Cardinal Health Acquires Medical Analytics Firm, MedMined

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. -- Cardinal Health, a provider of products and services supporting the healthcare industry, today announced the acquisition of privately held medical analytics firm, MedMined, Inc., a provider of technology and services that identify and prevent hospital-acquired infections (HAIs).

The acquisition will immediately extend Cardinal Healths portfolio of patient safety solutions in the areas of HAIs and antimicrobial management. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

HAIs directly affect patient outcomes and are estimated to cost the healthcare industry billions of dollars each year. Current estimates are that one out of every 20 patients gets an infection as a result of hospitalization, leading to higher costs, longer hospital stays and a greater risk of death. Beginning in 2008, Medicare will no longer reimburse hospitals for expenses associated with HAIs.

Using patented data-mining methods to analyze real time clinical data, MedMined helps identify specific opportunities to manage infections and change processes to prevent future infections. The data may also be used to efficiently report infection rates, enabling hospitals to provide the public with meaningful information from which to make comparisons. Many hospitals using MedMined's Data Mining Surveillance® service have achieved a significant financial return in the first year of use by improving practices, reducing infection rates and lowering variable, non- reimbursed costs.

MedMined services are currently used in approximately 185 hospitals in more than 25 states and are made available to local hospitals for quality initiatives through Blue Cross Blue Shield in six states: Alabama, California, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York and Texas.

Hospitals have a long history of striving to prevent infections and MedMineds techniques now provide them with information that complement their safety initiatives and support measurable improvements, said David Schlotterbeck, chief executive officer of pharmaceutical and medical products for Cardinal Health.

MedMined advances Cardinal Healths long-standing commitment to help our hospital partners improve safety by reducing variations in clinical practices. There are significant opportunities to extend MedMineds data-mining and technology-based services to the medication management solutions we offer today with our Alaris and Pyxis products.

Stephen Brossette, president of MedMinded added, We are very excited to join one of the worlds premier healthcare companies. Cardinal Health shares our vision for patient safety and already has leading medication safety and outcomes measurement offerings that fit well with our HAI solutions. Given Cardinal Healths breadth and depth of knowledge and experience in managing medications in hospitals, we expect to find additional opportunities to apply our patented data-mining methods to deliver value to customers.