Industry News

stays and 89,000 emergency room visits would be avoided, and $2.4 billion in overall health care spending would be saved in a single year.

“This study contributes to the body of evidence showing that health care systems that invest more in primary care as a proportion of their overall budget perform better on measures of quality, utilization, and cost,” researchers said.

The research was conducted by Integrated Healthcare Association, Onpoint Health Data, RAND Corporation, and Bailit Health Purchasing with support from the California Health Care Foundation, Covered California, and the Milbank Memorial Fund.

IMCO names Jay Butler as VP of Extended Care

IMCO announced that Jay Butler has been promoted to Vice President of Extended Care. He will lead IMCO’s effort in the extended care markets with IMCO’s network of independent medical supply distributors that service these accounts. Butler was previously with Nestle Healthcare prior to joining IMCO in 2018.

Cardinal Health expands medical distribution footprint in Ohio

Cardinal Health announced plans to build a 574,670 square foot medical distribution center in the Columbus, Ohio area. The new building will integrate automation and technology to work alongside Cardinal Health employees; improve safety, service and quality; deliver operational efficiencies; and better support fluctuations in volume and labor to provide customers with a predictable and stable customer experience.

“We’re building a new warehouse to meet both our customers’ current and future needs,” said James Sembrot, SVP U.S. Supply Chain at Cardinal Health. “The new facility is part of a multi-year strategy to increase U.S. warehouse capacity with expanded inventory space. By increasing our medical distribution footprint, we will provide customers another location in our network for Strategic Stock Solutions and 3PL services,” said Sembrot.

The new Columbus facility will replace Cardinal Health’s current 235,000 square foot facility in nearby Obetz, Ohio. The larger warehouse footprint and operations can accommodate a full transition of existing employees, and will create new job opportunities for the Ohio Valley market.

In partnership with Duke Realty, a leading owner, developer, and manager of logistics and industrial properties, along with its joint venture partners Columbus Regional Airport Authority and Capitol Square, Cardinal Health anticipates the new facility to be fully operational by late 2022 or early 2023.

“Our public-private partnership between the Columbus Regional Airport Authority and Capitol Square continues to drive our developments in Rickenbacker Global Logistics Park with direct access to highways, the largest dedicated cargo airport in the world and the rail intermodal terminal for Norfolk Southern,” said Ben Struewing, Duke Realty’s vice president of leasing and development for Ohio. “Columbus’ robust talent pool and centralized location make it ideal for Cardinal Health to meet its supply chain and logistics needs to further fuel their growth and success.”

Precision Medical Products announces Steve Ingel as new CEO

Precision Medical Products recently announced the appointment of Steven Ingel to President & CEO. Ingel’s official start date was April 4, 2022. At that time, he succeeded Precision Medical’s current President and CEO, Jeremy Perkins, who will remain with

Steven Ingel the company and assume the role of Executive Chairman of the Board. In this new role, Perkins will identify strategies, business opportunities, and new technology architectures to grow Precision Medical Products.

“Steve Ingel brings a wealth of medical devices and digital health experience with a well-established proven track record of driving growth, margin expansion, and overall financial performance. His broad and deep industry experience combined with his respected leadership and team-building style make him the right fit to continue our important work at Precision Medical,” said Jeremy Perkins.

BD forms Sustainable Medical Technology Institute

BD (Becton, Dickinson and Company) announced the formation of the Sustainable Medical Technology Institute, a model of practice within the organization that will bring together BD researchers and engineers, as well as quality, regulatory, policy and operational expertise, to focus on reducing the environmental impact of the company’s product portfolio in three areas, including adopting sustainable product design strategies, developing and deploying sustainable sterilization technologies, and addressing materials of concern (MOC).

The Institute will serve as an example of how the company continues to advance the world of health by prioritizing high-quality, safe products for patients, while furthering its environmental, social and governance (ESG) strategy.

“As part of our ESG strategy, we made commitments in specific areas where we see the most opportunity for BD to create meaningful, measurable change over the next decade,” said Maureen Mazurek, vice president, sustainability and environmental health and safety (EHS) at BD. “In order to achieve these commitments, we established a set of goals to track and measure our success, and this includes how to reduce the environmental impact of our product portfolio and address our customers’ sustainability needs. These priorities led us to form the Sustainable Medical Technology Institute.”

The Institute will operate in North America, Europe and Asia, and will collaborate with cross-functional teams within the company’s business units, inclusive of research and development, regulatory, quality, policy and operations roles, with the goal of ensuring accountability and a streamlined approach to sustainability efforts, as well as further address sustainability needs within the industry and global regulatory bodies.

Key initial efforts include reestablishing a set of minimum environmental and human health criteria for new products and product changes aligned with the company’s 2030+ ESG commitments and goals, and identifying new ways to reduce, reuse, recycle or replace materials. These efforts will inform the company’s product life cycle roadmap and enable adoption of a sustainable-by-design product development process.

Premier: Fluid shortages affecting large numbers of patients

Providers in the U.S. are reporting significant disruptions in the supply of pre-filled saline flush syringes, normal saline injection, and sterile water injection vials, according to Premier. The pharmaceutical space is also experiencing a fluid shortage in reconstitution, infusions, and dilutions of drugs. In early December 2020, a notice regarding the shortage of normal saline prefilled syringes and vials was published by the Infusion Nurses Society. Premier is advocating for three things to mitigate potential or impending shortages:

1. The FDA to make sourcing, quality, volume and capacity information publicly available for all medical products sold in the U.S. Different regulations for pharmaceuticals and medical devices are complicating fluid shortages, with the vials and syringes to administer saline classified as medical devices while the bags and solution are regulated as drugs. While manufacturers, hospitals and other stakeholders work to increase production capacity, a streamlined U.S. regulatory framework is needed that makes it easier to collect data, implement workarounds and guide conservation strategies for all products.

2. Outsourcing compounders to continue producing drugs based on specific criteria, such as short-term or regional shortages or demand surges for certain dosage strengths and/or packaging sizes. This proved particularly helpful throughout the pandemic, as it allowed 503B facilities to address capacity gaps and alleviate spot shortages before they became severe enough to spread nationwide.

3. The FDA to fully implement its new authorities granted under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and

Economic Security (CARES) Act – soliciting a deeper level of reporting on manufacturer quality, contingency, redundancy and risk management plans to mitigate supply disruptions.