LAKE FOREST, Ill., April 1, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Hospira (NYSE:HSP), a leading provider of clinical information and medication delivery technologies, today announced the launch of its enhanced TheraDoc™ clinical surveillance system, used by hospitals to help improve patient safety and prevent adverse events such as healthcare-associated infections (HAIs). The enhanced TheraDoc system includes new features and functionalities designed to improve user satisfaction, reporting capabilities and work efficiency.

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Patient safety issues such as HAIs, adverse drug events and antimicrobial resistant infections have been linked to increased morbidity and mortality, and have an enormous financial impact on healthcare institutions and society. An estimated 1.7 million patients develop an HAI in the United States each year, and 99,000 die as a result, adding $28–$33 billion in healthcare costs.(1)

The TheraDoc platform enhancements are designed to help hospitals meet and improve upon evolving quality metrics and national patient safety goals. The new platform also helps clinicians more easily identify antimicrobial resistant pathogens and drug-bug mismatches. Improvements to the TheraDoc Infection Control Assistant™ module facilitate seamless electronic reporting of HAIs to the National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN) and provide a new infection control dashboard for enhanced reporting, data comparison and benchmarking. Clinicians and healthcare institutions can now use TheraDoc to automatically track and generate electronic reports regarding urinary tract infections (UTI), central line insertion practices (CLIP), laboratory-identified multi-drug resistant organisms (MDRO) and C. difficile-associated disease (CDAD) events. This additional functionality will help to decrease manual sorting of laboratory results and streamline public health reporting.

"The enhanced TheraDoc platform has added even more valuable tools available to our infection prevention team at Kootenai Health," said Lee Rieken R.N., C.I.C., infection prevention unit supervisor, Kootenai Health in Idaho. "The TheraDoc team continues to reach out to its customers and listen to their needs. As increasing demands are placed on the infection preventionist, the tools afforded them are increasing as well. I appreciate the dashboard within the new TheraDoc platform, because it is quite intuitive to use and helps us benchmark against NHSN."

Stanley Pestotnik, M.S., R.Ph., general manager, TheraDoc, Hospira, said, "The enhanced TheraDoc system reflects Hospira's commitment to delivering innovative patient safety surveillance and clinical-decision support solutions."

"TheraDoc systems are actively used in more than 300 U.S. hospitals, making critical patient information and medical knowledge readily available to help clinicians intervene quickly, prescribe appropriately and improve the quality of patient care," Pestotnik said. "The enhancements to our platform will further maximize these important benefits."

The TheraDoc clinical surveillance platform is being demonstrated at Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA) booth #107 through April 4. For more information about TheraDoc, visit http://www.theradoc.com or call (801) 415-4400.

About Hospira

Hospira, Inc., is a global specialty pharmaceutical and medication delivery company dedicated to Advancing Wellness™.  As the world leader in specialty generic injectable pharmaceuticals, Hospira offers one of the broadest portfolios of generic acute-care and oncology injectables, as well as integrated infusion therapy and medication management solutions. Through its products, Hospira helps improve the safety, cost, and productivity of patient care. The company is headquartered in Lake Forest, Ill., and has approximately 14,000 employees.  Learn more at http://www.hospira.com.

Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 --

A Caution Concerning Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including statements regarding the enhanced TheraDoc system. Hospira cautions that these forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated in the forward-looking statements. Economic, competitive, governmental, regulatory, legal, technological and other factors that may affect Hospira's operations and may cause actual results to be materially different from expectations include the risks, uncertainties and factors discussed under the headings "Risk Factors" and "Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations" in Hospira's latest Annual Report on Form 10-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which are incorporated by reference. Hospira undertakes no obligation to release publicly any revisions to forward-looking statements as the result of subsequent events or developments.

(1) U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. (n.d.) Healthcare-Associated Infections, http://www.hhs.gov/ash/initiatives/hai/ Accessed March 29, 2011

SOURCE Hospira