Newswatch: March 2006

Ch- Ch- Ch- Changes in the Industry

Corindus (Haifa, Israel) has opened its US headquarters office in Auburndale, Mass, for the management of sales, marketing, and clinical affairs. Originally established in 2002, Corindus develops remote-control technology for cardiac-catheterization laboratories and was founded within the framework of the Technion Entrepreneurial Incubator Company (TEIC of Haifa, Israel).

Echoserve LLC (Golden, Colo) has expanded its business to include multi-vendor ultrasound field service. The company now provides field service, technical support, parts depot repair, and exchange services to the diagnostic ultrasound community. The company also has hired Mike McNamara to lead its expansion into the ultrasound field-service business. "As ultrasound equipment becomes increasingly computerized and network-connected, we felt that it was important to hire someone directly from an OEM with training on the latest system platforms," said Echoserve President Christopher Cone. "Mike's unique combination of GE and multi-vendor field service training make him a key long-term contributor to the development of our service business."

PracticeXpert Inc (Calabasas, Calif) has sold its transaction business unit to Transcend Services Inc (Atlanta). Transcend has created Internet-based, speech-recognition–enabled voice-to-text systems that allow its medical-language specialists to securely and quickly produce high-quality medical documents. "We consider this transaction much more than a sale of our transcription business unit," said Jonathan Doctor, president and CEO of PracticeXpert. "We see it as the beginning of a long-term partnership with Transcend."

TriMedx LLC (Indianapolis) has announced the formation of Axess Ultrasound, a new business unit focused on providing high-quality ultrasound repair and maintenance service to physicians' offices, imaging centers, and other group practices. Axess Ultrasound will build upon TriMedx's core business of providing biomedical, laboratory, and imaging equipment-management services to hospital systems throughout the United States and will expand the company's ability to provide ultrasound expertise and resources to existing customers and physician-based practices.