A Medical Device Daily
North American Scientific (Chatsworth, California) reported the renewal of a new three-year contract with Premier (San Diego) to supply its member hospital with Prospera 1-125 and Pd-103 sources.
The new three-year contract will become effective on Aug. 1. North American Scientific’s products include Prospera brachytherapy seeds and SurTRAK needles and strands used primarily in the treatment of prostate cancer.
In addition the Company plans to commercialize its ClearPath multi-channel catheter breast brachytherapy devices in 2007 radiation treatments. The devices are designed to provide flexible, precise dose conformance and an innovative delivery system that is intended to offer the more advanced form of brachytherapy for the treatment of breast cancer. Premier is a healthcare group purchasing organization. North American Scientific develops radiation therapy products and services.
In other contract news:
• Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC; El Segundo, California) reported that it has signed a $67 million contract to provide information technology services to the University of Pennsylvania Health System (UPHS; Philadelphia). CSC will provide a full scope of IT infrastructure services across UPHS facilities including desktop help desk systems security and network support. In addition, CSC will implement a technology solution that will increase system availability for clinicians.
CSC is a global IT services company.
• Methodist Healthcare of San Antonio (San Antonio) has selected TeleTracking Technologies (Pittsburgh) to help improve patient flow at five acute care hospitals, including a “Hospital of The Future” prototype under construction.
Methodist Healthcare signed a contract for the entire suite of capacity management solutions, including BedTracking, Pre-Admit Tracking with the electronic bedboard, and TransportTracking. The package integrates all aspects of patient transport, bed turnover and status and patient placement on a moment-by-moment basis.
These systems will be put in place at existing Methodist Hospitals and at Methodist’s Hospital of the Future, Methodist Stone Oak Hospital, due to open in 2008. That hospital will incorporate advanced patient flow theory into radically new infrastructure designs involving the nature of how hospitals are organized.
TeleTracking specializes in improving patient flow through computer automation and provides software and process redesign services to create the prompts, feedback and data flow which make real-time patient flow management possible.
Methodist Healthcare is a healthcare provider with facilities that include seven acute care hospitals: Methodist Children’s Hospital of South Texas, Methodist Hospital, Methodist Heart Hospital, Methodist Specialty and Transplant Hospital, Northeast Methodist Hospital, Metropolitan Methodist Hospital and Methodist Ambulatory Surgery Hospital.