Saddleback’s $22M ER Addition Set to Ease Crowding
Edwards Gets FDA OK for Heart Valve; Beckman in $175 Million Supply Deal
HEALTHCARE by Vita Reed
Saddleback Memorial Medical Center in Laguna Hills plans to begin taking patients early next month at its new $22 million emergency addition.
The facility is called the Meiklejohn Critical Care Pavilion, named for Leisure World philanthropists William and Louise Meiklejohn, who provided the lead donation.
Saddleback Memorial officials said soaring emergency patient visits necessitated the 55,000-square-foot facility. Like other South County hospitals, Saddleback has had to divert patients to other facilities because of overcrowding, said Barry Arbuckle, the hospital’s chief executive, last September.
Saddleback Memorial had originally been designed to handle 1,500 emergency cases monthly, but officials said that its emergency unit now treats nearly 2,500 patients each month, while handling an additional 500 paramedic calls.
“In South County, you have such significant population growth but relatively few hospitals,” Arbuckle said.
The new unit has monitored beds, private urgent care examination rooms, a trauma and resuscitation rooms, a radiology suite, a “fast track” system that treats patients with non-life threatening injuries and a rooftop helipad.
The pavilion will meet state seismic standards, Arbuckle said.
Saddleback Memorial has 235 total beds. It is one of three OC hospitals owned by Long Beach-based Memorial Health Services Inc. The other county facilities are Anaheim Memorial Medical Center and Orange Coast Memorial Medical Center in Fountain Valley.
Edwards Valve OK
Irvine-based Edwards Lifesciences Corp. is on its way to rolling out another heart valve.
Edwards got Food and Drug Administration approval for its Carpentier-Edwards Supra-Annular Valve, which has been available in Europe for 20 years; Edwards can start shipping the valve this month.
“We are pleased to now also offer the Carpentier-Edwards S.A.V. to our American customers who elect to implant porcine valves,” said Michael Mussallem, Edwards’ chief executive.
According to Edwards, the new valve can be implanted above a patient’s native aortic valve, rather than directly in the aortic annulus. Supra-annular placement of valves allows heart surgeons to implant a valve with a larger orifice, which results in improved hemodynamic performance vs. valves inserted within a patient’s aortic annulus.
Edwards said it was also introducing a new set of valve sizers in connection with the new valve, along with educational tools for cardiac surgeons. Edwards said that the Carpentier-Edwards valve also features XenoLogiX, a proprietary tissue treatment.
Edwards officials have emphasized research and development as a key to company growth.
Edwards spent $15.4 million, or 9.5% of sales, on research and development in the first quarter, higher than the $13.1 million, or 6.8% of sales, a year earlier.
Separately, Edwards recently celebrated the 30th anniversary of its Anasco, Puerto Rico plant, which makes its Fogarty line of embolectomy catheters, critical care products and surgical accessories.
Beckman in Premier Deal
Beckman Coulter Inc., the Fullerton-based biomedical testing company, said it signed four separate supply deals for $175 million with San Diego-based Premier Inc.
The deals include two new contracts for chemistry and immunodiagnostic instruments, test kits and supplies, along with two renewal contracts for hematology and coagulation products.
Included in the deal are Beckman’s Access 2 immunoassay system, Coulter LH 700 hematology analyzers and Synchron LX 20 Pro, a chemistry analyzer that has closed-tube sampling technology.
Premier is a national alliance of 1,600 not-for-profit hospitals that has become somewhat of a force in the purchasing arena.
Besides group purchasing, Premier’s services also include insurance programs, performance improvement measurements, healthcare informatics, clinical technology services and physician practice management services.
At one time, Robert O’Leary, now interim chief executive of Costa Mesa-based ICN Pharmaceuticals Inc., headed the company.
Bits and Pieces:
PacifiCare of Washington, a subsidiary of Santa Ana-based PacifiCare Health Systems Inc. signed a multi-year contract with Proliance Surgeons, a Seattle surgical medical group.
The three-year deal covers commercial and Medicare health maintenance organizations and preferred provider organizations … Children’s Hospital of Orange County opened the $1.3 million CHOC Cancer Institute outpatient clinic at its main campus in Orange. The 3,000-square-foot facility provides ambulatory and outpatient oncology care on a full-time basis. Last year, CHOC provided outpatient care to more than 7,500 children with cancer … Irvine-based Innova Engineering Inc. said it has developed a computer simulation program for drug delivery system components in the design process. The company says the program reduces production costs for medical device and pharmaceutical companies.
