Industry Roundup: ASRT, Boston Scientific, Cerner, CIVCO, CodeRyte, iCAD, NightHawk, Sage, UltraRAD
The National Atomic Museum started construction on a new $10 million facility in Albuquerque, N.M., that will focus on the history of nuclear science, including the many medical applications of nuclear technology. Once completed, the facility will be called the National Museum of Nuclear Science and History. The American Society of Radiologic Technologists (ASRT), a supporter of the museum, is supporting the “X Is for X-ray” exhibit, which explores medical imaging technology.
 

Boston Scientific will provide lead financial support for an extension of the STENT drug-eluting stent registry to study the effects of late stent thrombosis in drug-eluting stents. The STENT (Strategic Transcatheter Evaluation of New Therapies) registry is the largest drug-eluting stent (DES) study ever reported in the United States. It was initiated in 2003 to evaluate the long-term efficacy and safety of paclitaxel-eluting and sirolimus-eluting coronary stents among real-world patients and clinical situations. With this agreement, Boston Scientific will support extension of that study to include the examination of stent thrombosis. The STENT Thrombosis Study will be sponsored by Charles Simonton, MD, of the Carolinas Heart Institute, Charlotte, N.C., and Gregg Stone, MD, of the Cardiovascular Research Foundation in New York. Approximately 10,000 new patients undergoing DES implantation will be enrolled in the second phase of this prospective registry. Enrollment of patients in the STENT Thrombosis Study would begin in early 2007, and plans are for it to be completed within 12 to 18 months.
 

Cerner reported Q3 2006 earnings of $26.7 million, compared to $26.6 million in the same period last year, the Kansas City Business Journal reports. Revenue for the third quarter was $345.5 million, up 17 percent from $294.6 million in 2005. The company also reported new business bookings in Q3 of $352.1 million, up 17 percent from $301.1 million in bookings during the same period in 2005.


CIVCO Medical Solutions made all of its SINMED branded products, such as the Combifix and Thorawedge, IPPS (indexed patient positioning system) compatible, expanding the number of treatment options available for the two-pin indexing system. IPPS helps clinicians locate and lock down a patient positioning device from imaging through treatment, and from treatment to treatment.
 

Practice management and medical billing solutions provider Evolutions partnered with CodeRyte for use of its automated coding systems, CodeAssist and CodeComplete. The automated solutions from CodeRyte will allow Evolutions to improve their coding accuracy, achieve greater compliance, and increase cash flow with reduced turnaround times, said Tom Long, president and CEO, Evolutions. CodeRyte combines natural language processing technology with supervised learning, computational linguistics, statistical modeling, medical expertise, and web-enabled technologies. Through analysis of complex patterns of language in context, CodeRyte is able to leverage a physician’s documentation and time without requiring structured dictation, templates, and/or macros, the company says.


Computer-aided detection (CAD) developer iCAD named Jean Boyle as vice president of service. Boyle brings more than 15 years of customer service experience in the healthcare field to his new responsibilities, which include overseeing the continued growth of iCAD’s service business including the management of iCAD’s technical assistance center, field service operations, product specialists, and training. Also, iCAD has appointed Jonathan Go as senior vice president of research and development. Most recently, Go served as VP of engineering at Merge eMed where he was responsible for product management, development, testing, and systems integration for all of eMed’s products.
 

NightHawk Radiology Holdings saw record financial results Q3 2006 (ended September 30). The company reported revenues of $25.2 million, reflecting a 47 percent increase year-over-year and all-time high operating income of $8.2 million, a 52 percent improvement year-over-year. Because of these positive results, the company estimates that 2006 revenues will be in the range of $91 million to $92 million, an increase from previous guidance of $89 million to $91 million.


Sage Software Healthcare Division, formerly Emdeon Practice Services, unveiled Intergy by Sage Version 3.5, the latest version of the company’s integrated electronic health record (EHR), electronic data interchange (EDI) applications, and practice management system. Intergy provides practices with a complete system to facilitate efficient workflow and revenue capture — from appointment scheduling, to clinical care, to billing, to analysis.


UltraRAD has released UltraGATEWAY DICOM image router version 2 with a number of new features including a DICOM router with multiple concurrent connections; capacity to handle multiple modalities with flexible routing rules and hanging protocols; image distribution with DICOM repair, reference viewing, and queue management; and a web-based quality-control module.
 

Nuclear medical imaging technology vendor UltraSPECT named John W. Schaumburg as its president. Schaumburg will be responsible for all of UltraSPECT’s operations in North America. He previously served as the company’s director of sales.
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