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Spartan Medical Launches the Melzi Sharps Finder to Help Hospitals Avoid Retained Surgical Sharps Miscounts

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RENO, Nev. and ROCKVILLE, Md., Aug. 23, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — Melzi Surgical, a medical device company focused on providing innovative technology to locate lost surgical sharps and Spartan Medical Inc., a veteran-owned medical solutions company, have launched a campaign to raise awareness around the impacts of Retained Surgical Items (RSIs) and near-misses to provide a unique offering to reduce RSIs and potential consequences.

Retained Surgical Items (RSIs) are soft goods (e.g., sponges, towels) and hard goods (e.g., instruments, needles, fragments, screws, guidewires) that are unintentionally left in the patient during surgery. RSIs are one of the top three Joint Commission never-events every year for the last decade. Government data estimates between ~4,500 – 6,000 RSIs occur per year with the actual number being unknown1. Many hospital facilities have experienced a reduction in RSI cases related to soft goods by adopting one of the commercially available sponge detection systems. However, under current established safety protocols, RSI cases relating to hard goods continue to rise, especially due to the increased use of robot-assisted surgeries and the use of smaller instruments and needles2. 

It is common practice for Operating Room (OR) nurses to conduct a physical count of all items used during surgery to confirm nothing is missing. Still, miscounts happen in 1 out of 8 cases and counting methods do not cover situations of broken instruments, fragments, screws, or guidewire bits3. The main contributing factors of RSIs were identified as human factors (e.g., distraction, insufficient knowledge), leadership (e.g., insufficient policies or compliance), and communication (e.g., with physician, peer-to-peer, or language failure).4 In fact, A root cause analysis report by the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) on its 1.5 million safety reports showed that intravascular loss of guidewires is an act of omission error – a concept that some steps are prone to be missed because they require memory and attention after the completion of the main goal5.

Upon discovery of a miscount, the current recommended protocol from the Association of Perioperative Registered Nurses (AORN) is to call for an X-ray. However, an X-ray typically takes 25 – 30 minutes to arrive and another 20 – 30 minutes to take the films for analysis6. On average, the entire process takes 45 minutes and is only 25 – 50% effective6. The use of X-ray for suspected RSIs results in prolonged anesthesia time for the patient, exposes both the patient and OR team to additional ionizing radiation, and potentially derails and delays the current case and subsequent procedures.

Since FDA approval risk managers and several hospital systems began adopting the Melzi Sharps Finder (MSF) as part of their RSI prevention protocol. When a miscount situation happens, the MSF locates the missing item inside the patient’s body within minutes. The accompanying video link show a lost sharps in a patient and how the Melzi Sharps Finder quickly locates a lost needle.

In a lab study, testing results with the Melzi Sharps Finder show detection of 13mm, 17mm, and 26mm needles with a 95% reliability rate7. The Melzi Sharps Finder is an easy-to-use hand tool capable of being deployed through a 5mm trocar for laparoscopic and robotic surgeries and can also be used in open surgery. The use of an adjunct technology, like the Melzi Sharps Finder, can enhance patient safety, save time, and reduce overall risks. The MSF is an FDA-registered single-use, sterile device that can be used in-vivo and detect lost needles, consistently as small as 7.0mm8.

A direct quote from the OR Director of a hospital using the MSF:

“We find that calling in X-ray only helps when the object is larger, yet this is not always the case. Most surgeons opt out, stating that it will only cause more damage when digging around, and leave the object where it is, but with the Melzi Sharps Finder, we can pinpoint the location and retrieve the fragment, injury free.”

Spartan Medical, an industry leader in providing advanced medical technologies and best-in-class solutions to the Federal Government—in particular for our soldiers, veterans, and their families—is the exclusive partner to bring the Melzi Sharps Finder to all VA and DoD medical facilities across the country and in forward operating locations. “As a company laser focused on solving problems, the Melzi technology is a homerun for Spartan and the customers we serve. It’s part of our DNA to find real gaps and procure the best Med Tech available to accomplish our mission of improving patient care with an armamentarium of advanced medical technologies…the Melzi Sharps Finder is a game-changer,” stated Vince Proffitt, Founder and President of Spartan Medical.

