Reducing exposure for everyone who seeks treatment has proven to be crucial to flattening the curve. (We) are working diligently to do our part to reduce potential exposures in this national hotspot.

LIVONIA, Mich. (PRWEB)
May 21, 2020

Sometimes referred to as FURI (Fever, Upper Respiratory Illness) Clinics, or “fever” clinics, these specialized facilities serve those who have suspected COVID-19 or other infectious diseases in an outpatient setting.

FURI clinics keep people who are experiencing symptoms of fever, runny nose, cough, or an upper respiratory tract illness out of the emergency room and doctor offices. By treating and assessing these patients in an outpatient clinical setting apart from others who may be experiencing life-threatening or serious conditions not related to COVID-19, FURI clinics help maintain social distancing and reduce potential exposure. Trinity Health is currently operating 60 FURI clinics across 13 different states.

“Many of our primary care offices currently aren’t seeing patients with fevers and upper respiratory infections, so this is where we step in as the FURI clinic,” said Shanta Compton, practice manager, Trinity Health Of New England Medical Group Farmington Primary Care. Before the pandemic hit the East Coast, Compton and her team operated Farmington as a primary care office. In addition to Farmington there are three other FURI clinics, Hartford, Cheshire, and Westfield, Massachusetts, which opened in March and early April 2020 to serve patients.

Getting into a FURI Clinic at Trinity Health Of New England is easy. No walk-ins are accepted, but patients with a fever and/or upper respiratory illness can either call their primary care physician office or directly call the clinics to check their symptoms and to schedule an appointment. People do not have to be a current patient of Trinity Health Of New England.

“We get them in as soon as possible, as we know they aren’t feeling well,” said Gennesis Jimenez, medical assistant, Farmington. Trinity Health Of New England’s four FURI clinics can assess and treat potentially large numbers of people with appropriate levels of infection control.

“When we schedule the appointments, we ask people their make and model of car and greet them in reserved parking spots just outside the FURI clinic,” said Compton. “We escort them in, reducing exposure to others.”

“FURI clinics demonstrate our strong commitment to the mission and core values of Trinity Health Of New England through the delivery of people-centered care,” said Manjula Cherukuri, M.D., MBA, FAAFP, medical director, Trinity Health Of New England Medical Group.

In the Midwest, within days of Michigan’s first case of COVID-19, the multi-specialty physician group IHA restructured its Urgent Care centers to open four FURI clinics at the heart of a national hot spot, Southeast Michigan. One IHA-run Urgent Care also continues to see patients without COVID symptoms, reducing exposure to those patients.

“Studies out of China have indicated that much of their COVID spread occurred in health care settings, so reducing exposure for everyone who seeks treatment has proven to be crucial to flattening the curve,” said Matthew Ajluni, D.O., Division Head Urgent Care, Occupational Medicine & Virtual Medicine, IHA. “IHA and Trinity Health are working diligently to do our part to reduce potential exposures in this national hotspot.”

Since mid-April, IHA has also begun “parking lot” COVID-19 testing at its FURI Urgent Cares, IHA Urgent Care at Eastern Michigan University, IHA Urgent Care at Schoolcraft College, and IHA Urgent Care at East Brighton, where patients do not even leave their cars for an assessment. Since the beginning of the FURI clinics, IHA has had “parking lot waiting rooms,” so patients don’t sit among others who may or may not have COVID-19.

FURI clinics are also staffed by people dedicated to this one task, so expertise is concentrated in one location.

“I’m happy to be doing this,” said Compton. “We are a very open-minded group, and we are covered in PPE.”

“There is no playbook to use for COVID-19,” said Ajluni. “We have gleaned some insights from some high-performing groups in the state of Washington, and we continue to deliver high-quality care, keeping our patients and our staff safe.”

FURI clinics are part of a broad, emergency health response to the coronavirus that include COVID-19 drive-through testing centers, virtual visits, as well as screening and testing all patients and limiting visitors.

“We have been able to bolster our virtual, online visits, with 500-700 virtual visits daily during March and early April,” said Ajluni.

While virtual medical visits and telehealth are important for maintaining social distancing, “you can’t listen to a person’s lungs over the phone or computer,” said Compton. “The FURI clinics are a vital service for our communities.”

After a physical assessment by a medical practitioner, the patients can then be referred for COVID-19 testing if needed. “The staff calls the testing center, or sometimes we walk patients down to the actual testing center, as they are close by,” said Compton.

