Lazurite Holdings LLC and CHAMPS Group Purchasing Announce Supplier Agreement

CHAMPS Group Purchasing (GPO), a business affiliate of The Center for Health Affairs, is excited to announce a partnership agreement with Lazurite, a Northeast Ohio-based medical device startup company, to offer Lazurite’s product offerings to members across the United States. The partnership comes after Lazurite was recently awarded 510(k) clearance by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for its ArthroFree™ Wireless Surgical Camera System.

“This partnership with Lazurite creates exciting opportunities to offer cost savings to CHAMPS’ members in healthcare, especially those we serve in surgery centers,” said Maria Summers, director of CHAMPS GPO. “When we make a recommendation to a member, we want to make sure we’re offering them the latest and greatest. Lazurite’s novel technologies check both of those boxes and we’re excited to offer their products to our members.”

CHAMPS GPO currently serves more than 20,000 members nationwide, including organizations in hospital, surgery center and ambulatory-care markets across the United States. With its national GPO partner Premier, CHAMPS supports its member supply chain initiatives through their expertise in contract management, aggregation savings, supply chain technology and spend analytics.

In July 2021, The Center for Health Affairs announced it would be collaborating with Lazurite to bring revolutionary smart surgical tools to market and to operating rooms across Northeast Ohio and the United States. The CHAMPS GPO agreement brings opportunity for further connection between The Center and its affiliates and the Lazurite team.

“This collaboration has served as an example of the game-changing health innovation underway in Northeast Ohio,” said Tracy Wise, senior vice president of business operations and administration for The Center for Health Affairs and CHAMPS Healthcare. “Progressing technologies to serve our local region is an important objective for us as an organization. We are excited for the expansion of our relationship and look forward to what the future holds for Lazurite.”

Co-founded in 2015 by CEO Eugene Malinskiy, Lazurite is developing novel technologies for the future of surgical care with a smart platform for a highly efficient, tech-enabled suite of tools. The company’s product pipeline features the modular ArthroFree™; ORFree™, a prototype portable and wireless surgical tower in a briefcase designed for use with the ArthroFree wireless camera; and others based on the company’s novel and patented Meridiem™ light engine technology.

To learn more about CHAMPS Group Purchasing, contact us.

About The Center for Health Affairs

As the nation’s first regional hospital association, The Center for Health Affairs serves as the collective voice and leading advocate for 38 hospitals across 10 counties in Northeast Ohio. Dating back over 100 years, The Center aims to enhance the effectiveness of the healthcare community and the health of the communities it serves by providing expertise, resources and solutions to address the challenges currently being faced by the region’s healthcare providers. The Center’s efforts focus on areas in which member hospitals and their communities can benefit from a regional approach, including emergency preparedness; public policy and advocacy; finance and reimbursement; and community health. Learn more at neohospitals.org.