About Spartan Medical Inc.
Spartan Medical is a veteran-owned-and-operated government contractor for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), and other local, state, and federal agencies. All senior executives have held leadership positions in both the public and private sector and employ the core strengths of solving complex problems through creative thinking, innovative solutions, and highly skilled flexible teams. Spartan Medical maintains its vanguard position by providing medical facilities with A-to-Z solutions that improve patient care and outcomes, especially for America’s military and veteran communities.
For ordering, specification, or further information, please contact our Customer Service team at cs@spartanmedical.com or call 888-240-8091.

About Melzi Surgical
Melzi is a surgical device company dedicated to creating innovative technologies that improve patient outcomes while reducing hospital expenses. The Company’s lead product, the Melzi Sharps Finder, is a U.S. FDA registered device designed to locate instruments, needles, broken pieces and fragments, or sharp objects (“sharps”) that have been lost inside a patient during surgery. The Melzi Sharps Finder is currently indicated for use in gastroenterology and urology surgeries. For more information about the Company, please visit melzisurgical.com

Citations:

Goodwin, B. JD, RN (2018, March 1). Retained surgical lawsuits will cost you. Retrieved from Urology Times: https://www.urologytimes.com/view/retained-surgical-item-lawsuits-will-cost-you

Weprin, S. A., Moore, R. H., Meyer, D., & Autorino, R. (2020). Retained Surgical Items: a changing landscape. Journal of Patient Safety, 17(1), e41. https://doi.org/10.1097/pts.0000000000000777

Weprin, S., Crocerossa, F., Meyer, D., Maddra, K., Valancy, D., Osardu, R., Kang, H. S., Moore, R. H., Carbonara, U., Kim, F. J., & Autorino, R. (2021). Risk factors and preventive strategies for unintentionally retained surgical sharps: a systematic review. Patient Safety in Surgery, 15(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s13037-021-00297-3

Steelman, V. M., Shaw, C., Shine, L., & Hardy-Fairbanks, A. J. (2019). Unintentionally Retained Foreign Objects: A descriptive study of 308 sentinel events and contributing factors. The Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety, 45(4), 249–258. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcjq.2018.09.001

Cherara, L., Sculli, G. L., Paull, D. E., Mazzia, L., Neily, J., & Mills, P. D. (2018). Retained guidewires in the Veterans Health Administration: getting to the root of the problem. Journal of Patient Safety, 17(8), e911–e917. https://doi.org/10.1097/pts.0000000000000475

Autorino, R. MD (2021, April 3). Incidence and OR team awareness of “near-miss” and retained surgical sharps: a national survey on United States operating rooms. Retrieved from Patient Safety in Surgery: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8019169/

Out of the box 13mm, 17mm, and 26mm needles are detected at 95% reliability with 95% confidence, 9mm and 11mm needles with greater than 80% reliability @ 90% confidence, and 6mm needles with 70% reliability @ 90% confidence. Additionally, when magnetized by placing an individual needle on a magnetic instrument mat for 1 second (verified using Key Surgical MG-300-400R instrument mat ) all the previously listed needle groups: 6mm, 9mm, 11mm, 13mm, 17mm and 26mm are detected at 95% reliability with 95% confidence.

J, Adams, Ph.D., J Noel, Ph.D. (2022) Needle Size and Detectability Study.

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SOURCE Spartan Medical Inc.

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/C O R R E C T I O N — Applied Intuition, Inc./

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In the news release, Applied Intuition Collaborates with Heidelberg Materials to Advance Innovation in Quarry Operations with Autonomous Haulage Fleets, issued 30-Apr-2026 by Applied Intuition, Inc. over PR Newswire, we are advised by the company that changes have been made. The complete, corrected release follows, with additional details at the end:

Applied Intuition Collaborates with Heidelberg Materials to Advance Innovation in Quarry Operations with Autonomous Haulage Fleets

Deployment brings intelligent, vehicle-based autonomy to Australia, establishing a new operating model for construction and mining environments.

SUNNYVALE, Calif., April 30, 2026 /CNW/ — Applied Intuition, Inc., a leader in physical AI, today announced its collaboration with Heidelberg Materials, one of the world’s largest integrated manufacturers of building materials and solutions, to deploy autonomous haulage systems for Heidelberg Materials’ quarry operations, starting at a site in Australia.

Applied Intuition will provide its Self-Driving System (SDS) for Construction to support autonomous haulage operations within Heidelberg Materials’ fleet of construction and mining vehicles in Australia. The deployment marks the next real-world application of Applied Intuition’s autonomy platform in industrial environments. Upon successful completion, it will support the expansion of autonomous operations within Heidelberg Materials’ broader Australian network.

