BD, UniteOR Partner to Deliver an Integrated Tracking Solution for the Operating Room

BD (Becton, Dickinson and Company) and UniteOR Inc. have announced the integration between BD’s IMPRESS instrument management system and UniteOR’s cloud-based surgical tray tracking and vendor management solution. The combination is expected to enable greater visibility of surgical tray management to healthcare workers in the operating room (OR) and sterile processing department.
 
Vendor loaned trays, predominantly in the orthopedic, spine and neurological specialties can be delivered to hospitals without advanced notice to the health care workers who are responsible for ensuring the efficiency of the equipment for patient use. The integration of the IMPRESS Software Platform from BD and the UniteOR platform will give hospital management greater visibility in this process that significantly impacts the daily work requirement in the sterile processing department.
 
“This integrated approach is designed to help decrease time spent tracking the location of surgical instruments and trays and allow OR staff to focus more time on the patient,” said Arron Retterer, V. Mueller platform leader for BD. “This new collaboration with UniteOR enables BD to offer a truly integrated approach for the complex challenges that hospitals and health systems face surrounding surgical tracking.”
 
The joint solution will share surgery case and procedure-specific information between the UniteOR and IMPRESS platforms, including vendor tray requirements for scheduled surgical procedures such as set images, instruction for use (IFU) documentation, and expected delivery time of the assets to the facility. Through the sterile processing of vendor trays, the IMPRESS system will provide the UniteOR platform with up-to-date location and sterility information about the tray, which will be available to hospitals and their IT partners via a web-based user interface and on mobile devices. Upon the completion of a surgery case or procedure, the solution will allow the UniteOR platform to alert healthcare workers that assets are ready for pick-up from the hospital. This joint solution will be available worldwide in June 2017.
 
“This relationship represents the industry’s first total solution of its kind based on our mutual understanding of hospitals’ complex requirements when it comes to the full cycle of surgical tray management,” said Nam D. Vo, CEO of UniteOR. “We believe this partnership with BD will help hospitals and health systems meet current regulatory challenges and help to drive down the cost of surgery. Additionally, the result of the integration between the IMPRESS tracking system and the UniteOR will complement both companies’ efforts to assist hospitals in preoperative platform improvement initiatives focused on improving patient safety and cost containment.”
 
BD is a global medical technology company that improves medical discovery, diagnostics and the delivery of care. The Franklin Lakes, N.J.-based company provides solutions that help advance medical research and genomics, enhance the diagnosis of infectious disease and cancer, improve medication management, promote infection prevention, equip surgical and interventional procedures, and support the management of diabetes. The company partners with organizations around the world to address some of the most challenging global health issues. BD has nearly 50,000 associates across 50 countries.
 
UniteOR is a cloud-based solution provider for surgical tray management designed to manage consigned (loaned and borrowed) surgical instrumentation while managing and measuring vendor compliance to increase sterile processing and operating room (OR) efficiency and improve patient safety. Based on the company’s communication platform, the solution drives a collaborative procurement process to enforce and manage stakeholders’ (including sterile processing, clinical materials management, perioperative, OR staff, and vendor representatives) compliance and accountability. UniteOR is based in Portland, Ore.