Medline gets Premier contract for surgical safety technology

Mundelein-based Medline Industries said it signed a three-year agreement with Premier Purchasing Partners — the group purchasing unit of the Premier health care alliance — for surgical sponge detection systems, which includes ClearCount technology.

The agreement ensures that Premier’s 2,500 hospital member facilities and 77,000 other health care sites have contractual access to the most comprehensive technology available for the prevention of retained surgical sponge incidents, Medline said in a statement.

“We’re very pleased to have been chosen for this contract award based on our shared values of providing great patient care while reducing overall health care costs,” said Jack Bowser, Jr., Medline’s president, Primary Care Division. “ClearCount’s innovative ‘count and detect’ Radio Frequency Identification technology provides Premier members with an effective way to improve both patient safety and operating room efficiency.”

The SmartSponge System uniquely identifies each sponge in an operating room so that they can be both easily counted and detected during surgery.