BD collaborates with ReturnSafe to help employers manage COVID-19 testing
BD recently announced a collaboration with ReturnSafe, the all-in-one software solution for COVID-19 employee health, safety and compliance, to integrate the BD Veritor™ At-Home COVID-19 Test directly within the ReturnSafe testing management platform.
“The BD Veritor™ At-Home COVID-19 Test enables people to test from home, without a proctor, while ensuring verifiable results because test results can only be read using a smartphone,” said Dave Hickey, president of Life Sciences for BD. “The test eliminates human subjectivity in reading the result, because there is no guessing game about one line or two, as is sometimes the case with visually read tests. You get a definitive ‘POSITIVE’ or ‘NEGATIVE’ digital display that is dated and time-stamped in the app, and reporting of the results to a business or organization can also be fully automated. This combination of interpretation and secure reporting significantly reduces the potential for test results to be manipulated or misreported. The addition of ReturnSafe simplifies and streamlines the management of testing results and workplace health and safety solutions.”
The BD Veritor™ At-Home COVID-19 Test uses a mobile app to interpret and provide a digital display of testing results in 15 minutes. The test is one of the only at-home tests to fully automate reporting of results to federal and state public health agencies and provides a streamlined experience for optional reporting to businesses and schools. The addition of ReturnSafe gives those organizations the insights and tools to manage their testing programs at scale. By using the BD Veritor™ At-Home COVID-19 Test with ReturnSafe, employers can effectively collect test results, track who has completed testing requirements on time, quickly identify positive cases to act, manage isolation and quarantine workflows, as well as collect data for compliance reporting.
By using the BD Veritor™ At-Home COVID-19 Test, employees can upload their test results from the comfort of their own home via technology that digitally reads and verifies the result and imports it directly into the ReturnSafe Command Center. This removes the need for proctors or manually reviewing tests uploaded into the ReturnSafe system.
UnitedHealthcare extends coverage to Abbott’s neurostimulation therapy for nerve pain
Abbott announced that UnitedHealthcare (UHC) has updated its ‘Implanted Electrical Stimulator for Spinal Cord’ medical policy to expand patient access to Abbott’s dorsal root ganglion (DRG) neurostimulation devices for people suffering from chronic pain when medical policy criteria are met. This updated medical policy covers 26 million UHC commercial members and will go into effect on March 1, 2022.
UnitedHealthcare’s new coverage assessment provides access to Abbott’s non-opioid DRG stimulation, the world’s only neurostimulator specifically designed to treat complex nerve pain conditions caused by complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) or peripheral causalgia, which are forms of chronic pain that that affect the lower extremities up to the hips, including the pelvis, after an injury or surgery, according to a release. An estimated 50 million Americans suffer from chronic pain for whom DRG stimulation represents an important new treatment option.
“The addition of coverage for a DRG stimulation therapy by one of the nation’s largest insurers is an important development for patients living with chronic pain who have exhausted other treatments,” said Kiran Patel, M.D., Spine and Pain Institute of New York. “The new clinical guidance from UnitedHealthcare means that people will now have the ability to consider Abbott’s DRG treatment as an accessible option to manage their chronic pain.”
CRPS and causalgia usually follow trauma, amputation, or surgery, such as hernia repair, knee or hip replacement, and result in chronic burning or stinging pain, numbness, hypersensitivity to touch, and chronic persistent pain in the lower limbs. These conditions have historically been challenging to treat because of the disruption in how the nervous system processes or transmits pain signals often resulting in long-lasting disabling chronic pain.
“Neuropathic pain is one of the most prevalent and under-treated forms of chronic pain,” said Pedro Malha, vice president of Abbott’s neuromodulation business. “The new coverage guidance by UnitedHealthcare to offer these patients DRG stimulation is yet another step forward in providing people with a safe and effective treatment alternative for their chronic pain. We are working with a number of other commercial payors to continue to extend the benefits of DRG stimulation therapy so as many people as possible can benefit.”
DRG therapy works by stimulating the dorsal root ganglia (DRG), a bundle of nerves located on the outside of the spinal cord. These nerve structures along the spinal column are made up of densely populated sensory nerves, and act like traffic lights, regulating signals and sensations that travel through nerve fibers along the spinal column to the brain. DRG stimulation therapy involves implanting a small battery device, typically in the abdomen or buttock, and running thin insulated wires, called leads, near the DRG. The leads deliver electrical pulses to the nerves, which block pain signals from traveling to the spinal cord and the brain thereby reducing pain in specific locations in the body.
