INTEGRIS Baptist Medical Center Deploys The Safety-Sponge System Technology Across All Operating Rooms
Surgicount Medical Receives a Three-Year Contract From Leading Mid-West Hospital
Los Angeles - Patient Safety Technologies, Inc. announced that its wholly owned subsidiary, Surgicount Medical, has entered into a three-year agreement with INTEGRIS Baptist Medical Center in Oklahoma City to provide the facility with its patented Safety-Sponge System. The company has received an initial purchase order from INTEGRIS, which is Oklahoma's largest not-for-profit health care organization, for the 19 operating rooms at their flagship unit. Financial terms were not disclosed.
After a thorough evaluation at INTEGRIS since April, Baptist is the first hospital in Oklahoma to order the System and make it a standard of care in their hospital. The System is currently being evaluated by other prestigious hospital networks in California, Florida, Maine, Massachusetts, Missouri and Oklahoma which Surgicount hopes will soon lead to additional supply agreements. "With more than 80,000 operating rooms and many millions of surgical procedures each year in the U.S. alone, we believe our Safety-Sponge System represents an outstanding long-term growth opportunity," said Bill Adams, Chief Executive Officer of Surgicount Medical, Inc.
"Our mission is to improve the health of the people and communities that we serve, and we always are looking for technologies to help us achieve this objective. Surgicount's Safety-Sponge System is an innovative tool that gives INTEGRIS a significant advantage for maintaining high safety standards for our patients during surgery, while at the same time increasing the efficiency of our surgical staff. Today's announcement reflects our dedication to make every effort to provide leading-edge health care services," said Janet Lewis, INTEGRIS Baptist's Administrative Director of Surgical Services.
Surgicount Medical received FDA 510(k) clearance to market and sell its Safety-Sponge System in March 2006. The Safety-Sponge System is an integrated turn-key program of thermally affixed, data matrix tagged surgical sponges, line-of-sight scanning technology, and documentation that offers surgeons and hospitals a solution to gossypiboma -- the term for surgical sponges accidentally left inside a human body after surgery. Based on estimates and assumptions made by Patient Safety Technologies management, gossypiboma occurs in an estimated 3,000 to 5,000 surgical procedures each year in the United States alone, and liability settlements and other costs related to retained sponges amount to an estimated $500 million to $750 million annually. The Safety-Sponge System is the only computer-assisted system for counting sponges cleared by the FDA.
"This first contract is a milestone agreement for Surgicount and an important step in the implementation of our strategic plan to bring the Safety-Sponge System to market as the new standard of surgical care. It underscores our commitment to taking a leadership role in making the operating room safer for patients and more efficient for surgeons and surgical nurses by reducing or eliminating dangerous and costly sponge-counting errors. We are thrilled to be partnering with a leading health care organization the caliber of INTEGRIS Health and look forward to working with them to raise the standard of patient protection and safety in their operating rooms," said Adams.
SOURCE: Patient Safety Technologies, Inc.