Business News

Hospira Acquires Sculptor

Thursday 01. May 2008 - Acquisition Provides Bar Code Point-of-Care Technology to Enhance Patient Safety and Clinician Workflow Capabilities

Hospira, Inc. (NYSE:HSP), a global specialty pharmaceutical and medication delivery company, and St. Clair Health Corporation, today announced that Hospira has acquired Sculptor Developmental Technologies, a subsidiary of St. Clair Health Corporation. Sculptor is a leading software engineering company formed by St. Clair Hospital in 1993 to advance the use of technology to improve patient care. As part of a related arrangement, St. Clair Hospital will serve as a development and test site for Hospira medication management products.

“Acquiring Sculptor expands Hospira’s ability to offer device and software solutions that enhance safety and productivity,” said Chris Kolber, president, Global Devices, Hospira. “Their approach to developing products designed by clinicians, for clinicians, results in high adoption rates and an immediate impact to patient safety and clinician efficiency.”

Sculptor developed VeriScan Rx, a software application that supports bar code medication administration at the point of care. It is designed to streamline the medication administration process to enhance patient safety and clinician workflow.

According to the Institute of Medicine (IOM), medication errors impact 1.5 million people in the United States per year. Bar code enabled systems are becoming increasingly important to addressing medication errors by verifying the “five rights” of medication administration: right medication, right dose, right patient, right time and right route of administration.

“This acquisition brings together two leaders in healthcare IT — Hospira has led the industry in barcoding medications and infusion technology; and St. Clair, through Sculptor, was the first hospital in the country to combine barcoding and RFID in a single mobile device for the real-time workflow needs of clinical staff,” said Richard Schaeffer, vice president and chief information officer, St. Clair Hospital.

The acquisition of Sculptor supports Hospira’s approach of interfacing its products with other technologies to meet the evolving needs of hospitals. Hospira currently partners with several leading hospital information system providers to establish communications between their applications and its own. These companies include Cerner Corp., McKesson Corporation and Siemens Medical Solutions.

Financial details of the Sculptor agreement were not disclosed.