SurgiCount Medical, Inc. announces new 3-year agreement with Novation

IRVINE, Calif., Sept. 6, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- SurgiCount Medical, the wholly-owned operating subsidiary of Patient Safety Technologies, Inc. (the "Company", OTCBB: PSTX, OTCQB: PSTX) today announced it has been awarded an Innovative Technology agreement by Novation, the leading healthcare supply chain expertise, analytics and contracting company for the more than 65,000 members of VHA, UHC, Children's Hospital Association and Provista, LLC.  The agreement recognizes the innovation and clinical advancements provided by SurgiCount's market leading retained sponge prevention solution, the Safety-Sponge® System, and provides the members Novation serves with special pricing and other pre-negotiated terms.

"By offering a simple solution that eliminates the most common surgical adverse event, we help users of our SurgiCount Safety-Sponge® System mitigate their liability, protect their reimburse revenues, preserve their reputations in the communities they serve and improve their patient outcomes," said Scott Pecore, VP National Accounts for SurgiCount Medical, Inc.

According to Brian Stewart, President and CEO of SurgiCount, "We share Novation's goals of helping their members achieve improved outcomes through clinical and operational excellence and reducing the total cost of patient care.  We are pleased that Novation's Innovative Technology process resulted in the recognition of the economic and safety benefits of the Safety-Sponge® System and look forward to helping Novation members achieve their quality and cost objectives."

Through its Innovative Technology Program, Novation works with member-led councils and task forces to identify and review new or innovative technology that provides an incremental clinical benefit over existing products.  The goal of the Innovative Technology Program is to work with members to identify innovative technology that improves patient care or reduces the risk of harm to patients or providers, while simultaneously raising the standard of patient care and safety.

The three-year contract will begin on September 15th, 2013.  To learn more about SurgiCount Medical, Inc. and The Safety-Sponge® System, please visit: www.surgicountmedical.com.

About Novation, Winner of the Ethics Inside^® Certification
Founded in 1998, Novation is the leading health care supply chain expertise, analytics and contracting company for the more than 65,000 members of VHA Inc. and UHC, two national health care alliances, Children's Hospital Association, an alliance of the nation's leading pediatric facilities, and Provista, LLC. Novation provides alliance members with sourcing services, as well as information and data services. Based in Irving, Texas, Novation develops and manages competitive contracts with more than 600 suppliers. VHA, UHC, and Provista members used Novation contracts to purchase approximately $43 billion in 2012. Novation has earned the coveted Ethics Inside^® Certification from Ethisphere Institute, a leading international think tank dedicated to the research and promotion of best practices in corporate ethics and compliance.  Novation also was named on Ethisphere's World's Most Ethical Companies list, and is the only company in the health care industry to earn both distinctions for two consecutive years.  To learn more about Novation, please visit www.novationco.com and follow @NovationNews.

Surgical Never Events and Retained Surgical Sponges
Surgical errors, sometimes referred to as "Never Events", are costly to the health care system and are associated with serious harm to patients.  Retained foreign bodies are estimated to represent up to 49.8% of all reported surgical never events¹ with surgical sponges representing the vast majority of items unintentionally retained². Estimated to occur as often as 1 in every 1,000 to 1,500 abdominal operations to 1 in every 8,000 in patient operations², with an estimated 32 million surgical procedures annually in the U.S. this implies approximately 4,000 retained sponge incidents each year, 11 every day. The negative impact to patient outcomes from retained foreign objects varies and can be significant, with permanent injuries in an estimated 16% of incidents and patient mortality in 5%¹. Cost ramifications can be considerable and include legal expenses and awards, non-reimbursable healthcare services, loss of time, loss of reputation for involved individuals and facilities and the negative impact on pay for performance metrics.

About Patient Safety Technologies, Inc. and SurgiCount Medical
Patient Safety Technologies, Inc., through its wholly-owned operating subsidiary SurgiCount Medical, Inc., provides the Safety-Sponge® System, a solution clinically proven to improve patient safety and reduce healthcare costs by helping prevent one of the most common errors in surgery, retained surgical sponges. The solution is currently used in over 300 government, teaching and community hospitals across the U.S., including 6 of the 2013-2014 US News and World Report Best Hospitals Honor Roll recipients.

Forward Looking Statements
Statements in this press release regarding our business that are not historical facts are "forward-looking statements" (within the meaning of Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934) that involve risks and uncertainties. Forward-looking statements reflect our management's current views with respect to future events and financial performance; however, you should not put undue reliance on these statements. When used, the words "anticipates," "believes," "expects," "intends," "future," and other similar expressions, without limitation, identify forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and are inherently subject to uncertainties and other factors which could cause actual results to differ materially from the forward-looking statements. These factors and uncertainties include but are not limited to: our ability to implement in all hospitals within the larger hospitals organizations with which we have agreements, our ability to implement in those hospitals with which we have scheduled implementations, the early stage of adoption of our Safety-Sponge® System and the need to expand adoption of our Safety-Sponge® System; the impact on our future revenue and cash flows from the ordering patterns of our exclusive distributor Cardinal Health; our need for additional financing to support our business; our reliance on third-party manufacturers, some of whom are sole-source suppliers, and on our exclusive distributor; and any inability to successfully protect our intellectual property portfolio. In light of the risks and uncertainties, there can be no assurance that any forward-looking statement will in fact prove to be correct.
Forward-looking statements can be affected by many other factors, including, those described in the "Business", "Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations" and "Factors Affecting Future Results" sections of our Annual Report on Form 10-K for 2011, our Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q and in our other public filings. These documents are available online through the SEC's website, www.sec.gov. Forward-looking statements are based on information presently available to senior management, and we have not assumed any duty to update any forward-looking statements.

¹ Mehtsun, et al. Surgical never events in the United States, J Surg 2012;10.005

² Cima RR, Kollengode A, Garnatz J, et al. Incidence and characteristics of potential and actual retained foreign object events in surgical patients. J Am Coll Surg 2008;207:80-87

SOURCE Patient Safety Technologies, Inc.