Mediware signs deal with blood centre

The Institute for Transfusion Medicine (ITxM), the US's third largest independent blood centre, has licensed four of Mediware's Blood Centre Technologies (BCT) software products for its recruitment efforts in Illinois, Pennsylvania and West Virginia, reports CNN Money.

Under the contract, facilities will utilise Mediware's customer relationship management software to enhance recruitment and improve the efficiency and effectiveness of blood collection initiatives.

"Our two blood centres, Pittsburgh-based Central Blood Bank and LifeSource, Chicagoland's blood centre, annually distribute nearly one million blood products to 100 health care facilities in four states," says Eric Schulties, ITxM vice-president and CIO. "We want to take advantage of proven technologies that can positively impact our efficiency and effectiveness.”

Model N has unveiled its contract and compliance management solution for manufacturers at the Rainmaker 2009 conference, which took place in Las Vegas, says MSNBC.

The Model N High Tech revenue management suite delivers control over the contract life cycle to improve Sarbanes-Oxley compliance, enable faster audits, and reduce margin siphoning.

Richard Fitchen, general manager of High Tech at Model N, says: "With contract and compliance management, we have added a vital component to our fully-integrated, domain-specific revenue management suite that meets the contracting needs of both front-line users and strategic decision makers".

IT outsourcing has proved disappointing for many companies, but good management can turn it into a success, writes ComputerWeekly.

A lot of the time, says Lee Ayling, MD of the IT advisory team at IT and business transformation consultancy EquaTerra, "IT outsourcing has failed to deliver because organisations don't have the right retained capabilities to manage the contract. Managing a supplier to do things for you, instead of doing them yourself, requires a lot more investment in relationship management, governance and the softer side of IT management”.

Existing roles that will still be needed but will involve different responsibilities include relationship management for user groups, quality management, security and risk management, and procurement and contract management. The organisation will also need to staff a programme office which can oversee new initiatives, although the project office providing day-to-day project management is likely to become the domain of the outsourcer.