A Medical Device Daily

Global Med Technologies (Denver) reported that its Wyndgate Technologies division has signed a multi-million-dollar agreement with Intermountain Healthcare (IH; West Valley City, Utah) to license Wyndgate's SafeTrace Tx transfusion management software.

For the past nine years, Intermountain has been ranked first or second nationally in a study of more than 550 integrated health systems. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

Marc Probst, CIO and VP of information systems at Intermountain Healthcare, said, "Intermountain's complex operations and technology infrastructure combined with the imperative for timely, high quality and reliable information, required that we align with a vendor capable of implementing transfusion management software into large, multi-hospital systems on a timely basis. Our research led us to Wyndgate Technologies and their SafeTrace Tx product. Their single database and centralized transfusion system approach made them the logical choice for our organization."

SafeTrace Tx, a powerful transfusion service management information system, is designed to fully support Intermountain Healthcare's enterprise-wide centralized transfusion services management, including advanced functionality such as electronic and remote crossmatch, automated patient special needs and antigen/antibody screens. The blood management software system is designed to raise the standard of care for patients, improve safety, reduce waste and increase efficiency in the blood transfusion environment.

Global Med Technologies is an international e-health medical information technology company providing information management software products and services to the healthcare industry.

In other grants/contracts news:

• Affiliated Computer Services' (ACS, Dallas) state Medicaid presence is growing to include 14 states and the District of Columbia, following a contract agreement with the state of Tennessee. The engagement with the Tennessee Bureau of TennCare for the TennCare Management Information System (TCMIS) has a length of five years and a total value of $156 million.

ACS will assume daily operations, data management and ongoing systems modifications for the TCMIS, used by the state for the management of its Medicaid program.

ACS also will evaluate TennCare's current business processes and collaboratively work with the bureau to recommend improvements while performing multiple enhancement projects that will enable TennCare to leverage technology in the most efficient manner. These enhancements include the development of an enterprise project management office that will help TennCare effectively measure, monitor and manage the numerous and complex technology projects that will be occurring within the bureau.

ACS is partnering with Zycron (Nashville) a minority-owned information technology staffing and outsourcing company.

TennCare is Tennessee's Medicaid managed care program, serving 1.2 million Tennesseans through a network of contracted, managed care companies.

ACS is a national leader in state healthcare program administration.

• Cepheid (Sunnyvale, California) reported it has signed a contract with Novation (Irving, Texas), a contracting services company serving VHA, University HealthSystem Consortium (UHC) and Provista. Through its affiliations, Novation represents 49% of admissions, 52% of total surgeries and 44% of staffed beds in the U.S. Under the terms of the contract, VHA, UHC and Provista members can take advantage of Cepheid's GeneXpert System and Xpert MRSA tests at pre-negotiated prices.

MRSA is recognized as a growing public health concern, cited as a leading cause of Healthcare-Acquired Infections (HAIs). Infection rates have increased every year since 1970. Xpert MRSA test results are currently available in almost 70 minutes, thereby enabling rapid identification of carriers of the pathogen in less than two hours from the time of patient sampling to the delivery of test results to the floor.

The availability of the Xpert MRSA test and the GeneXpert System is expected to enable Novation hospitals to implement more efficient infection control measures, leading to lower HAI rates and improved patient care.

On-demand Xpert MRSA results enable healthcare professionals to rapidly identify MRSA colonized patients entering the hospital population, thereby reducing risk of potential transmission. As recent studies published in both the Journal of the American Medical Association and the Annals of Internal Medicine demonstrate, true rapid test turnaround time is critical to reaching optimal results with a fully implemented infection control plan to reduce HAI rates and improve patient care.

Cepheid is a molecular diagnostics company with systems for genetic analysis in the clinical, industrial and biothreat markets.