Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator instructions) And our first question comes from the line of John Fowler [ph] from Piper Jaffray. Please proceed with your question, sir.
John Fowler – Piper Jaffray
This is John on for Mark Mulikin. Quick question here on the sales force. Was there any increase in the sales force in between the last call and are there any plans going forward to increase the size of the force?
Don Earhart
The difference in the size of the sales force was approximately 10%, less of that was quarter carrying, most of that was clinical specialists.
John Fowler – Piper Jaffray
Okay. Great. And then my understanding here, see you said that the account level with the Regional Anesthesia business was the same, just more sales to those specific accounts. Is it a goal to expand the account level, and is that more of a process of just getting the sales force up and running before they can expand your hospital base?
Don Earhart
Johnny, the philosophy and strategy at I-Flow has always been to go deep and wide in accounts, and then when a sales person has extra time, they begin to work on new accounts. But you really become most productive when you stay in an account that you've spent several months bringing up to speed, and getting more and more surgeons to use the product. So, in the first quarter, they did exactly what they've been asked to do and told to do, and that is to spend their time in their existing accounts and grow them first, and then when the opportunity arises, open up new accounts.
John Fowler – Piper Jaffray
Great. And then one last quick question, and sorry if I missed this at the end when you were giving guidance, but does the overall growth rate that you have for the year of about 20% and the Regional Anesthesia growth rate, does that include now the introduction of new products during the year? I seem to remember that last quarter that did not include new product launches.
Don Earhart
We talked about new products in the last call. We were referring to new products from AcryMed, not new products that we already have in the pipeline for ON-Q. So, that's now in the Acute Care number, which is 25% growth.
John Fowler – Piper Jaffray
Great. Okay, thank you very much.
Operator
Our next question comes from the line of Matt Dolan from Roth Capital. Please proceed with your question.
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