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Special thanks to IBD Online for the following article. A portion follows: SABRATEK CORP. Niles, Illinois Drug Infusion Pumps Cut Costs Via Modem Date: 2/11/97 Author: By Laura B. Benko A woman with a back injury is suffering from severe chronic pain. Her doctor decides that a higher dosage of morphine is needed, so he reprograms the woman's bedside intravenous pump to deliver more of the drug into her arm. It's the kind of consultation that takes place in medicine all the time. But in this case, the patient and pump are at home. The doctor is at the Cleveland Clinic 20 miles away. They interact via telephone modem. Sabratek Corp. is pioneering this technique, called telemedicine, for infusion therapy. The goal is to help doctors and clinics ensure proper care while cutting down on costly house calls. ''Our mission is to build a virtual hospital room . . . where certain kinds of health care are delivered and monitored from remote sites,'' said company CEO Shan Padda. Sabratek makes infusion pumps for use in ''alternate sites,'' including nursing homes, outpatient centers and patients' homes. Infusion pumps deliver fluids, such as cancer drugs, antibiotics and nutrition, into patients intravenously. What makes the pumps unique are their modem capabilities. Using the company's interactive software, called MediView, doctors can control the pumps and track patients' progress from a PC at the hospital. The software stores six months of data per person. It gives patients a sense of security, reassures nurses that their patients are getting proper care between their regular visits, and helps HMOs verify the services they're being billed for are actually being provided, he said. The system also helps alternate sites save a lot of money by cutting ''soft costs'' - namely, nurse training and travel time. Typically, pumps and drugs account for just 35% of the total cost of infusion therapy. The remaining 65% is soft costs. The alternate-site market is mushrooming now that managed-care companies are treating more patients in lower-cost settings instead of hospitals. These sites are expected to spend $7.9 billion on infusion therapy this year, up from just $3.2 billion in 1992. Sales should continue to grow roughly 20% a year through 2000, analysts said. In September, it inked an exclusive, five-year deal to provide pumps and software to Omnicare Inc., the nation's largest provider of pharmacy services to the outpatient market. In December, it won a three-year contract from the Cleveland Clinic's pain management program. ' Sabratek is also working on devices that let doctors use MediView to monitor patients' vital signs - temperature, pulse, blood pressure and blood-gas levels. The first of these could hit the market in 1998, Padda said. Currently, Sabratek's main products include the 3030 stationary pump for bedridden patients and the 6060 ambulatory pump, which mobile patients can carry on their belts or in a shoulder pouch. Recently, the company launched a new diagnostic device, called the PumpMaster, which tests and recalibrates pumps so that clinics don't have to send them to labs for servicing. The company has 10,000 pumps installed worldwide, with 20% of its sales abroad. Each pump costs roughly $4,000. Several big-name companies, such as Abbott Laboratories, Baxter International Inc., Ivac Corp. and Sims Deltec Inc. , make infusion systems, too. But Sabratek's focus on telemedicine could give it a leg up on the competition, Wise said. Sabratek raised $28 million in June through an initial public offering of roughly three million shares. Its stock has almost doubled to about 20 since then. The shares trade by SBTK. (C) Copyright 1997 Investors Business Daily, Inc. Any and all comments/contributions are appreciated. DD | ||||||||||||
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