ArthroCare (Austin, Texas) reported the launch of its new Mobile Surgical Skills Center, a five-station center for sports medicine-related surgical training and physician education.

The center is equipped with five training stations, each containing visualization equipment for arthroscopic and other procedures, and room for two surgeons plus one assistant. The center "provides surgeons around the country with the opportunity to learn techniques and use ArthroCare's various sports medicine technologies first-hand," the company said.

The company also reported that it has been notified by the Nasdaq Stock Exchange that its review of DiscoCare (Margate, Florida) has been closed. ArthroCare came under fire from short sellers who have accused the company of having an under-the-radar relationship with DiscoCare, a reimbursement company it acquired in January for $25 million in cash, in order to increase sales (Medical Device Daily, Jan. 7, 2008).

The purchase led to rumors that led investors to question DiscoCare's business practices and the relationship between the two companies prior to the acquisition. DiscoCare provided a lot of third-party billing services to ArthroCare on a contract-basis prior to the acquisition. Buying the company seemed like the easiest way to bring those services in-house, ArthoCare claimed.

Arthrocare officials have denied that the company has done anything wrong, and defended the DiscoCare purchase in a special conference call sponsored by Bear Stearns (New York) in late January (MDD, Jan. 23, 2008).

Many of ArthroCare's products are based on its Coblation technology, which uses low-temperature radio frequency energy to dissolve rather than burn soft tissue, minimizing damage to healthy tissue.

SteriMed completes shipboard evaluation

M.C.M. Environmental Technologies, a subsidiary of Caprius' (Hackensack, New Jersey) said that a U.S. Navy LHD ship with a modified MCM SteriMed Junior System deployed on board has completed its shipboard evaluation and has returned to port.

The modified version of MCM's SteriMed Junior, to meet special criteria for a shipboard environment, revealed positive results. LHDs have the largest medical capability of any amphibious ship currently in use, second only behind hospital ships.

U.S. Navy personnel involved in the evaluation reported that the waste volume reduction was significant and the operation of the unit user friendly. MCM said it will continue streamlining the shipboard version of the SteriMed Junior through slight modifications to meet the Navy's shipboard specifications for its medical waste management program.

Caprius makes equipment for the on-site disinfection of infectious medical waste through M.C.M.

NIH licenses TheraDoc clinical solutions

The Clinical Center of the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center has joined a roster of hospitals and healthcare systems in the U.S. that has licensed the clinical solutions developed by TheraDoc (Salt Lake City). The NIH CC and TheraDoc will implement knowledge modules designed to provide advanced tools for active infection surveillance, antimicrobial stewardship, adverse drug event monitoring and documentation, and critical care at the 250-bed treatment and research hospital.

The TheraDoc system will provide an interface through which context-specific clinical data will be evaluated, confirmed and acted upon. It will combine patient- and disease-specific data with best-practice guidelines. It will also translate the data into actionable patient information, and push it securely to clinicians in real-time.

TheraDoc is a clinical informatics company.

Solis-BenOra relocates

Solis-BenOra Imaging (Phoenix, Arizona) reported that it has relocated to 1313 E. Osborn Road in Phoenix. The new 8600 square foot facility features digital mammography technology for screening and diagnostic studies and will continue to offer breast and general ultrasound, bone densitometry, and ultrasound and stereotactic biopsies.

The company was formed by the merger in early January of BenOra Imaging with Solis Women's Health, focused on the screening/diagnosis of breast cancer.

Michigan county to hold device conference

Since launching its Emerging Sectors initiative more than four years ago, Oakland County, Michigan, will host a conference on medical devices on April 23, 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Oakland County Executive Conference Center in Waterford.

Organizers of the event said it will provide an overview of the importance of learning how to use intellectual property and contract manufacturing, and an introduction to FDA regulations for device manufacturing.

To register, go to:

www.oakgov.com/peds/calendar/medicaldevices.html.

Prospect Medical completes review

Prospect Medical Holdings (Culver City, California), which manages the medical care of roughly 240,000 HMO enrollees and operating four community hospitals in southern California, said that it has completed its review of the pre-acquisition financial statements of Alta Healthcare System and is moving forward with completing the restatement of those statements and filing its delayed SEC reports.