The collaboration also challenges the standard industry model. While autonomy solutions traditionally target the largest quarry sites, this system is designed for smaller operations, including those running just two 40-ton trucks, making it deployable across quarry sites of varying size worldwide.

“No two quarry or construction sites operate the same way, with different layouts, constraints and economics,” said Qasar Younis, co-founder and CEO of Applied Intuition. “We’ve built our platform to adapt to that reality. This partnership shows we can take the same core system used in large mining operations and apply it to smaller, infrastructure-constrained quarry sites, scaling it across hundreds of unique locations.”

For Heidelberg Materials, the partnership is aimed at enhancing safety and operational performance. It also reflects the need for an autonomy solution that can operate at large sites and smaller ones too, whereas traditional autonomous haulage systems are often too infrastructure-heavy or costly to scale. For Applied Intuition, it serves as a proof point that its autonomy platform is designed not just for one-off deployments, but for global scale across construction, quarry and mining environments of any size.

Applied Intuition’s system runs directly on the vehicle, with integrated perception, decision-making and safety systems onboard, enabling reliable operation without constant connectivity or heavy site infrastructure.

The collaboration builds on Applied Intuition’s growing presence in construction and mining autonomy and reinforces its broader physical AI strategy. The same core platform has already been deployed in other industries, including trucking and defense, with learnings from each domain contributing to continuous system improvements. Applied Intuition’s SDS platform strategy also enables the company to bring technologies proven in other domains into construction and mining, helping accelerate development and deployment.

Through this project, Applied Intuition demonstrates the range of its autonomy platform, from some of the largest mining trucks in the world to smaller quarry vehicles operating in constrained, lower-infrastructure environments. Together, these deployments highlight the company’s approach to building scalable autonomy for construction and mining from the ground up.

To learn more about how Applied Intuition is building the future of construction autonomy, visit applied.co.

About Applied Intuition
Applied Intuition, Inc. is powering the future of physical AI. Founded in 2017 and now valued at $15 billion, the Silicon Valley company is creating the digital infrastructure needed to bring intelligence to every moving machine on the planet. Applied Intuition services the automotive, defense, trucking, construction, mining and agriculture industries in three core areas: tools and infrastructure, operating systems and autonomy. Eighteen of the top 20 global automakers, as well as the United States military and its allies, trust the company’s solutions to deliver physical intelligence. Applied Intuition is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, with offices in Washington, D.C.; San Diego; Ft. Walton Beach, Florida; Ann Arbor, Michigan; London; Stuttgart; Munich; Stockholm; Gothenburg, Sweden; Bangalore; Seoul; and Tokyo. Learn more at applied.co.

Correction: An earlier version of this release incorrectly stated the location of the site noted in the first paragraph.

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/applied-intuition-collaborates-with-heidelberg-materials-to-advance-innovation-in-quarry-operations-with-autonomous-haulage-fleets-302758224.html

SOURCE Applied Intuition, Inc.

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MOREH Demonstrates Production-Ready LLM Inference on Tenstorrent Galaxy, Achieving DGX A100-Class Performance with Improved Cost Efficiency

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Reduces HBM Costs with GPU–Tenstorrent Heterogeneous Distributed Serving
First unveiled at Tenstorrent’s launch event, TT-Deploy, in San Francisco on May 1

SANTA CLARA, Calif., May 1, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Moreh, an AI infrastructure software company, led by CEO Gangwon Jo, announced that it has successfully validated LLM inference performance on the Tenstorrent Galaxy Wormhole system using its proprietary ‘MoAI Inference Framework.’

Based on tests across leading Mixture-of-Experts (MoE) models—including GPT-OSS, Qwen, GLM, and DeepSeek—Moreh achieved LLM inference performance on Tenstorrent Galaxy Wormhole matching or surpassing NVIDIA DGX A100-class systems, demonstrating a compelling alternative to conventional GPU-centric AI infrastructure.

Moreh also improved cost efficiency by implementing a disaggregated serving architecture that combines GPUs with Tenstorrent Wormhole chips. By utilizing Tenstorrent processors as dedicated prefill accelerators, the company reduced reliance on high-cost HBM and lowered overall infrastructure costs.

