Urinalysis systems manufacturer IRIS International Inc., has signed with HealthTrust Purchasing Group LP to provide services and supplies to members of the group purchasing organization.

Beginning March 1, Chatsworth-based Iris will supply HealthTrust with its full line of automated instrumentation, including urine microscopy analyzers and urinalysis workstations, as well and related products and services.

“This new GPO agreement opens a new sales channel, which provides us concurrent access to more than 1,400 acute care hospitals and non-acute care facilities in the HealthTrust network,” said Cesar Garcia, chairman, president and CEO of IRIS.

The agreement brings the number of group purchasers marketing Iris’ urinalysis product lines to seven. The company provides coverage to more than 90 percent of hospitals nationwide, said Garcia.

The value of the contract was not immediately disclosed.

CEO George Karonis of Valencia-based GPS manufacturer LiveViewGPS, said that in his 15 years as a law enforcement officer, he often saw elderly Alzheimer’s patients who had wandered away from home. LiveView is one of several manufacturers making portable GPS devices to meet the needs of the elderly Alzheimer’s patient, along with manufacturers ZTE, Sendum and CalAmp.

With the baby boomer generation aging, the Alzheimer’s Association projects the aging Alzheimer’s affected population to continue growing from 5.3 million Americans to as many as 16 million older Americans by 2050. Two GPS tracking services, one private and for consumers, and one publicly funded through the states, have been created to meet the needs of the growing older adult population with Alzheimer’s.

The ComfortZone service, a consumer GPS tracking service through a partnership with the Alzheimer’s Association for local law enforcement and community support networks, is proactive and allows those with dementia to retain their independence. It alerts family members if dementia patients wander out of a certain perimeter. The state-initiated Silver Alerts, currently in 24 states, are designed to track elderly after they have gone missing and can lead to stories published in the media to help locate missing Alzheimer’s patients, according to Erin Heintz, spokesperson for Alzheimer’s Association.

Heintz said the SilverAlert and ComfortZone programs can work together to help Alzheimer’s patients and family members. SilverAlerts are not in effect as of yet in California. The Alzheimer’s Association is working with local law enforcement in training the officers to work with Alzheimer’s patients who have wandered off, according to Heintz.

ComfortZone’s service has an exclusive agreement with service provider OmniLink based in Georgia. ComfortZone Service packages range from about $43 to $45 monthly similar to most cell phone services. ComfortZone users can track their family member themselves or call the Help Line. Also, for a fee they can have updates sent to their cell phones via text message. The Omnilink service gets relative location based on local cell phone towers.

Originally for teens

Location Management Devices, or personal GPS systems to track humans, originated in 2006 with devices to find teens, according to LiveView.

“These GPS devices will help older adults feel like they are independent and they are not being held in their homes,” ComfortZone Help Line Specialist Mary Ellen Brooks said. “It will allow people to stay home longer. . . It also might allow people to stay at home longer before [being put in a long-term care facility].”

Brooks has worked for the helpline since August and said she has seen a steady number of calls since the beginning, although not all of the calls are tracking related.

One of Karonis’ portable GPS devices that was released in early 2009, the Live Trac PT-10, is the size of a beeper and is intended to be attached to a belt, put in a car on a purse and uses GPS technology to give latitude and longitude updates every 30 minutes. It retails for $550, with a current sale price of $399 and a $39.95 monthly plan. The PT-8100 is small enough to fit on a key chain and uses Ping technology similar to submarine Sonar to send out a signal, which bounces back to the device. It sells for $339, has a $25 activation fee and the cost is $24.95 monthly. According to Karonis, his devices are already being used in New York and in the Midwest in conjunction with the SilverAlerts system. His company sells the hardware, the device and issues a password to the family member so they can track their elderly relative. Karonis says his product might not be for late stage Alzheimer’s patients who are resistant to using the devices, but is more designed for the early-stage patient.

Some of the advantages of the LiveViewGPS portable GPS device are that the locations are stored to memory. Karonis said if he had someone in the dementia risk group he would give them one of these monitoring devices. A disadvantage of the devices is their inability to be used in water.

“This shows you that person will be OK,” Karonis said. “It gives you peace of mind and a level of comfort.”

Insurance covering these devices was discussed at the beginning of their release, according to Karonis. However, he said “since this technology is so new it could take years for the insurance companies to cover it.”

Congressman Brad Sherman announced that the House of Representatives approved $300,000 in federal appropriations funding for El Proyecto del Barrio for facilities and medical equipment at its Winnetka clinic.

“El Proyecto del Barrio sees over 80,000 patents each year,” said Sherman, (D-Sherman Oaks). “Most of these patients do not have private health insurance. I am pleased I was able to persuade my colleagues in Congress to help expand the Winnetka Clinic,”

The funding was included as part of the conference report for the Consolidated Appropriations Act for the 2010 fiscal year. However, the legislation requires Senate approval before being sent to the President Barack Obama for his signature.

The new appropriation, should it pass, would augment $333,000 Sherman secured for the Winnetka clinic last March. Those funds were directed toward the purchase of an electronic medical records system to improve the accuracy, accessibility and quality of patient care.

Amgen Inc. entered into a $60 million deal for exclusive rights to a Type 2 diabetes drug from a Colorado biopharmaceutical company.

Array BioPharma Inc. will receive the $60 million payment upfront and receive additional payments from Thousand Oaks-based Amgen for clinical and commercial milestones.

