Smart Choices

It isn't just home medical equipment providers who are getting smarter; products are smarter these days, too. At Medtrade 2008, in fact, HomeCare's staff pegged a range of products expressly designed to help providers troubleshoot problems and improve business efficiencies.

According to some manufacturers at the Atlanta expo, both patient demand and provider need have driven the smart product evolution.

"It's a balance between economics and patient satisfaction," said Ron Richard, RRT, CEO of SeQual Technologies. "Patients are getting more demanding. They are looking for lifestyle products that match up to their clinical needs, and if they want to travel, they don't want a lot of hassles with their equipment."

On the flip side, providers who want to stay competitive in an environment where reimbursement is continually crunched and costly legislative and regulatory mandates are the norm must find ways to do business better and smarter. Those are the ones who are investing in the more sophisticated products, manufacturers noted.

Everyone won't buy in right away, said Don Spence, who heads Philips Home Healthcare Solutions. "We understand the vision and the opportunity in those products, but before they catch on, there has to be a reimbursement program." For products involving monitoring, for example, "that's a big part of the longer-term view in caring for patients at home, and it seems reasonable," he said. "But at the same time, we've got to get Medicare and other payers to acknowledge how important that is and to realize that's part of the solution of cost avoidance."

Meanwhile, the smart trend is likely to continue. "I think all chronic diseases are going to have to have better outcomes," Richard pointed out. And that means compliance will become increasingly important for reimbursement. "We are going to have to track the data and build better databases to make the protocols more efficient. We're going to have to figure out what's working and what's not working so we can be more efficient and reduce health care costs.

"As the market changes with reimbursement and as it evolves," he added, "you have to make products change with them."

With all that in mind, we asked industry editor Greg Thompson to give providers a peek at the types of smart solutions available now, and those they can expect to see at trade shows ahead.