Industry News
Cardinal Health and Ember Technologies partner to transform the pharmaceutical cold chain
Cardinal Health and Ember Technologies, Inc., announced a partnership to offer “the world’s first self-refrigerated, cloud-based shipping box – the Ember Cube,” according to a release. Ember and Cardinal Health will collaborate to deliver a cold chain solution that ensures product integrity and security throughout the supply chain, while significantly reducing shipping waste in the transport of temperature-sensitive medicines.
The Ember Cube is a digital shipping box that features cloud-based temperature reporting, GPS location tracking, and return-to-sender technology, versus the current industry standard for transporting temperature-sensitive medicine which includes single-use ice packs, Styrofoam, and cardboard. The Ember Cube uses an onboard cellular radio to report real-time temperature and humidity tracking and GPS location information that can be viewed via Ember’s proprietary cloud-based dashboard. This patented technology allows for precision control, so medicines and vaccines arrive at the required temperature range, ready for use.
Cardinal Health plays a leading and critical role in delivering logistics solutions for specialty pharmaceutical products, which often have unique temperature requirements. As global spending on cold-chain pharmaceutical products grows to more than $21 billion by 2024, it will be increasingly critical to support the market with secure and sustainable cold storage solutions. Through its partnership with Ember, Cardinal Health will leverage its technology infrastructure and national presence as a leading distributor of pharmaceutical and medical products to hospitals, pharmacies, and physician clinics to deploy Ember’s cold chain technology, ensuring patients can access life-saving therapies.
Ember’s return-to-sender technology allows each Ember Cube to be reused hundreds of times, reducing waste, and eliminating single-use packaging. Once a healthcare provider has received its shipment of medicine, the Ember Cube uses its built-in cellular radio to communicate with the shipping service to schedule a pick-up, automatically providing its current GPS location. Once the Ember Cube notifies the shipping service that it is ready to be picked up, it generates a new shipping label on its e-ink screen and is returned to Cardinal Health’s distribution center.
Healthcare providers expand into shopping malls, replacing anchor retail tenants
According to a recent Wall Street Journal report, the Marketplace Mall in Rochester, N.Y., has a food court, arcade games and plenty of fashion boutiques. Soon, it will perform hip replacements and rotator cuff surgeries, too. A closed Sears department store and an adjacent wing of the mall are being reborn as a roughly 350,000-square-foot orthopedic healthcare campus. It will include operating rooms, outpatient facilities and medical and administrative offices. The University of Rochester Medical Center’s $227 million project is part of the recent boom in mall-to-medical conversions. Malls have long been home to urgent-care facilities or doctor’s offices. But in recent years more property owners have started turning entire sections over to hospitals or clusters of
medical tenants.
B. Braun receives FDA approval of Daytona Beach pharmaceutical manufacturing site
B. Braun Medical announced that the company has received final approval by the FDA for its new pharmaceutical manufacturing plant in Daytona Beach, Florida. The site will produce 0.9% Sodium Chloride for Injection available in B. Braun’s Excel® Plus IV Bags in 1,000 mL and 500 mL sizes. Consistent with B. Braun’s decades-long commitment to protect patients from exposure to harmful chemicals, the Excel Plus IV bags are not made with PVC, DEHP or natural rubber latex.
The new Daytona Beach facility is part of B. Braun’s commitment to invest over $1 billion dollars to alleviate IV fluid shortages by creating additional supply and manufacturing capacity in the United States, the company said. Together with B. Braun’s existing IV solutions plant in Irvine, CA, the company now has strategic manufacturing locations on both coasts.
“FDA approval of our state-of-the-art pharmaceutical manufacturing plant in Daytona Beach is a win for patients across the United States,” said Jean-Claude Dubacher, Chairman and CEO of B. Braun of America. “By investing in domestic manufacturing, we are helping to ensure a reliable and consistent supply of vital IV fluids that healthcare providers rely on to treat patients, especially as COVID-19 continues to endanger our communities.”
Delivery of products from the Daytona Beach facility are expected to begin in late February.
Medicare ACO participation falls flat in 2022
The number of accountable care organizations (ACOs) in the Medicare Shared Savings Program (MSSP), the country’s dominant value-based payment program, only modestly increased to 483 in 2022. “Following multiple years of flat or declining ACO growth, the announcement is disappointing and should send a wake-up call to an administration whose goal is to have all traditional Medicare patients in an accountable care model by 2030,” the National Association of ACOs (NAACOS) said in a release. There are still fewer patients in ACOs and ACOs in the program than there were in 2020.
