Compared to the huge technological strides that other sectors of the medical industry have seen in recent years, many hospitals and surgical centers in the U.S. still rely on a fairly archaic process of fluid disposal during operations. Skyline Medical (Minneapolis) has developed a technology that its CEO says is in a "league of its own" compared to competing systems.

America is the fattest country in the world. The obesity epidemic is one of the largest problems facing the healthcare system, both from a clinical and an economic perspective. Pardon the pun. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that more than one-third of U.S. adults (35.7%) are obese. Because obesity is associated with so many other health problems, such as heart disease and diabetes, the topic has drawn a great deal of attention at industry gatherings, including the Cleveland Clinic Medical Innovation Summit last month where the clinical focus was on obesity, diabetes, and the metabolic crisis. But...