A Medical Device Daily

LifeNet (Virginia Beach, Virginia) said it has expanded its alliance with St. Jude Medical (St. Paul, Minnesota) to include vascular allografts from LifeNet for the treatment of coronary artery disease. Under the contract expansion, St. Jude will have exclusive rights for all LifeNet cardiac-based vascular allografts for its physician customer base.

Currently, St. Jude Medical has exclusive rights for all LifeNet cardiac allograft products. The companies first formed their alliance in 1996.

Dr. Richard Hurwitz, president and CEO of LifeNet, said, “Through our alliance with St. Jude Medical, LifeNet has grown to become the nation's largest supplier of cardiac allografts. This new representation extension will further [our] leadership position in the cardiovascular allograft market.“

LifeNet said it is the nation's largest full service organ procurement organization and tissue-banking system, providing more than 250,000 allograft transplants per year.

Triad Hospitals (Plano, Texas), Perot Systems (also Plano) and McKesson (San Francisco) reported a $1.3 billion healthcare information technology (IT) initiative to support Triad's “clinical excellence and business transformation“ programs. By automating clinical, financial and administrative processes throughout its network of facilities, Triad will seek to enhance delivery of care at its hospitals and provide a platform required to support long-term growth.

Triad, through its affiliates and subsidiaries, owns and operates 49 hospitals and 10 ambulatory surgery centers in 15 states.

Perot Systems will support the transformation initiative with an IT outsourcing agreement across all Triad facilities and Triad's corporate office.

The 10-year agreement is highlighted by the implementation of a suite of standardized clinical, financial and enterprise resource planning applications. Perot Systems will leverage its Clinical Solutions Center to support the use of McKesson's Horizon Clinicals suite, the company said.

Perot Systems also will deploy its delivery methodologies to operate Triad's technology infrastructure functions. These include applications support, network management and help desk activities, as well as server and desktop computing. The agreement also calls for most of Triad's IT employees to become employees of Perot Systems.