For more information on ProSim SPOT Light SpO2 Functional Tester and the entire line of ProSim patient monitor test tools visit http://www.flukebiomedical.com/prosim.

“We’ve devoted unprecedented resources to providing meaningful customer training and assistance on the web. This allows us to help the community quickly, and also facilitates meaningful interaction with health care professionals around the globe. We gave them a voice in the process, and are now meeting their needs with new training modules every month—now in multiple languages to serve an even greater community,” said Training Manager Jerry Zion. Fluke Biomedical reports additional multi-language training materials are set to launch over the coming weeks and months.

For more information, visit www.flukebiomedical.com/training.

“It’s been a long time in the making but we are pleased we finally implemented ServiceMax, which further enhances our ability to deliver exceptional customer service,” said Beth Morrison, director of service for Conquest Imaging. “We traded in the old world spreadsheets and heavy-duty software and replaced them with one solution. “ServiceMax has streamlined operations allowing us to solve customer issues better and faster,” said Morrison.

Results from the prospective, randomized clinical trial showed that patients who received infusion solutions through in-line filters had a 25-percent lower overall complication rate than patients without the filter. The length of hospital stay of patients treated with filters also was reduced by nearly a day.

“The trial, the largest clinical IV filtration study to date, clearly demonstrates the safety and efficacy of in-line filtration in preventing major complications during PICU care. It shows that filtration is a preventive strategy to decrease morbidity of critically ill patients and is able to reduce duration of mechanical ventilation and length of stay on PICU,” said Dr. Michael Sasse, the study director from Hannover Medical School. “We believe that in-line filtration is a major step toward improving the safety of infusion therapy.”

According to the study, particulate contamination due to infusion therapy, which typically involves delivering fluids intravenously, poses a potential health risk for intensive care patients. The contamination of infusion solutions by particles is widely unappreciated with underestimated side effects of intravenous (IV) therapy. Complications that can occur from infusion therapy include a systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS), organ failure (circulation, liver, kidney) and thrombosis.

Just under half of the 807 patients who participated in the study were randomly assigned to a filter group, which received in-line filtration. The remaining participants were assigned to a control group. The study was conducted during a more than three-year period in an interdisciplinary PICU of a tertiary care German hospital.

For more information on Pall in-line infusion filters, visit: www.pall.com/IV.

Customers requiring service have a direct link to the service department to expedite their calibration or service. The interactive world map helps locate a Radcal distributor in more than 45 countries. Soon customers and distributors will be able to login to Radcal and receive special offers and updates, the company says.

Few details have been publicly released about the April 9 meeting, held in Baltimore, MD, but George Mills, head of the commission’s Engineering Department, said that it went well and that further discussions were likely.

The meeting was requested by the commission and members of the healthcare technology management (HTM) community, following a December memo from CMS that instructed hospitals to follow manufacturer’s preventive maintenance (PM) recommendations for critical equipment. A hospital, according to CMS, can alter the schedule for noncritical equipment, but only after it amasses sufficient maintenance history on the device.

The directive forbids any alternatives to the manufacturer’s methods for maintaining equipment, “even if the hospitals alter the frequency of maintenance activities.”

CMS did clarify in the meeting with Mills that tools and software that are equivalent to manufacturers may be used for testing, inspection, and maintenance.

Many HTM professionals reacted with dismay to the memo, saying it failed to recognize that many individual hospitals and departments have devised their own effective PM strategies. Strictly adhering to manufacturers’ recommendations, many argued, would prove costly and time consuming, without doing anything to improve patient safety.

At the same time, some professionals say the memo underscores the need for the field to prove, through an evidence-based approach, that there is a better way to approach the issue of PM.

“We welcome the existing Harvest customer base,” noted Henry Wilde, CEO of Four Rivers Software. “Customers can expect no interruption in service and no need to make any change. Our plan is to support and enhance the Harvest family of products.”

“We share Four River’s excitement over this transaction,” noted PartsSource’s CEO A. Ray Dalton. “Harvest users will now receive the same superior customer service and user experience enjoyed by all Four River’s existing customer base.”