Cardinal Health, Patient Safety Technologies Enter Into Exclusive Distribution Agreement For SurgiCount™ Surgical Safety Products

To date, Patient Safety Technologies and Cardinal Health have shipped more than 20 million SurgiCount Safety-Sponges that have been used in more than 700,000 procedures without a single undetected retained event.

"We are delighted to extend our relationship with Cardinal Health," said Steven H. Kane, president and chief executive officer of Patient Safety Technologies. "This expanded co-marketing relationship will enable us to accelerate the rate of market adoption of our Safety-Sponge System and advance our goal of becoming the clinical standard of care in the hospital marketplace."

The Safety-Sponge System is a complete and comprehensive sponge counting and documentation system designed to dramatically increase the accuracy of sponge counts performed in hospitals. SurgiCount labels each sponge with a unique serial number embedded in a data matrix bar code. A SurgiCounter is then used to scan and record the bar codes during the initial and final counts. Because each sponge is identified with a unique code, the SurgiCounter will not allow the same sponge to be counted more than once, leaving the user with a far more accurate and valid sponge count.