AMI Semiconductor(Pocatello, Idaho), a designer and manufacturer of state-of-the-art integrated mixed-signal and structured digital products, has formed a technology design and supply partnership withInterventional Rhythm Management (IRM; Research Triangle Park, North Carolina), a specialist cardiology company dedicated to the management of patients with cardiac arrhythmias and heart failure.

AMI will provide custom, low-power mixed-signal ASIC solutions that will be used in IRM’s design for cardiac electrophysiology devices such as implantable defibrillators and pacemakers.

IRM’s design allows defibrillators and pacemakers to be completely introduced and implanted within the vascular system without major surgery.

The company’s initial product will be an intravascular implantable defibrillator (IID) designed for the primary prevention of sudden cardiac death.

A key element of this and future products will be turnkey, low-power ASIC solutions from AMI that ensure extended battery life without compromising functionality, in addition to offering options for low-data rate wireless communications within the MICS medical communications band.

Iasis opens new hospital

Iasis Healthcare (Franklin, Tennessee) reported that it has opened its new hospital in Port Arthur, Texas. The Medical Center of Southeast Texas began receiving patients on April 16. The 216-bed, $98 million, acute-care facility is the company’s first newly constructed hos- pital.

Simultaneously with the new hospital’s opening, substantially all of the services at Park Place Medical Center (also Port Arthur) and Mid-Jefferson Hospital (Nederland, Texas) moved to the new facility.

The medical staffs and employees of Park Place Medical Center and Mid-Jefferson Hospital have united to form the staff of the Medical Center of Southeast Texas.

Iasis is an owner and operator of medium-sized, acute-care hospitals in high-growth urban and suburban markets.