A Medical Device Daily

Metrologic Instruments (Blackwood, New Jersey) reported the signing of a multiyear, worldwide agreement with Spacelabs Medical (Issaquah, Washington), a patient monitoring division of Spacelabs Healthcare . Spacelabs will market and sell Metrologic bar code scanners for use with the Spacelabs range of patient monitors.

By interfacing with hospital clinical information systems through Spacelabs' intuitive WinDNA software, nurses will be able to document point-of-care treatment accurately and easily, all from a single source.

Supporting the healthcare industry's move toward electronic medical record keeping, the bar code scanner option will enable clinicians to scan patient information directly into a secure electronic record, reducing medical errors, saving process time, and avoiding redundant workflow. Spacelabs has designed its Ultraview monitors to be bar code scanner-ready.

In other agreements:

• Tempur-Pedic Medical (Lexington, Kentucky) reported an agreement with OSI (Union City, California) whereby Tempur-Pedic will manufacture surgical table mattress pads for OSI's line of specialty orthopedic and imaging surgical tables.

The agreement also provides for OSI to distribute a line of Tempur-Med Surgery Pads designed to fit common and custom operating table and stretcher configurations.

Tempur-Med Surgery Pads will help healthcare professionals to manage pressure-related forces which can cause tissue damage during lengthy surgical procedures and recovery. In use, these pads passively redistribute pressure away from the patient's weight-bearing contact points, thus reducing the areas of peak pressure on the body. This process reduces provider risk exposure in that it protects skin and muscle tissue, speeds recovery, and enhances comfort for the patient.

• HemoCue (Lake Forest, California), focused on point-of-care testing systems, said it has been approved by the American Red Cross (Washington) to be added to their vendor list.

The HemoCue Donor Hb Checker system was designed for blood banks, taking into consideration concerns such as accuracy, precision and deferral rates. Studies looking at deferral rates have shown that switching to the HemoCue Donor Hb Checker system from microhematocrit methods may reduce donor deferral rates. Using an objective hemoglobin testing method, along with a good sampling technique, can protect donors from inappropriately being allowed to donate, while still optimizing the deferral rate, HemoCue said.

• Medeikon (Ewing, New Jersey) has entered a collaboration with ACRI (American Cardiology Research Institute; Atlanta) to combine technology to identify and treat cardiac disease.

Medeikon provides medical devices designed to enable physicians to accurately diagnose and treat cardiovascular disease. Medeikon's initial emphasis is on rupture-prone plaque, the leading cause of sudden cardiac death.

Medeikon's XploraPD system is designed to help physicians distinguish these rupture-prone lesions from other types of coronary artery tissue using optical technologies. The company said the system allows physicians to make early and accurate diagnosis and then treat the condition with tools consistent with current cardiac catheterization techniques and equipment.