Newswatch: October 2004

Contract Awards

Consorta

Consorta Inc (Schaumburg, Ill) has announced new purchasing agreements for radiation oncology products with Elekta Inc (Norcross, Ga) and Siemens Medical Solutions (Malvern, Pa). The agreements will bring technologically advanced radiation treatment products to Consorta's group purchasing organization members.

Kodak

Central Suffolk Hospital (Riverhead, NY) has purchased digital image capture and information management systems from Eastman Kodak Co (Rochester, NY). The systems will help the facility's radiology department establish a digital workflow with Kodak's DirectView PACS System 5 (for storage and management of digital images and related information), a DirectView CR 500 and CR 950 (for digital capture of X-ray images), and a DryView 8900 laser imaging system (for printing digital studies to radiographic film).

pMDsoft

PMDsoft (Atlanta) has signed a contract with Huntington Hospital (Long Island, NY) to implement the pMDsoft handheld data capture system within its facility. The system will enable doctors to schedule cardiac patients for outpatient procedures, record visit transactions, and send billable transactions directly to the hospital's billing services.

Siemens

The Baptist Heart and Vascular Institute at Central Baptist Hospital (Lexington, Ky) has purchased a second Axiom Artis dFC Magnetic Navigation System developed by Siemens Medical Solutions (Malvern, Pa) and Stereotaxis Inc (St Louis). The purchase comes after the hospital's initial success as the world's first to install and use the new technology. The Axiom system will be devoted to procedures in the interventional cardiology department; the first system, purchased in early 2003, is to be dedicated to the hospital's electrophysiology department.

In cooperation with Siemens Canada Ltd, Siemens has completed the largest user rollout of Soarian Clinical Access to date at St Michael's Hospital (Toronto), a teaching hospital affiliated with the University of Toronto. The new system, which forms the backbone of St Michael's electronic health record (EHR) strategy, can now serve up to 4,500 healthcare providers.

Also, Johns Hopkins Hospital (Baltimore) will implement Siemens' KinetDx PACS solution for its pediatric cardiology echography department in the Johns Hopkins Children's Center. The technology is expected to greatly improve the collection and distribution of diagnostic pediatric echocardiography examinations.

StorageTek

StorageTek Corp (Louisville, Colo) has completed a strategic OEM partnership agreement with Sun Microsystems (Santa Clara, Calif). Under the terms of the agreement, Sun will market and sell StorageTek's StreamLine SL8500 and the L-700e and L-180 tape libraries under the StorEdge brand. The agreement gives StorageTek more access to Sun's 6,000 sales professionals and opens up new joint marketing and selling opportunities.

UMG

United Marketing Group Inc (UMG of Harrison, NY) has signed a national distribution agreement with Fujifilm Medical Systems USA (FMSU of Stamford, Conn) in which UMG will distribute FMSU's medical films to all nonhospital clinical markets, including freestanding offices, clinics, and imaging centers. The agreement also includes FMSU's complete line of branded medical films for these markets, such as green- and blue-sensitive double-emulsion films, and high-resolution extremity, duplication, and CRT films. Also included in the agreement is the distribution of FMSU's DryPix imagers and dry imaging film.