IntelliDot Corp. Chief Executive Officer Thomas Klopack likes to call his company’s product the “medical iPod” because of its portability and user-friendliness.

Executives and investors only hope sales of the San Diego-based startup’s health information technology device soar like Apple Computer Inc.’s iPod, the popular portable media player.

Caret is a hand-held, wireless device that nurses can use to ensure patients get the right dose of the correct medication at the right time.

Patients wear a bar-code wristband that is scanned with the device. Caret can also be used to monitor vital signs of patients or to ensure the proper amount of blood is drawn from the correct patient.

Thanks to an agreement signed this fall with Naples, Fla.-based Health Management Associates Inc., IntelliDot expects to have its system in 60 hospitals in the Southeast within three years. IntelliDot, which does not disclose revenues, would not reveal the dollar value of the agreement.

IntelliDot, founded by the people behind the success of health care equipment firm Pyxis Corp. — a San Diego company sold to Ohio-based Cardinal Health in 1996 — has attracted solid venture capital interest, and is backed on its scientific advisory board by several well-respected medical professionals. Among them is UC San Diego Medical Center CEO Richard Liekweg.

IntelliDot’s CEO is a Harvard University MBA with a background managing startups, including San Diego’s Aurora Biosciences Corp., where he was the chief operating officer, and Aclara BioSciences Inc. in Mountain View. Klopack joined IntelliDot in August 2005.

“I was very intrigued,” he said. “After working with startups at all phases, I go back to the basics: Is the market there? Can the product solve the problem elegantly? This firm has first-class investors, and a mature management team.”

Klopack has spent 20 years in various roles, including managerial and strategic development positions, at Raychem Corp., acquired in 1999 by Tyco International Ltd.

IntelliDot has attracted $25 million in private equity financing since its inception in 2002, with the most recent being a $13.1 million round in April.

A Top Ranking

This year, in a ranking by Orem, Utah-based KLAS, a health information technology industry research firm, Caret was listed as one of the top medication administration devices —second only to Kansas City, Mo.-based Cerner Corp.’s Bridge MedPoint device.

San Francisco-based McKesson Corp.’s AdminRx came in third, followed with products by Meditech and lastly, Siemens AG. Caret received the top of five possible rankings, considered “well above average.”