A Medical Device Daily
IntraLase (Irvine, California) said last week it was awarded a contract for up to $45 million from the Defense Logistics Agency for IntraLase FS lasers, procedures, maintenance and support for the U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, and Federal civilian agencies. The award establishes a five-year indefinite-delivery-quantity contract with the possibility of five additional one-year options.
“We are excited that the Department of Defense has selected IntraLase technology for use across all branches of the armed services,” said Robert Palmisano, president/CEO of IntraLase. “There is no group of individuals who rely more on their vision in extreme and sometimes life-threatening conditions than military personnel. In today’s military, precision, safety and superior outcomes are critical and the confidence in our technology which this award demonstrates is further validation of the clinical superiority of blade-free LASIK with the IntraLase Method. The DLA award is a long-term commitment to ensuring that its personnel have access to the best-of-the-best technology.”
The IntraLase FS laser is the first technology to enable a truly all-laser, blade-free LASIK procedure, replacing the hand-held microkeratome blade historically used in creating LASIK corneal flaps — the first step of the procedure — with a computer-guided, ultra-fast femtosecond laser. IntraLase said its laser virtually eliminates almost all of the most severe, sight-threatening LASIK complications related to use of the microkeratome and, by creating an optimal corneal surface below the flap, provides for better visual outcomes — taking many patients to 20/20 vision and beyond. More than 1 million LASIK procedures using the IntraLase Method have been performed to date, the company said.
In other grants/contracts:
• Nightingale Informatix (Markham, Ontario) said that Kaleida Health Systems (KHS; Buffalo New York) signed a three-year contract renewal for its Medical Records Data Distribution Services at an estimated $3.6 million.
Nightingale and KHS renewed their existing agreement for a three-year term, including provisions for higher service volumes and additional consulting and implementation services. KHS has been an existing customer of Nightingale since 2002, through Nightingale’s acquisition of HealtheNet in January 2005.
Nightingale will continue to leverage the investments it has made in its new medical records data distribution technology, and build out additional workflow templates for KHS to make it easier for physicians to capture and view patient information.
The agreement takes effect January 1, 2007.
Nightingale Informatix is a healthcare application service provider for outpatient clinics. Nightingale’s Internet-based Electronic Health Record, Electronic Medical Record and practice management solutions are designed to help physicians, clinics, hospitals and other healthcare organizations more efficiently manage their operations and patient records.
• QuadraMed (Reston, Virginia) reported that Inova Health System (HIS; Falls Church, Virginia) has awarded the company a $3.4 million contract for its Smart Identity Management Solutions. The agreement is the first step in a two-phase partnership that is designed to enhance Inova’s patient Identity Management, a critical element of the Electronic Medical Record.
QuadraMed Smart Identity Management Solutions merge the company’s EMPI (Enterprise Master Patient Index) software and consulting services, which enable healthcare organizations to identify duplicate patient records within their information systems, consolidate them across the enterprise to link known patient identifiers, and minimize future patient record fragmentation.
This Smart Identity Management Solutions system will be implemented by all of IHS’s facilities in Northern Virginia.
“Patient safety is our number one priority,” said J. Knox Singleton, president/CEO of IHS. “Implementing a comprehensive identity management system will help to ensure our hospitals have a complete medical record for each patient. It will give our clinicians the information they need to provide our patients with safe, quality care regardless of which facility they visit.”
QuadraMed’s technology supports Inova’s goals by using a healthcare-specific probabilistic record matching algorithm to establish and maintain a unique identifier, the company said. This identifier will then accurately reference all components of the complete medical record for each patient across every campus in the IHS.
IHS is a not-for-profit health care provider. It serves more than one million patients annually in Washington metropolitan area and is licensed for 1,732 beds. There are roughly 2.75 million patient records contained in the Inova system.
QuadraMed aims to advance the success of healthcare organizations through IT solutions that leverage quality care into positive financial outcomes.
• Regeneration Technologies (RTI; Alachua, Florida) said it has signed an agreement to manufacture spinal allograft implants for Blackstone Medical (Wayne, New Jersey), which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Orthofix International (Huntersville, North Carolina).
RTI will manufacture cervical spinal grafts from designs developed by Blackstone.
New implant designs are being developed by Blackstone’s engineers, with the first launch scheduled for April 2007. Additional implants are planned for release for the second half of 2007.
Blackstone Medical is a spine product company dedicated to advancing techniques and technologies in the treatment of the human spine.
Orthofix International offers a broad line of minimally invasive surgical, as well as non- surgical, products for the spine, reconstruction, and trauma market sectors that address the lifelong bone-and-joint health needs of patients of all ages, helping them achieve a more active and mobile lifestyle.
RTI processes allograft and xenograft tissue into shaped implants for use in orthopedic, cardiovascular and other surgeries with a commitment to science, safety and innovation.
• Ness Technologies (Hackensack, New Jersey) said it has been awarded a multi-million dollar contract byQuintiles Transnational (Research Triangle Park, North Carolina), a provider of pharmaceutical and biotech services from early development through late phase clinical trials and commercialization.
Ness Technologies will establish an Extended Development Center (EDC) at Ness Technologies’ facility in Bangalore, India. The new center, called Quintiles Extended Development and Testing Center, complements Quintiles existing IT resources, it said. The center will provide Quintiles with additional application development, testing and maintenance services in the clinical, laboratory and product commercialization domains. It will help Quintiles accelerate time to market for technology and data integration solutions, which are used in support of operations with their extensive global customer base.
Ness provides end-to-end IT services and solutions designed to help clients improve competitiveness and efficiency. Ness specializes in outsourcing and offshore, systems integration and application development, software and consulting, and quality assurance and training.
Quintiles provides a broad range of professional services in drug development, information, financial partnering and commercialization for the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries.