• Bacterin International (Belgrade, Montana), a manufacturer of elutive bioactive coatings for medical devices, completed its first sale of a Bacterin-branded medical dev-ice, the Via Wound Drain. Via is a fully channeled silicone surgical wound drain designed to improve patient safety and comfort, composed of flexible silicone and a low profile connector used to minimize tissue trauma and discomfort. The wound drain has a four-channel design that minimizes the risk of occlusion, high tensile strength minimizing the risk of fragmentation, and a radiopaque dye for easy visualization. The Via Wound Drain series consists of round drains, available in three sizes, and flat drains, available in two sizes.

• RelayHealth (Emeryville, California), a provider of online doctor-patient communication services, has been selected to join the GE Healthcare (Waukesha, Wisconsin) Centricity Physician Office Partner Program. Through the program, hospital systems and medical groups can leverage GE's core competencies together with the expertise of select market leaders to create critical solutions for complete electronic medical record and physician office management information systems. RelayHealth features include the webVisit online medical consultation; an interactive, patient-centric personal health record; the eScript electronic prescription service; online appointment requests; and electronic lab results. In addition to facilitating secure online communication between patients and healthcare providers, RelayHealth also enables collaboration among providers throughout the community — via its ASP delivery model — improving coordination of care and information sharing.

• Vidacare (San Antonio), focused on bringing intraosseous infusion (IO) to the medical community to provide safe, fast and secure access in emergency medical situations and during routine clinical care, said the American Heart Association (Dallas) recently revised guidelines for advanced cardiac life support that now recommend IO as the first alternative to IV in cardiac arrest patients. The intraosseous space often is referred to as a non-collapsible vein, remaining accessible even when peripheral veins collapse in cases of shock or trauma. Vidacare's EZ-IO products, the EZ-IO AD and the EZ-IO PD, have been cleared by the FDA for use in adult and pediatric patients, respectively.