HealthManagement, Volume 8 - Issue 4, 2008

Agfa HealthCare Awarded New Contract

Agfa HealthCare has been awarded a new three-year contract with Premier Purchasing Partners, L.P., to provide film and medical imagers to the healthcare alliance's 2,000 member hospitals and 53,000 other alternate healthcare sites in the US.

 

Effective September 1, 2008, this agreement adds to existing relations between Agfa HealthCare and Premier, namely Enterprise Image Management Solutions (EIMS) and Computed Radiography (CR) solutions.


Sonosite Shows 25% Revenue Rise

SonoSite, a provider of portable ultrasound technology, showed a 25% rise in revenue and a 48% surge in income for its fiscal 2008 second quarter, which ended June 30. They also reported favourable results in an ongoing patent dispute over its technology with GE Healthcare.

 

The company stated that its worldwide revenue rose to 59.2 million dollars for the period, a 25% gain compared with the 47.4 million dollars it booked for the same quarter last year. For the first half of the fiscal year, the company has seen revenue of 111.7 million dollars, a robust 24% increase compared with the 90.2 million dollars in revenue SonoSite recognised for the first two quarters of fiscal 2007.


PACSGEAR Partners With Three Palm Software

PACSGEAR has partnered with Three Palm Software, developers of software products for mammography. PACSGEAR has added Three Palm’s MammoViewer, an application designed for viewing mammography Images, to MediaWriter, its line of DICOM CD/DVD burning solutions. MammoViewer can be included on CDs, DVDs and portable media to let patients and physicians view mammography images, as well as electronic markers that are generated by computer-aided diagnosis applications. The markers draw attention to regions of interest on mammograms.


Philips Electronics Relocates its North American HQ

Philips Electronics North America announced that Andover, Mass., will serve as the company's new North American headquarters, where Philips Healthcare currently is based.As a result of the move, Philips said that Massachusetts now houses its largest presence in North America, with nearly 5,000 employees, six major worksites and manufacturing facilities.

 

The company estimated that its presence will inject more than $266 million dollars in payroll into the Massachusetts economy annually, when taking into account the various Philips facilities, including executive and administrative offices, R&D, warehousing and manu facturing. During the last twelve months, Philips said it has grown from approximately 20,000 to more than 30,000 employees in the United States, with offices and operations at 50 major facilities in 22 states.


MarkeTech Launches ImagePRO Panel

The MarkeTech Group (TMTG) has launched ImagePRO, a longitudinal panel of more than 600 US hospital-based imaging directors and managers. The ImagePRO panel membership represents an estimated 25% of US hospital diagnostic imaging purchasing power and provides information that is calibrated to the market.

 

“ImagePRO will change the nature of voice-of-the-customer research studies in medical imaging,” said Christian Renaudin, MD, TMTG founder and CEO. “In the last 10 years at TMTG, we have witnessed a dramatic shift in power between clinicians and administrators in medical imaging purchase decisions. We thought it was time to give a formal voice to radiology administrators.”


Fujifilm Releases FCR GO in the US

Fujifilm Medical Systems have launched the FCR Go portable digital x-ray system for commercial release. The FCR Go is a portable digital x-ray system that aims to provide remote users with all of the same functionality and image processing features available at the fixed technologist workstation.

 

The company said its portable system can be used in nearly every imaging environment. It also accommodates a wireless or hardwired connection to a facility’s network, so the patient worklist is available from the RIS/HIS and images can be transmitted to PACS immediately following study completion for interpretation.


Hologic Complete Third Wave Technologies Tender

Hologic, Inc. have completed the tender offer by its direct wholly-owned subsidiary, Thunder Tech Corp., for all outstanding shares of Third Wave Technologies, Inc. at a price of 11.25 dollars per share in cash.

 

Hologic is in the process of completing the acquisition of Third Wave through a short form merger in which Third Wave will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Hologic. In the short form merger, all outstanding shares of Third Wave not purchased in the tender offer, and not held by a holder who demands appraisal rights for such shares, will be converted into the right to receive $11.25 per share in cash.

 

Following the merger, detailed instructions will be mailed to Third Wave stockholders who did not tender their shares in Third Wave in the offer outlining the steps to be taken to obtain the merger consideration.

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