Bristol Park, PacifiCare Sign New Contract; Chapman Gets New CEO
Beckman Coulter Inc., Fullerton, has received clearance from the Food and Drug Administration to market its new Access AccuTnI, a test to aid in the diagnosis and treatment of heart attacks.
Access AccuTnI measures levels of cardiac troponin I, a protein that’s released into the blood stream following a heart attack. The new test is one of 36 available in the United States on Beckman’s Access immunoassay platform and can be run in about 12 minutes. Additionally, Beckman noted that clinical trials found that the test had virtually no response to substances sometimes found in the blood that can cause false positive results on other tests.
Access AccuTnI is based on nearly 10 years of advances in troponin research, according to Russ Bell, vice president and director of Beckman’s immunodiagnostics development center.
“The test has been formulated using today’s knowledge of troponin I and critical information that was not available when troponin I tests were first developed,” Bell said in a news release.
“During our clinical trials, Access AccuTnI was very effective in distinguishing a healthy person, who should not have detectable levels of troponin, from someone who has troponin and therefore may have some degree of cardiac muscle damage,” said Denise Uettwiller-Geiger, administrative director of John T. Mather Memorial Hospital in Port Jefferson, N.Y. Mather was one of five independent research sites that studied the clinical effectiveness of Beckman’s new test.
Beckman also said that St. Jude Medical Center in Fullerton is slated to be one of the first hospitals in the United States to receive Access AccuTnI and start using it. St. Jude is one of three local hospitals owned by St. Joseph Health System, Orange.
Separately, Applied Medical, a privately held company based in Rancho Santa Margarita, said it received FDA marketing clearance for a medical device for use during hand-access laparoscopic surgeries. Applied Medical’s device, called GelPort, is intended to make it easier for surgeons to perform the minimally invasive but complex procedures.
Applied Medical, in a release, indicated that GelPort could increase the use of laparoscopic techniques for certain types of urological, vascular, gynecological and general surgical procedures still done via traditional open surgery.
Bristol Park Re-Signs With PacifiCare
PacifiCare of California, Cypress, signed a new contract with Bristol Park Medical, a primary care medical group that serves approximately 130,000 patients countywide. PacifiCare of California is a subsidiary of Santa Ana-based PacifiCare Health Systems Inc.
The new contract, which starts July 1, runs through 2002. It covers 100 primary care physicians serving approximately 15,000 PacifiCare members in Orange County. The deal covers Irvine Regional Hospital and Medical Center, Fountain Valley Regional Medical Center, Coastal Communities Hospital, Los Alamitos Medical Center, Western Medical Center-Santa Ana, San Clemente Hospital and West Anaheim Medical Center.
Patrick Kapsner, Bristol Park’s chief executive, said in a release that the pact allows his group to continue a relationship it’s had with PacifiCare since 1979.
New CEO at Chapman
Douglas Norris is the new chief executive of Chapman Medical Center, a 114-bed hospital in Orange. Norris replaces Maxine Cooper, now chief executive of Garden Grove Hospital and Medical Center, as the head of Chapman, one of Tenet Healthcare Corp.’s local facilities.
Norris was most recently chief operating officer of Western Medical Center-Santa Ana, another of Tenet’s 10 local hospitals. During his time at Western Medical-Santa Ana, Norris was involved in opening that hospital’s Grossman Burn Center and affiliating several medical groups. Norris’ career also includes a stint as CFO and COO/administrator of Western Medical Center-Anaheim.
Norris holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration from the University of Dayton. He is pursuing a master’s in business administration from the University of Redlands.
Bits and Pieces:
Mission Regional Imaging Center, Mission Viejo, received an Altaire high-field performance open MRI system from Hitachi Medical Systems Inc., Twinsburg, Ohio. According to Hitachi, Mission Regional Imaging Center has the first Altaire system. The center provides imaging services for Mission Hospital Regional Medical Center The OC Health Care Agency reported that new syphilis infections rose from a low of 18 cases in 1997 to 47 in 2000, an increase of 161%. The agency also said the increase appears to be continuing into this year, with 18 cases of new infection reported through March Hoag Cancer Center, Newport Beach, marked its 10th anniversary last month Micro Therapeutics Inc., Irvine, said its Onyx treatment has been used in more than 1,000 procedures worldwide Nurses at St. Mary Medical Center, Long Beach, voted for representation by the California Nurses Association Southern California Reference Laboratory, Anaheim, endorsed Lipoprint, a cholesterol testing method that improves the measurement of so-called “bad” cholesterol fractions SK & A; Information Services Inc., Irvine, released an expanded list of group medical practices and surgical center management decision makers.