The results were first unveiled at Tenstorrent’s launch event, TT-Deploy, held on May 1 in San Francisco.

As a strategic partner of Tenstorrent and a major external contributor to Metalium, Moreh showcased a live LLM inference demo at the event. Building on its experience operating AMD GPU-based production environments in real-world data centers, the company presented its latest technical achievements in ‘Production-Ready LLM Inference on Tenstorrent Galaxy.’

MoAI Inference Framework is a disaggregated inference solution that enables unified operation of heterogeneous GPUs and NPUs—including NVIDIA, AMD, and Tenstorrent—within a single cluster. This allows enterprises to build flexible AI infrastructure strategies without vendor lock-in.

Moreh CEO Gangwon Jo stated, “Achieving production-grade LLM inference performance and stability on Tenstorrent-based systems marks a significant milestone,” and added, “We will continue to enhance performance through deeper optimization across heterogeneous architectures and closer integration with Tenstorrent NPUs.”

Moreh is developing its own core AI infrastructure engine and, through its foundation LLM subsidiary Motif Technologies, is building end-to-end capabilities spanning both infrastructure and model domains. Simultaneously, the company is making its mark in the global market through collaborations with key partners such as AMD, Tenstorrent, and SGLang.

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/moreh-demonstrates-production-ready-llm-inference-on-tenstorrent-galaxy-achieving-dgx-a100-class-performance-with-improved-cost-efficiency-302760562.html

SOURCE Moreh

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US Startup PerZeption Inc. Announces Collaboration with Alcon Research

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BOSTON, MA, May. 1, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Advancements in vision correction evaluation require methods that offer both precision and efficiency in detecting clinically meaningful visual differences. Addressing this need, PerZeption is set to present new data validating its AIM+ CSF modeling technology at the Association of Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO) annual meeting.

Attendees are invited to learn more about this innovative approach during the poster session on May 4, 2026, from 11:15 AM to 1:00 PM, at posterboard #0941.

“We are very excited to collaborate with Alcon, one of the largest companies within the Ophthalmology sector worldwide. “, Dr. Jan Skerswetat said. “The results, presented by Dr Derek Nankivil, indicate that our technology enables rapid, repeatable, and highly sensitive assessment of contrast vision.”

The abstract, titled ‘AIM+ CSF modeling enables efficient detection of clinically meaningful visual differences,’ outlines how PerZeption’s technology supports sensitive, low-burden visual assessment for vision correction evaluation. Data indicates that with approximately six adaptive displays of stimuli and two repeats, studies show around 20 subjects can achieve 90% power to detect a 1 JND (Just Noticeable Difference) change in AULCSF (Area Under the Log Contrast Sensitivity Function). This research also demonstrates AIM+ CSF’s stable repeatability in less than 3 minutes, absence of bias, and robust performance, validating its role as an effective tool for objective visual performance evaluation.

This joint effort highlights a shared dedication to advancing ophthalmology research and developing precise tools for visual assessment. The ARVO annual meeting serves as the world’s foremost event for ophthalmology research, offering a vital platform for sharing scientific breakthroughs and fostering dialogue within the global vision science community.

“In addition to all the exciting research presentations that leverage PerZeption technology at this years’ ARVO meeting, we are also proud to be showcasing PerZeption’s battery of functional tests at our booth, #4027.” Dr. Skerswetat added and noted that there will be opportunities to try out our technology.

This presentation at ARVO represents a significant step in the validation and recognition of PerZeption’s contributions to advanced visual assessment technologies.

About PerZeption Inc
PerZeption delivers vision testing with a rapid, self-administered, and adaptive psychophysical platform delivered via cloud-based software on standard tablets or all-in-one computers. Our flagship platform, Angular Indication Measurement (AIM), enables testing of over 20 visual functions. Our novel approach equips researchers and clinicians with a comprehensive range of visual functions and introduces new tests for which there are no currently available devices. We reduce chairtime. Self-administered tests on a single device in combination with proprietary methods that rapidly assess vision, reduce user’s burden and require minimal training or space, unlike bulky, specialized single-use devices. Finally, cloud-based delivery supports secure in-clinic and remote testing, ensuring consistent, trackable results for clinicians and pharmaceutical companies. 

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/us-startup-perzeption-inc-announces-collaboration-with-alcon-research-302760563.html

SOURCE PerZeption

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