Cardinal Health, based in Dublin, Ohio, has signed a five-year exclusive distribution agreement with Patient Safety Technologies of Temecula, Calif., to co-market the SurgiCount Safety-Sponge System. In addition, Cardinal has issued a $10 million purchase order for SurgiCount products over the next 12 months. As part of the purchase order, PST has issued Cardinal Health warrants to purchase 1.25 million shares of PST common stock at $2 per share and 625,000 shares of common stock at $4 per share.

InSight One, a Wallingford, Conn.-based provider of medical data archiving, storage and disaster recovery solutions, has expanded its contract with Milwaukee-based Merge Healthcare to provide a universal viewing solution for its InDex archiving services. Merge will integrate its Cedara WebAccess solution with InDex Web to allow physicians to obtain patient information via a Web browser at the point of care through their laptops, tablets or smart phones.

The InterSystems Corporation of Cambridge, Mass., has announced that AssistMed, based in Beverly Hills, Calif., has chosen the InterSystems Ensemble rapid integration and development platform to provide integration capability for its AssistMed electronic health record.

Phoenix Health Systems, a Richardson, Texas-based provider of healthcare IT outsourcing and consulting solutions, has signed a long-term extension of its outsourcing contract with Integrated Services, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of the Hawaii Medical Service Association.

Lawson Software of St. Paul, Minn., has announced a series of updates to the Lawson S3 Supply Chain Management suite that are designed to help healthcare organizations adopt GSI industry standards.

Meta Health Technology of New York has been awarded a 36-month contract by Premier Purchasing Partners, LP, the group purchasing unit of Charlotte, N.C.-based Premier, to provide Premier’s more than 2,200 member hospitals and 63,0000 additional healthcare sites with access to pre-negotiated pricing and terms for Meta’s patient chart abstracting and electronic physician query software. In addition, the company has introduced PowerRac, a new tool designed to enable hospitals to effectively manage the Medicare Recovery Audit Contractor (RAC) process and protect legitimate revenues.

CenTrak, a Newtown, Pa.-based developer of real-time location systems (RTLS) for tracking equipment, patients and staff indoors, has launched the AlerTrak active RFID alarm for hospitals and healthcare facilities. The device notifies hospital personnel via an audible alarm if specified people or assets leave or enter a restricted area.

athenahealth, Inc., a Watertown, Mass.-based provider of Internet-related business services to physician practices, has received a patent from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for its “patient management and billing automation system, part of the company’s athenaNet rules engine for its athenaCollector revenue cycle management product.

InteGreat, a subsidiary of Pittsburgh-based MED3000, will implement the InteGreat electronic health record for the Golden Valley Medical Clinics in Clinton, Mo.

Amcom Software, Inc., based in Minneapolis, has announced the Miami Children’s Hospital is implementing the company’s unified communications framework.