Category Archives: Medical Device Manufacturers
Novation Dishing Out The Awards at its Annual Supplier Summit
Novation recognized 22 suppliers yesterday at its annual Supplier Summit. These awards were given in recognition of the winners’ superior service provided to the health care organization members of VHA, UHC and Children’s Hospital Association. In addition, Novation also honored an overall supplier of the year with its second annual Mark McKenna award. Mark McKenna served as the president and CEO of Novation from 1999 through 2006. He passed away in October of 2011 after a lengthy battle with cancer. By honoring the overall supplier of 2012 who demonstrated outstanding service, this award continues McKenna’s legacy of putting hospitals and [...]
[More...]
Comments (0)
UPS Laser-Focused on Healthcare Supply Chain –Investors Already Seeing the Pay Off
In case you haven’t heard, UPS is making it crystal clear that it intends to dominate in the healthcare marketplace. It’s a $50 billion global market and when you consider the down turn in traditional business demand for overnight shipping services, both UPS and FedEx have set their sights on a marketplace –the medical cargo marketplace—that is projected to grow at a rate of 20% annually. “Both companies have more than doubled their dedicated health-care storage and handling space in the past five years to take advantage of a business with potential operating margins of 15 percent or higher, dwarfing [...]
[More...] Comments (0)
New OEM Surgical Imaging Platform Promises To Revolutionize Endoscopic Device Market
Sanovas Inc., a life science technology company specializing in the development and commercialization of micro-invasive diagnostics, devices and drug delivery technologies, announced today the launch of MicroCam™, a new OEM “Plug & Play” micro imaging platform for endoscopic device applications. The technology features proprietary software, electronics, sensors and optics that can provide autonomous imaging capability to most any surgical instrument. Sanovas will offer its imaging technology for integration with medical device makers’ existing portfolios; enabling them to improve their products clinical capabilities, enhance their product offerings and increase their competitive advantage. The system was developed to evolve and, eventually displace large, cumbersome [...]
[More...] Comments (0)
Can Unique Device Identification Improve the Patient Experience?
Healthcare Matters would like to welcome the following guest post from Rob Leibrandt. Rob is the Senior Market Manager at Camcode, makers of UDI Labels for Medical Equipment. Unique Device Identification (UDI) is critically important in the healthcare system. In July 2012, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) proposed a rule (http://www.regulations.gov/#!documentDetail;D=FDA-2011-N-0090-0001) that would phase in, by device classes, requirements for medical devices to carry a unique device identifier. The benefits to implementing such a requirement include more accurate reporting and tracking of adverse events, more rapid identification of problems with specific products, better control over product recalls and improved patient [...]
[More...] Comments (0)
A New Way to Perform Physicals –The Smartphone Physical– Debuts at TEDMED 2013
A forward thinking team of medical student-engineers has designed a checkup of the future, called the Smartphone Physical. At this year’s TEDMED, a company called Nurture (a Steelcase brand dedicated to providing user-centered solutions in healthcare), and a leading medical technology and innovation blog called Medgadget, have joined forces with these students to showcase the Smartphone Physical, a comprehensive physical examination conducted by minimal equipment that connects to an iPhone. Together, they are embracing TEDMED’s theme of “unexpected connections” to provide one-of-a-kind physicals to attendees. Delegates will be offered a series of quick diagnostic tests using devices connected to an iPhone to [...]
[More...] Comments (0)
A HIPPA-Compliant LIve Video Solution for the Operating Room? Patent Issued to Image Stream Medical
Image Stream Medical is specialized in the control, routing, capture and management of surgical images. That’s why it makes sense that the company was successful in its bid to patent (#8,401,869) a family of video streaming products designed to enable digital video-based collaboration between the OR and remote clinicians, while maintaining HIPPA compliance. The implications of this patent are far-reaching and timely. Given the advent of networked-care delivery, how valuable do you think HIPPA compliant live video solutions are likely to become? A world where specialists and clinicians are going to be expected to collaborate without physically traveling to and [...]
[More...] Comments (0)
The Palliative Care Component of Medicine –Getting Lost in the Reform Era Shuffle?
Palliative care is comfort care. Yet remarkably, the word palliative was hardly spoken just 20 years ago. Fortunately, over the past decade it is a word that has found its way back into our mainstream conversation. And how it has found its way back is noteworthy, especially in a reform context. Typically, we only think about palliative care for hospice patients or, for example, for cancer patients with a terminal condition. Otherwise, the focus is on curative care, where patients understand the tradeoffs –where they’re willing to accept the unpleasant side effects of a treatment. But if the goal of [...]
[More...] Comments (0)
New Novation Report Highlights Emerging Cardiovascular Technologies
Novation has just released a report entitled, “Innovations in Cardiovascular Devices,” highlighting promising new technologies and trends in the cardiovascular field. “This is an exciting time in cardiology, where new technology is helping improve care and increase patient quality of life like never before,” said David Richman, Vice President, Sourcing Operations, Physician Preference, Novation. “This report provides member hospitals with the information about new and innovative technologies, such as renal denervation and aortic valve replacements, that will allow them to better serve patients and understand options, and will also impact their supply chain costs.” The report compiles the potential economic [...]
[More...] Comments (0)
Insufficient Data Stalls FDA’s Approval of Abbott’s New Heart Device
Staff reviewers for the Food and Drug Administration did not recommend the approval of Abbott Laboratories‘ implantable heart device MitraClip, citing a lack of “valid scientific evidence” of safety and effectiveness. In briefing documents, posted yesterday, the approval of the device was denied, as major questions of safety, efficacy and overall benefit-risk remained unanswered. The device is being tested to treat mitral valve insufficiency. Mitral Valve problems are typically related to a condition where a heart valve does not close properly causing blood to flow back into the heart. Patients with this condition are generally considered high risk for open [...]
