News | April 1, 2008

Verathon Offers Enhanced BladderScan Instrument

Part Of Continued Program To Eliminate Unnecessary Catheterizations, Decrease Urinary Tract Infections And Assist In Hospital Infection Control

Bothell, WA - Verathon®, developer and manufacturer of state-of-the-art medical devices that offer improvement in patient care, is expanding their BladderScan® bladder volume instrument product line and confirming their commitment to provide innovative and practical infection control solutions to acute care facilities.

Urinary catheter-related UTIs are estimated to total over 561,000 per year and account for over 40% of all nosocomial infections. According to a recent national study in the American Journal of Medicine, these UTIs, the most common hospital-acquired infection, cost the health care system between

$424 million to $451 million annually1,2,3
BladderScan instruments, which help monitor post-operative urinary retention and evaluate common urological conditions, have been proven to reduce the rate of nosocomial UTIs by preventing unnecessary catheterizations.4

Verathon's newest device, the BladderScan BVI 9400 portable ultrasound instrument, is noninvasive, easy to use and employs patent-pending NeuralHarmonics™ technology. NeuralHarmonics technology not only improves both speed and accuracy in bladder volume measurement, but it helps achieve previously unattainable differentiation of the bladder, urine and hypo-echogenic regions, such as the uterus, thereby reducing error and minimizing uncertainty in measurements of bladder function.

Verathon is announcing a new Small Child Mode for the BVI 9400 bladder volume instrument. Small Child Mode enables health care providers to measure bladder volume noninvasively on children weighing less than 60 pounds and standing less than 48 inches high with the same instrument used for adult patients. This enhanced BladderScan BVI 9400, with color console, improved aiming, on-board video tutorials and an array of exam recording options, made its official debut at the Association of Peri-Operative Registered Nurses (AORN) conference in Anaheim, Calif., on April 1.

"With the increasing interest in infection control within the Acute Care community, the enhanced BVI 9400 not only offers health care providers a noninvasive bladder volume instrument for use across all patient age groups; it also provides a powerful and practical tool in preventing UTIs," said Gerald McMorrow, CEO, Founder and Chairman of the Board of Verathon, Inc.

Under new 2008 regulations, Medicare will no longer reimburse hospitals for treatment of preventable nosocomial catheter-associated UTIs beginning in October, driving greater need for such bladder measurement tools in hospitals nationwide.5

For more information, please visit http://www.verathon.com.

About Verathon Inc.
Verathon, formerly Diagnostic Ultrasound Corp., designs and manufactures reliable, state-of-the-art medical devices and services that offer a meaningful improvement in patient care to the health care community. The company's noninvasive BladderScan instrument is the standard of care for bladder volume measurement. The brand is found in over 60 countries in Urology and Primary Care practices, as well as Acute and Extended Care facilities. With the January 2006 acquisition of Saturn Biomedical Systems in Vancouver, Canada, Verathon entered Anesthesiology, Critical Care and Emergency markets with the GlideScope® Video Laryngoscope (GVL®) brand. Verathon is headquartered in Bothell, Washington and has over 300 employees worldwide.

References:

  1. "New Medicare Regulations Adopted to Reduce Certain Hospital Infections and Medical Errors -- Medicare Will Withhold Payments To Hospitals For Failing To Keep Patients Safe," Consumers Union news release, August 8, 2007.
  2. Saint, S., et al. "Preventing Hospital-Acquired Urinary Tract Infection in the United States: A National Study." Clinical Infectious Diseases 2008: 46; 243-56.
  3. Siegel, J., Rhinehart, E., Jackson, M., Chiarello, L., "Management of Multidrug-Resistant Organisms In Healthcare Settings, 2006", The Healthcare Infection Control Practices Advisory Committee, Centers for Disease Control. Accessed at: http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dhqp/pdf/ar/mdroGuideline2006.pdf (accessed March 15, 2008).
  4. Data on file, Verathon Inc.
  5. Federal Register, Vol. 72: 162; 47203-47205. Rules and Regulations.

SOURCE: Verathon Inc.