In addition to the initial screening for potential COVID-19, the FURI clinics of Trinity Health Of New England are also responsible for the transitional care of COVID-19 patients discharged from Saint Francis Hospital and Medical Center. “We schedule their follow-up appointments and check in with these patients regularly to make sure they are continually improving at home,” said Compton.

By keeping the follow-up care inside the FURI clinic, Trinity Health Of New England hopes to further reduce exposure to others.

“Short of the emergency room or the hospital, we are the place where people can come when they are really sick,” said Compton.

To learn more about the FURI clinics of Trinity Health Of New England, please visit: https://www.trinityhealthofne.org/furi-clinics. To learn more about the FURI clinics and telehealth services at IHA, please visit http://www.ihacares.com.

To learn more about what Trinity Health is doing to serve our communities during COVID-19, please visit http://www.trinity-health.org/coronavirus.

About Trinity Health

Trinity Health is one of the largest multi-institutional Catholic health care delivery systems in the nation, serving diverse communities that include more than 30 million people across 22 states. Trinity Health includes 92 hospitals, as well as 106 continuing care locations that include PACE programs, senior living facilities and home care and hospice services. Its continuing care programs provide nearly 2.5 million visits annually. Based in Livonia, Michigan, and with annual operating revenues of $19.3 billion and assets of $27 billion, the organization returns $1.2 billion to its communities annually in the form of charity care and other community benefit programs. Trinity Health employs about 125,000 colleagues, including about 7,500 employed physicians and clinicians. For more information, visit http://www.trinity-health.org. You can also follow us on Facebook or Twitter.

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Catalent’s New Facility in Minakuchi, Japan

This new facility provides much-needed capacity as we look to expand our capabilities across the Asia-Pacific region, and follows on from recent expansions and investments we have made in our clinical supply business in China and Singapore

SOMERSET, N.J. (PRWEB)
May 21, 2020

Catalent, a global leader in clinical supply services, today announced a deal to acquire a clinical packaging facility in Minakuchi, located in the Shiga prefecture of Japan, from Teva-Takeda Pharmaceuticals, Nagoya Aichi, Japan. This purchase will establish a new clinical GMP manufacturing and distribution hub to support clinical studies. Financial details of the deal, which is expected to close on July 1, 2020, have not been disclosed.

The 60,000-square-foot facility will be the largest in the company’s Asia Pacific clinical supply network. The new facility will offer customers access to Catalent’s FastChain® demand-led supply services, primary and secondary packaging capabilities, a range of temperature options for storage and distribution, as well as clinical returns and destruction services. It will operate in partnership with Catalent’s existing Japanese clinical supply facility at Kakegawa, serving both local customers as well as global biotech and pharmaceutical companies.

“This new facility provides much-needed capacity as we look to expand our capabilities across the Asia-Pacific region, and follows on from recent expansions and investments we have made in our clinical supply business in China and Singapore,” commented Ricci Whitlow, President, Catalent Clinical Supply Services. “Our strategy has been to build expertise and capacity in this region as demand for local clinical supply services increases, to provide support to customers with global programs, and to meet the growing demand in biologics and cell and gene therapy studies.”

With sites in the U.S., U.K., Germany, Singapore, Japan and China, and an extended network of over 50 depots, Catalent’s clinical supply services can handle a broad range of international compliance and distribution requirements to support global clinical trials.

For further information on Catalent’s Clinical Supply Services business visit https://www.clinical.catalent.com.

About Catalent Clinical Supply Services

Catalent is a global leader in clinical supply services, with comprehensive and flexible solutions for small molecules, biologics, and cell and gene therapies and integrated solutions to accelerate speed to clinic. Catalent offers a full range services including clinical supply management, comprehensive packaging solutions, comparator sourcing, cold chain storage and global distribution and specialized supply chain services including direct-to-patient and demand-led supply. With nine GMP clinical packaging facilities and over 50 strategically located depots on six continents combined with more than 25 years’ experience across thousands of studies in more than 80 countries, Catalent has the comprehensive services, global scale and expertise necessary to reliably supply clinical trials of all sizes and complexity anywhere in the world.

About Catalent

Catalent is the leading global provider of advanced delivery technologies, development, and manufacturing solutions for drugs, biologics, cell and gene therapies, and consumer health products. With over 85 years serving the industry, Catalent has proven expertise in bringing more customer products to market faster, enhancing product performance and ensuring reliable global clinical and commercial product supply. Catalent employs over 13,500 people, including over 2,400 scientists and technicians, at more than 40 facilities, and in fiscal year 2019 generated over $2.5 billion in annual revenue. Catalent is headquartered in Somerset, New Jersey. For more information, visit http://www.catalent.com

More products. Better treatments. Reliably supplied.™

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“As an organization, we remain committed to being a powerful part of the solution during the COVID-19 crisis by sharing our data, maps, and deep analytics with the governmental departments, organizations, providers, and clients who need them most,” said Jason Krantz, CEO of Definitive Healthcare.

