April 29, 2008 - Routing video and other vital information to and from the surgical team often requires installing costly and complicated operating room (OR) integration systems, and ECRI Institute will offer insights with its “OR Integration: Best Practices for a Safe and Effective Implementation” Web conference Wednesday, May 28.

April 30, 2008 – The number of product recalls and safety alerts that impact hospitals and healthcare systems in the U.S. continues to rise, according to the Noblis Center for Health Innovation, a advisory group to health providers.

April 30, 2008 - Patient Care Technology Systems (PCTS), a subsidiary of Consulier Engineering Inc., said Lehigh Valley Hospital (Cedar Crest, Allentown, PA) implemented the Amelior ORTracker system in its perioperative department in April.

The automatic tracking software was selected to help improve the efficiency of surgical care by visualizing the real-time care status of patients and the location of department resources. The Cedar Crest location is the first of three Lehigh Valley Hospital facilities to implement the software.

May 1, 2008 - The Pennsylvania Patient Safety Authority today released its 2007 annual report that identifies issues with incident reporting at the state’s hospitals due to confusion over what to report.

April 30, 2008 - Acusphere has submitted a New Drug Application (NDA) to the FDA for approval to market Imagify (Perflubutane Polymer Microspheres for Injectable Suspension), an ultrasound imaging agent for the detection of coronary artery disease, which could prove as accurate as nuclear stress testing.

The NDA includes data from studies of Imagify in more than 1,000 patients worldwide, including two pivotal international multi-center Phase III clinical trials, RAMP-1 and RAMP-2 (Real-Time Assessment of Myocardial Perfusion).