[More...] Comments (0)
Latest Stryker Recalls Based on Failure to Secure 510Ks?
Stryker said it received a warning letter from the U.S. FDA related to quality concerns at its Portage, Michigan facility. Among other things, the letter says that Stryker failed to notify the FDA of a product recall related to a system (The Neptune Waste Management System) that Stryker had taken to market without the proper 510K registration and that it now must oblige its customers to return. Is Jeff Spicoli in charge here? The Neptune Waste Management System is intended to collect and dispose of surgical fluid waste in operating rooms and surgical facilities. The Neptune 2 Ultra can also [...]
[More...] Comments (0)
Asian Demand Drives Expansion of Global Diagnostic Cardiology Device Market
In medicine, a Holter monitor (often simply called a “Holter” or occasionally an ambulatory electrocardiography device) is a portable recording device for continuously monitoring various electrical activity of the cardiovascular system for at least 24 hours (often for two weeks at a time). The Holter’s most common use is for monitoring heart activity (electrocardiography or ECG). The Holter market in particular remains underdeveloped in China and India. However, with rising levels of cardiovascular disease in these countries, healthcare providers are shifting their focus from costly intervention to relatively inexpensive preventative care. Because of the non-invasive nature of the device—and its [...]
[More...] Comments (0)
Gag Clauses Have Got To Go
In 2007, the Transparency in Medical Device Pricing Act, federal legislation designed to bring some transparency to device prices, was introduced. The act would have required device manufacturers to regularly report to CMS the mean and median prices for devices –and the information would then be posted on the Internet. It should have put an end to the negotiation advantage –and self-serving mess– the device-makers cleverly engineered for themselves, but nothing ever happened. In most sectors of the economy, technological innovation lowers costs by improving productivity and efficiency. Not so in healthcare. Ironically, although orthopedic and cardiac surgery service lines [...]
[More...] Comments (0)
GHX in the News – Derek Smith Named Provider Pro to Know
The editors of Supply & Demand Chain Executive magazine have chosen Derek Smith, newly appointed chief commercial officer for GHX, as a 2013 “Provider Pro to Know” for his work in driving the development of software solutions that create a more connected, efficient and streamlined supply chain infrastructure for the healthcare industry. Honored as a “Provider Pro to Know,” Smith is leading an effort at GHX to address what healthcare providers and suppliers say is one of their biggest challenges – the highly manual, disjointed and duplicative processes surrounding the use of implantable medical devices (e.g. hips, knees, cardiac stents, [...]
[More...] Comments (0)
The Business of Hip Replacements Gives Used Car Industry a Bad Name
From a Medical News Today story written by Catharine Paddock: A study that used “secret shopper” techniques to find out the price of a hip replacement in hospitals across the US finds a huge variation in price, by as much as a factor of ten, with many hospitals contacted not able to give an estimated price. Reporting in the 11 February online issue of JAMA Internal Medicine, researchers at the University of Iowa (UI) Health Care and Iowa City VA Medical Center say their findings highlight the difficulties American consumers face when trying to obtain prices for a common surgical [...]
[More...] Comments (0)
Kill The Term “Reimbursement”
I recently ran across a post written by Paul Teague, a contributing writer to the Procurement Leaders Executive Network. In his post, Paul talks about risk management for procurement professionals and why healthcare procurement and financial executives have it tougher than most. He points out that “risk” is hard to manage because you never know where it’s coming from. And while I agree with most of what Paul had to say, I have to say that I take issue with that last statement. Because when it comes to managing risk, even in this era of reform, the sources aren’t hard [...]
[More...] Comments (0)
MedAssets and Premier in the News
Sacred Heart Health System (Pensacola, FL) expanded it use of MedAssets’ Access Integrity and Reimbursement Integrity solutions. MedAssets’ Access Integrity Suite was released about a year ago. Along with its Charge Integrity solutions, Sacred Heart will be using Care Pricer, Cash Manager and Contract Modeler. Care Pricer will be used to improve the accuracy of Sacred Heart’s patient liability estimates (to reduce uncompensated care and bad debt and accelerate cash collection). It will also use Cash Manager to help manage payor contracts and better identify underpayments and Contract Modeler to help improve claims data analysis, payor negotiations and revenue forecasting. [...]
[More...] Comments (1)
- Healthcare in the Cloud: Forecast Still Hazy : HIMSS 2013: Top Takeaways Gathering Clouds said: [...] to David McCament’s mind, the future of healthcare cloud is not so clear. In a gue... more
- Time Definite Logistics –MNX Expands Global Network and Adds Track & Trace : Daniel said: Everything is very open with a precise description of the issues. It was definitely inform... more
- Varian Runs a “Clinic” in Effective Lobbying –Harry Reid Rides Shotgun : Thomas Finn said: Thanks for your comment Bo. I do not fully comprehend the differences between the two opti... more
- Varian Runs a “Clinic” in Effective Lobbying –Harry Reid Rides Shotgun : Barton 'Bo' Cooke said: Tom, you nailed it. This rider, put in at the last minute and was rushed into the Congres... more
Spend Matters Compass research is based on a year-long editorial calendar, exploring bigger picture areas and issues
Next Level Sourcing and Commodity Management
New Paper P2P and Working Capital
Services Procurement Innovation
ERP Procurement and Spend Management Applications
Spend Matters Perspectives research is focused on targeted topics that impact specific areas in procurement
