• MedMined (Birmingham, Alabama), a medical information technology company, reported the introduction of the Nosocomial Infection Marker (NIM), a new feature of its Data Mining Surveillance technology that for the first time allows an accurate, electronic measurement of the incidence of hospital-acquired infections. The NIM was introduced at the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America's 15th annual meeting in Los Angeles. The patent-pending NIM is an electronic marker that uses sophisticated algorithms to analyze existing microbiology laboratory and patient census data to identify hospital-acquired infections. MedMined's Data Mining Surveillance service combines ongoing review and analysis of infection-related data from hospital systems with clinical support and educational tools designed to facilitate meaningful change and process improvements and comply with state mandatory reporting requirements.

• Molecular Devices (Sunnyvale, California) reported the introduction of two new reagent products for adsorption, distribution, metabolism and excretion (ADME) assay screening – Transil Membrane Affinity and Transil Human Serum Albumin (HSA) Binding assay kits. The Transil assay kits provide lead optimization and high-throughput screening laboratories with fast, automatable, direct, biologically relevant solutions to increase the throughput of ADME-related compound profiling. The Transil Membrane Affinity assay provides data using beads coated with a lipid bilayer that mimic interactions between compounds and cell membranes. The results are equivalent to the liposome "gold standard" method, without the tedious preparation of liposomes, the company said. The Transil HSA Binding assay kit contains beads coated with human serum albumin and pre-dispensed into a microplate format. The pre-dispensed format increases throughput via parallel sample preparation and assay reading on Molecular Devices' SpectraMax microplate readers. The kits are available in two formats, for 96- or 384-well microplates.

• National Quality Care (Beverly Hills, California) said it has received a notice of allowance from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for a patent application covering the design of a wearable artificial kidney that provides continuous dialysis 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Currently, most end-stage renal disease patients in the U.S. undergo dialysis three times per week, with each session lasting three to four hours. But a patient using the wearable artificial kidney would be able to have 24 hour a day dialysis without being attached to a large stationary machine. The company said it anticipates that the patent will issue within the next few months.

• RemoteScan (Missoula, Montana), the makers of network connectivity software for document scanners and digital cameras, reported the release of RemoteScan for Medical Practice. With RemoteScan for Medical Practice, documents can be scanned directly into any electronic medical records, patient record or document management software package. RemoteScan for Medical Practice uses RDP and ICA protocols, and includes Pass Through Scanning, which buffers and compresses images locally then automatically streams the data to application software as bandwidth becomes available. Additional features of the software include custom templates for configuring scanning options for consistently. RemoteScan also comes with a self-configuring installation system. RemoteScan software works with all TWAIN or WIA scanners, and converts any scanner into a fully functional network scanner.

• Scapa Medical (Windsor, Connecticut), a developer of specialty adhesive films and tapes, said it is offering Bioflex Rx869S, a double-coated fabric pressure sensitive adhesive tape designed for direct skin applications such as bandages and EKG electrodes. Bioflex Rx869S consists of a 25 mil white spun-laced polyester fabric, double coated on each side with a pressure sensitive acrylic adhesive. The tape is supplied on an easy release, 80-pound white kraft paper liner that provides stay-flat properties for easy die-cutting. Lightweight and comfortable, this fabric tape provides excellent conformability to curved areas of the body. The product delivers good adhesion to skin, yet removes cleanly without causing trauma, the company said.

• SOLX (Boston) said it would highlight its new glaucoma treatment system at this week's American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery (ASCRS) meeting in Washington. The DeepLight Glaucoma Treatment System is the first of its kind to combine a Titanium Sapphire 790 nm laser with a photo-titratable gold micro-shunt to provide physicians the widest range of intraocular pressure (IOP) reduction options possible. Preliminary results of ongoing DeepLight Glaucoma Treatment System studies will be presented during the New Glaucoma Surgery Symposium at ASCRS on Friday.

SOLX also said two independent pilot studies were presented at the International Glaucoma Society meeting in Cape Town, South Africa, earlier this month. The first, a pilot study in which the DeepLight Gold Micro-Shunt (GMS) was implanted in 47 eyes of 47 patients followed from baseline to eighteen months, found the mean IOP decreased from 29.0 to 17.4 mm Hg and the average number of required medications decreased from 3.3 to 1.2 when using the shunt alone. When the DeepLight 790 Titanium Sapphire laser was used to photo-titrate the GMS, additional IOP reduction of 1 mm to 3 mm Hg was achieved for each channel opened. The second presentation on the results of a randomized, controlled study comparing the DeepLight 790 Titanium Sapphire Laser with traditional argon laser trabeculoplasty found the DeepLight laser induced significantly less trabecular tissue damage than argon trabeculoplasty and IOP was reduced by 21% to 29% when compared to medication alone.