HealthTrust Expands Contract With Instrumentation Laboratory for Critical Care Portfolio to Includ...( LEXINGTON Mass. Dec. 19 /- Instru...)

LEXINGTON, Mass., Dec. 19 /PRNewswire/ -- Instrumentation Laboratory (IL) today announced that its three-year contract covering its critical care portfolio with HealthTrust Purchasing Group, LP (HealthTrust), a leading group purchasing organization, has been extended to all Consorta, Inc. members. Consorta, another leading healthcare group purchasing organization, and HealthTrust finalized an agreement that established Consorta as the sixth equity owner of HealthTrust, effective April 18, 2007. The membership of the combined organization is comprised of over 1,300 acute care facilities, including five of the ten largest healthcare systems in the country.

The contract covers IL's portfolio of critical care analyzers, reagents, consumables and service, including IL's flagship products, the new GEM(R) Premier(TM) 4000 and the GEM Premier 3000 analyzers for blood gas, electrolyte and metabolite testing. Additionally, the GEM Premier 4000 includes integrated CO-Oximetry and GEMweb(R) Plus, unique information management software for complete control of all networked analyzers. Both GEM Premier analyzers feature Intelligent Quality Management (iQM(R)), IL's patented, real-time, automated, continuous quality assurance system that helps ensure the quality of every test result while reducing costs and saving time. iQM, coupled with its cartridge-based technology and ease of use, allows the GEM Premier analyzers to be used throughout the hospital, at the point of care and in the lab. The flexibility of the many cartridge sizes and menus makes the GEM Premier analyzers ideally suited to meet the needs of HealthTrust's diverse hospital market.

"Customer satisfaction with our products and services is exceptionally high. HealthTrust and IL enjoy a very positive relationship, which will continue to grow with the addition of the entire Consorta membership," said Brian Durkin, Director of Sales and National Accounts at IL. "We continually strive to help our custo
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