There are 46 ACOs starting their first initial agreement period this year, but of these many have previous experience in Medicare ACO programs, including the now-expired Next Generation ACO Model. The MSSP hasn’t rebounded from where ACO participation was before CMS’s 2018 rulemaking, dubbed “Pathways to Success,” that forced more ACOs into risk. Following a high of 561 MSSP ACOs in 2018, participation fell the next two years and to 477 in 2021. Last year, the CMS Innovation Center set a goal to have all traditional Medicare beneficiaries in a care relationship with a provider who is accountable for their quality and total cost of care by 2030. That includes ACOs, and while it’s a lofty goal, it’s one NAACOS strongly supports, but it won’t get there with just wishful thinking. Action is needed to increase participation in ACOs.
NAACOS has offered several suggestions to attract new ACOs while retaining existing ones, including increasing ACO shared savings rates, fixing key benchmarking and risk adjustment issues, allowing more time before requiring risk, minimizing administrative burdens, rethinking quality reporting requirements, and providing more timely and complete data.
PDI announces strategic partnership with APIC
PDI has announced a strategic partnership with the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC) for 2022. APIC is the leading association for infection prevention and control (IPC) professionals, with more than 15,000 infection preventionist (IP) members.
The APIC Strategic Partner program establishes long-term relationships with industry partners united in the common goal of advancing the science and practice of infection prevention and control in healthcare facilities and beyond. APIC Strategic Partners play an important role in supporting many of the educational initiatives and services that benefit APIC’s membership, which is comprised of nurses, physicians, epidemiologists, microbiologists, public health professionals and other individuals dedicated to preventing the spread of infection.
“PDI is pleased to support APIC as a Strategic Partner this year,” Keith H. St. John, MS, CIC, FAPIC, Vice President, Clinical Affairs, PDI said. “We trust our continued partnership over the past several years helps strengthen APIC’s efforts to create a safer world through the prevention of infection.”
Could port congestion ease in first half of 2022?
A report from Supply & Demand Chain Executive says that imports at the nation’s most congested container ports are expected to grow in the first half of 2022.
“We’re not going to see the dramatic growth in imports we saw this time last year, but the fact that volumes aren’t falling is a clear sign of continued consumer demand,” NRF VP for supply chain and customs policy Jonathan Gold says. “Last year set a new bar for imports, and the numbers remain high as consumers continue to spend despite COVID-19 and inflation. The slowdown in cargo growth will be welcome as the supply chain continues to try to adapt to these elevated volumes. Unfortunately, many experts expect ongoing disruptions throughout 2022 for a variety of reasons.”
Congestion has stayed consistent on both coasts; the Port of Los Angeles alone has about 40 ships waiting to dock. With more ships arriving each day and further delays pushing the unloading of cargo until the following month, shifts in import patterns can be difficult to follow. Global Port Tracker reports that U.S. ports are expected to handle 13 million TEUs during the first half of 2022, up 1.5% from the 12.8 million TEUs from the same period in 2021.
Health o meter Professional Scales’ introduces digital and mechanical height rod options for antimicrobial digital platform scale
Health o meter® Professional Scales has announced two new height rod options for the Antimicrobial 3001 series scales, a digital height rod 245EHR-3001 and an enhanced mechanical height rod 3001HR. Both height rods have quick and easy to assemble brackets. The 245EHR-3001 market-leading digital height rod provides the most accurate height measurement in its class, with a graduation/resolution of 1mm / 0.1” and a full measuring range of 11 ¾” – 79 ½” / 30cm – 202cm. The new accessory uses solid-state technology, which provides a facility confidence that a patient’s height will be measured accurately, and workflow will not be interrupted. The built-in reset feature increases accuracy and reliability, and the folding headpiece limits the height rod’s profile, providing safety to patients and caregivers.
The 3001HR is a durable aluminum height rod that withstands frequent use, and rigorous laboratory testing shows that it lasts 2 ½ times longer than similar products. The easy-to-use smooth sliding headpiece and telescoping rod allow the caregiver to read the height measurement quickly and easily. The folding headpiece limits the height rod’s profile, providing safety to patients and caregivers. The 3001HR has an extensive measuring range of 2”-90” in 1/16” increments (6 cm-230cm in 1mm increments). The 245EHR-3001 and the 3001HR are available for purchase exclusively through Health o meter Professional Scales authorized distributors.