Array will complete the phase 1 trials for its drug with Amgen conducting further clinical development and commercialization.

“Type 2 diabetes has long been an important focus of research for Amgen, and the addition of ARRY-403 clearly strengthens our diabetes pipeline,” said Dr. Roger Perlmutter. the company’s executive vice president of research and development

Over the past four months, three Valley hospitals announced that they were cutting staffers and departments, alike.

It began in September when Glendale Memorial Hospital decided to drop its Behavioral health Services department and outpatient women’s clinic. As many as 100 employees were affected by the closures.

Then, in October, Valley Presbyterian Hospital in Van Nuys parted ways with 35 staffers. Most recently, Providence Saint Joseph Medical Center in Burbank announced Jan. 20 that it was cutting 94 staffers and closing five programs.

Each hospital downplayed the significance of cuts made. In particular, representatives of Glendale Memorial Hospital and Saint Joseph Medical Center stressed that Valley residents could access such services elsewhere.
Considered collectively, though, are the cuts indicative of an ominous future for health care in the Valley?

Yes and no, said Jim Lott, executive vice president of the Hospital Association of Southern California.

“This is the time of year where hospitals look to make…budget corrections. That’s not unusual at all,” Lott said.

At Saint Joseph, cuts include the cardiac rehabilitation program and transitional care unit. Also on the chopping block are the off-site urgent care, occupational health and diabetic foot centers.

“We will help those people find other facilities in the area, including at one of our own facilities, Saint Elizabeth Care Center in North Hollywood,” spokeswoman Patricia Aidem said. “There is some crossover between transition care and convalescent care.”

Saint Elizabeth and other area medical centers may find it challenging to absorb the cuts made by nearby hospitals. Saint Elizabeth, for one, only has 52 beds.

The ability of Valley health care centers to compensate for the cuts others have made isn’t the only concern.

Lott said that he is worried about the Economic pressures that have forced hospitals to make cuts.

Specifically, he fears that the economic downturn may result in hospitals dealing with a flood of uninsured patients. He estimates that between 17 and 25 percent of patients in the Valley are currently uninsured, a figure that could rise if the recession worsens.

Satisfaction with health care coverage and customer service contributed to Kaiser Foundation health Plan ranking the highest in California in a study done by J.D. Power and Associates.

This was the second year in a row that the Kaiser Foundation Health Plan achieved a top ranking in the 2009 National Health Insurance Plan Study. The study measures satisfaction among 131 health plans in 17 regions throughout the country.

The study looks at coverage and benefits; provider choice; information and communication; claims processing; statements; customer service; and approval processes.

People are looking into what options they have for health care while at the same time health plans risk losing members as some companies strive to cut costs by switching health plans, ,” said Jim Dougherty, executive director of the healthcare practice at Westlake Village-based J.D. Power and Associates.

“In light of heightened consumer scrutiny and the increased likelihood of switching, many health plans appear to be focusing on member satisfaction more than ever before as a means of retaining members,” Dougherty said.

Kaiser Foundation Health Plan achieves a score of 769 on a 1,000-point scale in 2009, performing particularly well in five of seven factors: coverage and benefits; information and communication; statements; customer service; and approval processes.

Recent statements from the U.S. Attorney General have local commercial real estate brokers scrambling to respond to a surge of interest in locations for medical marijuana dispensaries.

But some say landlords should be mindful of the pitfalls of renting space to this type of tenant.

“I think it’s a bad move to lease to them,” said Richard Leyner, senior vice president at NAI Capital. “I advise my clients against it.”

He cited a variety of reasons why he gives that advice, not the least of which is the criminal element. Leyner also added that the pungent smell of the herb, even when it is not being smoked, can permeate a building and cause complaints from other lessees.

He also cautions landlords about the problems they might have with the federal Drug Enforcement Agency, notwithstanding the new administration’s statements that they would make good on President Obama’s campaign promise to end punitive federal DEA raids on medical marijuana facilities in California.

“The government said they’re going to let it go at this time,” said Leyner. “They didn’t say the law (making the sale of marijuana a federal crime) was no longer on their books.”

The DEA’s raid of a San Francisco-licensed facility subsequent to Attorney General Eric Holder’s announcement in February bolsters Leyner’s point.

Not only that, but the dispensaries operate now in a foggy gray area of regulatory mish-mash. Rather than trying to close clinics directly, the DEA has generally focused its efforts to quash the problem by targeting landlords.

Letters are sent to those who own buildings housing dispensaries telling them they may be subject to criminal prosecution and seizure of their property and other assets if they continue to allow the marijuana centers to stay onsite.

The state Attorney General has developed “guidelines” for how the facilities are to be sited and operated, and Los Angeles County has amended its zoning rules to allow the clinics in commercial and manufacturing zones and has guidelines for signage, security, lighting, etc.; but the City of Los Angeles has officially had a moratorium on new dispensaries since November 2007. Regulations are being worked on right now by the City Council and others that are hoped to be in effect by the time the moratorium expires in six months.

The moratorium certainly hasn’t stopped the proliferation of the facilities. There are at least 70 medical marijuana dispensaries or “cooperatives” in the San Fernando Valley, according to Los Angeles Deputy Police Chief Michel Moore. The California NORML (National Organization For The Reform Of Marijuana Laws) website shows Van Nuys as the capital, with more than triple the number of sites (17 total) than any other in the 818 area code.

Landlords should take the crime factor very seriously, said Moore.