist hospitals to Aetna's provider networks in the Central Florida and Tampa Bay/West Central Florida areas. The new contract took effect last month.

Under the agreement, the following facilities will be joining Aetna's provider network: Florida Hospital Waterman (Tavares, Florida), Heartland Medical Center (Sebring, Florida), Florida Hospital Lake Placid (Lake Placid, Florida) and Florida Hospital Wauchula (Wauchula, Florida).

• Solos Endoscopy (Boston) said it has received a significant purchase order for the MammoView line of surgical endoscopy instruments from Waterbury Hospital (Waterbury, Connecticut).

"We are pleased to be providing our MammoView product line to Waterbury Hospital and their expansive healthcare network. Our endoscopy surgical instruments are top of the line and we expect to receive more orders from healthcare facilities around the country," said Bob Segersten, president of Solos.

• Premier Purchasing Partners (SanDiego) reported a new agreement for safety Huber needles with Smiths Medical MD (St. Paul, Minnesota). Effective March 1, the 36-month agreement is available to acute-care and continuum-of-care members of the Premier healthcare alliance.