September 12, 2011 — Life Recovery Systems (LRS) announced it has been awarded a new three-year agreement by Premier Purchasing Partners LP (PPP), the group purchasing unit of the Premier healthcare alliance. PPP makes the ThermoSuit system available by contract to its more than 75,000 healthcare member facilities.
The award is LRS’s first group purchasing organization (GPO) contract. The agreement for patient temperature management products and accessories runs from July 1, 2011 until June 30, 2014.
Lafayette General Hospital in Lafayette, La., a Premier member hospital, has been using the ThermoSuit system since 2010. Elizabeth Weber, ICU clinical educator at Lafayette General commented, "The ThermoSuit System is fast and easy to use and we have had a number of positive outcomes with minimal or no neurological impairment."
The system uses direct liquid contact with the patient to reduce core body temperature. A thin film of ice water is circulated over the patient's body until the temperature reaches a pre-set limit, at which point the water is automatically removed from the suit. Two nurses or techs easily set up the system in about seven minutes. It cools to a therapeutic temperature of 33 degrees C in 20 to 30 minutes. The patient is then removed from the suit and remains cold for hours without further maintenance, allowing unencumbered access for imaging or treatment in the cath lab.
Patients can also be cooled in remote satellite hospitals and shipped cool to larger hospitals with specialized cardiac care facilities. After this, further maintenance and rewarming can be accomplished using a regular cooling blanket.
Robert Schock, M.D., LRS’s vice president of research and development and co-inventor of the Thermosuit system said, "The ThermoSuit system has been designed to harness the speed and efficiency of ice water immersion in a medical device which uses a small volume of water and is safe and easy to use in a medical facility."
For more information: www.life-recovery.com