Intravenous products:  PR-USA.net report “Medical Device Development Group, specialists in the commercialization of medical devices, has announced a joint venture with Moffitt Cancer Center. The new organization, called Tampa Medical Innovations (TaMI), will commercialize medical device inventions envisioned by the Moffitt medical team.

The lead product is an IV closure system designed to eliminate blood loss during IV insertion and reduce the potential for blood-borne pathogen exposure. “The process of connecting intravenous fluid tubing to a catheter that has been inserted into a vein basically requires three hands,” explained Tariq Chaudhry, M.D., the inventive anesthesiologist at Moffitt. “The Stat-Clip system is a break-through technology that solves a long-standing issue in the practice of IV therapy by eliminating blood exposure between establishment of patency and connection of the IV line.”

There are approximately 176 million IV procedures performed annually in the United States, and each has the potential for cross contamination and blood-borne pathogen exposure, two key sources for infection.

“We are delighted to join with Medical Device Development Group to bring important new inventions to market,” said Haskell Adler, PhD, MBA, Senior Licensing Manager at Moffitt. “We believe that this venture is the best way to accelerate commercialization and get these innovations into routine use worldwide.”

“Some of the best innovations come from doctors and nurses whose daily patient care leads them to see a need and find a solution,” said Bill Knab, CEO of TaMI. “Our goal with TaMI is to transform these inventions into products that will improve patient care and simplify medical procedures.”

TaMI is currently seeking first-round funding to accelerate the development of the Stat-Clip system as well as other medical innovations from Moffitt.”

Click here for the full press release.

Intravenous products: Nurses and physicians with an interest in IV management can now keep their knowledge up to date by following a new Facebook page for 3M™ Tegaderm™ IV Solutions. With news and information about events, clinical papers, product innovations and best practice from across Europe, this fan page is a must for healthcare professionals working in infection prevention, vascular access and IV management.

Visit www.ivdressing.com for the full press release.

Intravenous products: Ivera Medical Corporation today announced it has received a new FDA 510(k) clearance for its Curos® disinfecting port protector which reflects the company’s ongoing determination to continuously improve its products to better deliver solutions designed to reduce hospital-acquired catheter related bloodstream infections. The Curos passive disinfection cap first received 510(k) clearance in 2008. The new 510(k) clears Curos for improved performance claims including a reduction in disinfection time and an extension of the product’s effective duration of use. Independent studies submitted to the FDA established that Curos caps disinfect IV access ports within three minutes and that ports remain clean for seven days without access.

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Intravenous products: Newswise report “Solar power can help offset high utility costs and make hemodialysis treatments more environmentally friendly, according to a study appearing in an upcoming issue of the Clinical Journal of the American Society Nephrology (CJASN). The findings point the way to a ‘green dialysis’ future where utilities and other consumables are no longer taken for granted but are used and reused wisely.

Patients and physicians may not be aware of the resource demands of dialysis treatments for kidney disease. But in fact, the treatments require a considerable amount of basic utilities such as water and power, so that a vast carbon footprint is left behind.
To see if solar energy might be used to help meet the rapacious power demands of dialysis equipment, John Agar, MBBS, Anthony Perkins, and Alwie Tjipto, MBBS (Geelong Hospital, Barwon Health, in Victoria, Australia) established a solar-assisted dialysis program in southeastern Australia that included four home dialysis machines. They chose the simplest solar model: array donation to and service draw from the national grid.

The researchers found that after the first 12 months of the program, power costs were reduced by 76.5%. They anticipate that in the coming years, the system will turn a profit in addition to generating effectively free power. Therefore, solar-assisted power appears to be feasible and cost-effective, and dialysis services may want to investigate whether they can take similar steps towards greener dialysis.

“Although not all locations, purchasing environments, or local administrations will be suitable or supportive, the twin issues of environmental degradation and climate change demand that simple ecoassessment is made and solutions sought,” the authors wrote. The researchers are also advocate for applying water conservation and improved waste management systems to dialysis programs.

Disclosures: Fresenius Medical Care (Australia) provided the funding and secured the technical advice to resource the project.
The article, entitled “Solar-Assisted Hemodialysis,” will appear online at http://cjasn.asnjournals.org/ on January 19, 2012, doi: 10.2215/CJN.09810911.”

Click here for the original press release.

Intravenous products: The MHRA have issued a Medical Device Alert that relates to all Plum A+ infusion pumps manufactured by Hospira Inc. The alert ‘MHRA Safety Alert MDA/2011/110′ highlights a “Possible delay in therapy due to continuous recycling and/or rebooting if the LED display settings are adjusted from the original default settings.”

Click here to view the alert.

Intravenous products: News Medical report “Acacia Research Corporation (Nasdaq:ACTG) announced that a subsidiary has acquired patents relating to infusion pump technology from a major medical device company.”

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Intravenous products: The MHRA have published a company-led drug recall. Baxter Healthcare Limited have disclosed that two bags of Glucose 5% IV Infusion 500ml Viaflo have been found to contain paper. Recipients are requested to stop using this batch and return to Baxter for credit.

Click here to view the alert.

Intravenous products: Newsok.com report “Dr. Robert Perry, a resident at OU Medical Center, has invented a medical device so practical that federal regulators approved it in just 17 days. The FDA has approved Dr. Robert Perry’s EZ Vein device, which is designed to ease the jo_veinb of inserting an intravenous catheter.

“It was kind of a surprise,” Perry said. “I wasn’t anticipating getting anything back until January, and I got it in October.”

The Food and Drug Administration quickly approved his EZ Vein device, which is designed to ease the sometimes tricky job of inserting an intravenous catheter. The noninvasive device includes an inflation cuff that goes over the arm to redirect blood from deep tissue to the target vein near the skin’s surface to make more visible and accessible to a needle, he said.”

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Intravenous products: News Medical report “Therakos, Inc., a pioneer in the innovative treatment of extracorporeal photopheresis (ECP) for immune modulation therapy, today announced that the first patient has been enrolled in its Phase IIb clinical study evaluating the use of the company’s photopheresis technology in the treatment of patients with moderate-to-severe chronic Graft-versus-Host Disease (GvHD). An estimated 15,000 new patients worldwide are diagnosed every year with chronic GvHD, a life threatening condition occurring when a donor’s transplanted stem cells attack the recipient’s body.”

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Intravenous products: The NPSA report “Spinal, epidural and regional devices, with non-luer compatible neuraxial connectors, that will not connect with intravenous equipment, are being placed on the market by industry in response to the NPSA Patient Safety Alert issued in 2009.*

Although the use of these devices will reduce the risks of wrong route errors, it is essential that effective controls are in place to minimise the risk of mis-selection and supply of devices with incompatible connectors that could cause delay in clinical procedures and harm patients.

The NPSA has recently received details of a patient safety incident, where a spinal needle with a neuraxial connector was supplied and used in error when a device with a Luer connector was required. The labelling and packaging of the two devices with Luer and neuraxial connectors, from the same manufacturer, looked very similar in their appearance.

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