FRAMINGHAM, Mass. (PRWEB)
May 20, 2020

Definitive Healthcare, the leading provider of data, intelligence, and analytics on the healthcare provider market, today announced that it has developed a COVID-19 Re-Opening Analysis Index, which predicts safe re-opening timelines at a state and county level. This new interactive, visual Tableau dashboard takes into account multiple factors such as flattening trends in COVID-19 cases and positive testing, compliance with stay-at-home guidelines, re-opening decisions, and the role they play in timelines.

“As an organization, we remain committed to being a powerful part of the solution during the COVID-19 crisis by sharing our data, maps, and deep analytics with the governmental departments, organizations, providers, and clients who need them most to help support the needs of communities worldwide during this pandemic,” said Jason Krantz, founder and CEO of Definitive Healthcare. “Today’s Re-Opening Predictive Analysis Index is one in a series of predictive indices designed to enable appropriate resourcing, timely decision-making, and a safe migration back to community and professional settings as stay-in-place restrictions begin to lift. Last month, we developed the COVID-19 Capacity Predictor, which assessed regional capacity, based on hospital ICU bed and ventilator availability against local populations and the rate of Covid-19 spread. In the coming weeks, we look forward to launching our next predictive index, which will be focused on the short-term prognosis for the return of elective surgeries by region, by facility, and by practitioner.”

As an industry-leading healthcare data, analytics, and intelligence organization, Definitive Healthcare has driven essential industry analyses for nearly a decade – using its comprehensive and proprietary datasets to create current and predictive views of the healthcare provider market. Now, in the time of COVID-19, Definitive Healthcare has continued this work in the form of a series of predictive, free-to-the-public visual tools that help government officials, organizations, and providers understand and address the pandemic. Last month, the company announced their COVID-19 Capacity Predictor, designed to predict where US hospitals may become overwhelmed with regard to mechanical ventilators and ICU beds. Today’s indicator is designed to provide re-opening predictions, enabling governments, organizations and companies make the best and right decisions for the businesses, people, hospitals, and communities they serve.

Definitive Healthcare’s predictive dashboards have also been widely used for critical decision making by the Department of Defense and the Department of Human Services – and integrated into CNN’s 411 Coronavirus Resource page, Amazon Web Service’s COVID-19 data lake, Esri’s COVID-19 GIS Hub, and more.

Definitive Healthcare sought to integrate relevant information for evaluating state and county COVID-19 profiles for re-opening. To create this new dashboard, Definitive Healthcare’s data science team combined its own comprehensive base of proprietary hospital data (total number of beds, licensed beds, ICU beds, ventilator capacity) with external public resources that show trending cases, deaths, and testing counts – including the IHME model, Johns Hopkins University data, The COVID Tracking Project, the Rt (effective reproduction rate) model, The New York Times, the United States Census Bureau, and overlaid with stay-at-home orders by state. Definitive Healthcare’s analysis is being provided free to the public to help address the growing pandemic.

Users of Definitive Healthcare’s COVID-19 Re-Opening Analysis Index can filter to a state or county of interest. Based on the filters a user applies, information is provided about the total cumulative number of cases and deaths, the total percentage of the population that’s been tested so far, and the effective reproduction rate (Rt) to show how many people will be infected from one infected person, on average. Seven-day rolling averages are graphed to also depict the number of total tests given, positive tests reported, and deaths per day – to highlight any potential downward trends.

View Definitive Healthcare’s COVID-19 Re-Opening Analysis Index here. This map is dynamic – updated on the Definitive Healthcare website in real time through live data feeds and modified as relevant data sources become available. For a video walk-through of the new dashboard, please watch the replay of Definitive Healthcare’s latest webinar.

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The Germ-Fogger™ Dual Head High Volume Disinfecting System

Today’s world has a rapidly expanding need for decontamination of large surfaces and spaces. The impressive performance of the Germ-Fogger™ makes it a great option for a wide variety of these applications.

PORTLAND, Ore. (PRWEB)
May 20, 2020

The Germ-Fogger™ is an American-made disinfecting-fogger with NEW vortecular™ technology designed to efficiently sanitize all types of surfaces. It’s unique dual-head design makes it the most productive disinfecting agent sprayer currently available.

