• Emergency Medical Services (EMS; Greenwood Village, Colorado) said it has agreed to be a national provider of hospital-based physician services (emergency department, hospitalist, anesthesiology and radiology), to Community Health Systems Professional Services Corp. (CHSPSC; Franklin, Tennessee) and Quorum Health Resources (QHR; Brentwood, Tennessee), subsidiaries of Community Health Systems. The organization's affiliates own, operate or lease more than 110 hospitals in 28 states and provide hospital management, consulting and advisory services to more than 160 independent community hospitals and health systems throughout the U.S. According to the three-year agreements with CHSPSC and QHR, facilities may contract for services with EmCare, and will benefit from preferred pricing for certain services provided under the agreement, with opportunities for additional cost savings as more agreements are entered into for hospital-based services.

• Gene Express (Wilmington, North Carolina) reported that it has signed three definitive agreements with NeoGenomics Laboratories (Fort Myers, Florida) to license the SEM Center and StaRT-PCR (Standardized Reverse Transcription Polymerase Chain Reaction) Technology. NeoGenomics will support Gene Express in its FDA validation of its Lung Cancer Risk Prediction and BCR/ABL tests. The agreements also will allow NeoGenomics to commercialize Gene Express diagnostic tests, validate future Gene Express technology to fulfill FDA requirements, and utilize StaRT-PCR for its own commercial activities. Gene Express said it intends to complete the clinical validation and submission for FDA approval of the Lung Cancer Risk Prediction test in 4Q08, and will begin clinical trials to support an FDA approved BCR/ABL test by 1Q09.

• ICU Medical (San Clemente, California), a manufacturer of safe medical connectors, custom medical products and critical-care devices, has entered into a five-year agreement with Premier (San Diego), operator of one of the nation's largest healthcare purchasing networks. ICU will offer Premier its complete line of Clave and MicroClave needleless IV systems, its custom IV set program, and its safe handling oncology products.

• Informatics Corporation of America (ICA; Nashville) said it has signed a supplier contract with Amerinet (St. Louis), a national healthcare group purchasing organization. ICA's interactive clinical portal is now included among the healthcare technology products Amerinet recommends to its member companies. ICA was formed three years ago to take technology developed by practicing physicians at Vanderbilt Medical Center (also Nashville) to the broader healthcare market.

• InTouch Technologies (Santa Barbara, California) reported that it has entered into a co-marketing agreement with Concentric Medical (Mountain View, California) to give stroke patients access to stroke expertise and care. InTouch said stroke is a leading application for its Remote Presence technology and added that this partnership is part of a focused effort by the company in the field of telestroke to advance the standard of stroke care. Concentric develops devices for clot removal in acute ischemic stroke patients. The Merci Retrieval System is designed to restore blood flow in patients who suffer an ischemic stroke.

• Picis (Wakefield, Massachusetts) reported agreements with six health systems in the U.S. and Canada to replace their existing operating room (OR) and anesthesia information systems (AIS) with Picis' solutions. They include Bellevue Hospital Center (New York), Enloe Medical Center (Chico, California), Salinas Valley Memorial Healthcare System (Salinas, California), The Ottawa Hospital (Ottawa, Ontario), Tufts Medical Center (Boston), and University Health System (San Antonio).

• Orchestrate Healthcare (Greenwood Village, Colorado), a provider of healthcare IT application integration consulting services, recently signed a new agreement with Lancaster General (Lancaster, Pennsylvania) to provide training, mentoring and operational support to their integration team. The relationship between the two organizations was established over a year and a half ago. Orchestrate Healthcare's expertise allows Lancaster General to utilize its integration engine to its fullest potential.

• Pall Life Sciences (East Hills, New York) said it has agreed to support the New York Blood Center's (NYBC) transition to a new filtration system intended to improve efficiency when removing white blood cells from donated blood. Pall is a unit of Pall Corp. (East Hills, New York). NYBC is an independent, non-profit, community-based blood collection center. The Pall technology, Leukotrap RC System with RC2D Filter, incorporates a process (leukoreduction) that provides a blood product with fewer white blood cells. NYBC determined that Pall's new in-line filtration process, which removes white blood cells during processing, would help the center effectively deliver leukoreduced red blood cells to meet increased hospital demand.

• Premier Purchasing Partners (San Diego) reported that a new bone growth stimulators agreement has been awarded to DJO (formerly dj Orthopedics; Vista, California). The 36-month agreement, effective July 1, 2008, is available to acute and continuum of care members of the Premier healthcare alliance.