Global
health company Hospira has acquired Pittsburgh-based Sculptor Developmental Technologies Inc. in a deal that will keep the company in the region and expand
Sculptor as a leading-edge research center for medication management products.
Sculptor,
a subsidiary of St. Clair Health Corp., will remain at Southpointe in
Canonsburg. Hospira’s immediate plans call for a global product launch and
growth of the Sculptor team, says Richard Schaeffer, vice
president and CIO of St. Clair Hospital. Details on hiring were not made available.
Sculptor,
a software engineering company, was founded quietly in 1993 at St. Clair Hospital, a 329-bed acute community hospital located in Mt. Lebanon. Its
pioneering patient safety platform, the VeriScan Rx Medication Administration
System, was the first hand held system to incorporate both barcode scanning and
Radio Frequency Identification (RFID), Schaeffer explains.
The
system works through a single, handheld device, which is used by clinicians to
check medications with patient’s wristbands to help prevent error during
administration. More than 125 hospitals in the U.S., Canada and Europe use
Sculptor’s bedside patient safety platform.
Lake
Forest, Ill.-based Hospira is a leading manufacturer of hospital products,
including specialty injectables and medical management systems. The company, a
spinout of Abbott Laboratories, has 15,000 employees worldwide and had reported
sales of $3.4 billion in 2007.
The
acquisition will facilitate further development of safety platforms to enhance
Hospira’s line of infusion pumps, as well as other medical products.
“It will be quite a breakthrough,” says
Schaeffer. “There’s no other technology out there that takes the status of the
patient’s infusion and puts it on a handheld so nurses can monitor a patient
even when they are not in the room.”
Each
year some 98,000 Americans die from a variety of medical errors, adding $3.5 billion to the cost of healthcare. St.
Clair Hospital’s focus on patient safety has garnered it accolades, ranking it among the top five percent of hospitals
nationally by HealthGrades for patient safety outcomes, the only western
Pennsylvania hospital to receive the award for three consecutive years.
Writer:
Debra Smit
Source:
Richard Schaeffer, St. Clair Hospital, and Linda Topoleski
Image courtesy of Sculptor Developmental Technologies