The ability to rapidly and efficiently disinfect a wide variety of buildings and outdoor venues has become a critical part of maintaining work spaces that are safe and secure for employees and the public. The need for mass disinfection of large areas is large now and will expand further in the near future. The Germ-Fogger makes this disinfection process a lot easier and more cost effective.

Business Re-Invention Driven By Market Demand

“Germ-Fogger™ is not our first rodeo,” states Thad Fisco, President of Portland Kettle Works, a world leading manufacturer of high tech stainless steel craft brewing and beverage systems. “Since 2010 we’ve sold and installed 100’s of craft breweries all around the world. Experts in equipment manufacturing, we began looking at expanding into manufacturing equipment to efficiently and quickly decontaminate breweries, bars and tap rooms. We spoke with friends in disinfectant, facilities maintenance, and contract cleaning businesses. We studied concepts, and recommendations on proper disinfection techniques. We experimented with innovative design concepts and the Germ-Fogger was born!”

“Our initial plan is to just offer Germ-Fogger™ to support our existing craft brewery and beverage clients. From there we plan expand into more general market for disinfecting and decontamination equipment. The expanding need for decontamination, combined with the impressive performance of the Germ-Fogger make this a natural expansion product line for us.”

Designed To be Easy-to-Use, Strong and Durable

“One of our principal design goals for the Germ-Fogger™ was to make an easy to use industrial grade product designed for fast disinfecting agent delivery, easy maintenance and long use life,” continues Fisco. “We did this by using the same high strength aircraft grade aluminum, stainless steel and brass components we use in our brewery equipment. Mounted on a rolling cart, except for hoses the Germ-Fogger has no plastic parts yet it is compact, lightweight, easy to maneuver and strong enough to stand up to many years of heavy commercial use.”

Germ-Fogger™ is ideal for precision bulk disinfection of all categories of commercial, industrial and government facilities including:

• 
  Floors
• Countertops
• Walls
• Restrooms
• Locker rooms
• Aircraft cabins
• School buses
• Train cars
• Restaurants
• Bars
• Daycare facilities
• Schools
• Offices
• And all other high-touch areas…

Two Heads Are Better Than One

The Germ-Fogger’s patent pending design incorporates a number of features to make it the best disinfecting agent delivery system available today. One of its most innovative features is its ability to supply one or two disinfecting wands off a single disinfecting agent tank. The Germ-Fogger comes standard with one disinfecting wand. Easily user installed, the second wand can be ordered at the same time or added later. With two wands the Germ-Fogger can disinfect over 52,000 sq. ft. per hour – that’s well over one acre (43,600 sq. ft.) and about 90% of a standard football field including the end zones (57,600 ft. sq.)!

Other Germ-Fogger™ Features

The Germ-Fogger’s design also incorporates a number of additional features to make it the best disinfecting agent delivery system available today.

• High Quality Construction – The Germ-Fogger is built from machined aluminum, stainless steel and brass parts, all easily serviceable. In normal use it will provide you with years of trouble free service.
• Ergonomic Atomizing Wand Design – the palm fitting grips of the Germ-Fogger atomizing wands are comfortable to hold and a gentle squeeze on the trigger unleashes the fogging spray.
• High Capacity – the Germ-Fogger’s disinfecting agent tank holds five full gallons (18.9L) of disinfecting agent allowing it to cover up to 52,000 sq. ft. on a single filling. And with dual head use this can be covered in less than an hour!
• Quick Change – the Germ-Fogger’s disinfecting agent tank uses stainless steel quick disconnecting fittings. This allows you to swap tanks in a matter of seconds and continue spraying with minimal down time. Extra tanks can be pre-filled and kept ready for rapid use.
• Safely Extended Spray Tip – the Germ-Fogger’s precision brass spray tip is almost 10” from the operator’s hand to minimize operator exposure to disinfecting agents. And the spray tip is connected with a quick disconnect fitting for rapid exchange.
• Easy to Use – once you’ve aimed the sprayer a gentle squeeze on the ergonomic pistol grip trigger is all it takes to start the spray.
• Right- or Left-handed Operation – The Germ-Fogger™ spraying wand is completely ambidextrous.

Price and Availability

The Germ-Fogger™ has a suggested retail price of $5,850.00 and has a three-year limited warranty. More information is available at https://www.germ-fogger.com/ or email info@germ-fogger.com. It is in pilot production now, scheduled to begin shipping June 1, 2020, and currently available for pre-ordering at the website.

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