Looking Forward, Looking Back

Though he modestly declines credit for shaping much of today’s HME environment, the influence of 2006 HomeCaring Award^® Winner Nagle Bridwell has been substantial.

As one of five co-founders of The Med Group (then Medical Equipment Distributors), originally formed to import seating systems and other medical equipment from Sweden, Bridwell named the Sip ‘n Puff. He was a founder of the Pennsylvania Association of Medical Suppliers and the New Jersey Association of Medical Equipment Suppliers. On the national front, he was one of the founders of NADMAC, a forerunner to NAMES and the American Association for Homecare.

Bridwell also was the first provider to bring a patient home from the hospital with a ventilator. “I went and bought two of them, because if one failed I had to have another one ready,” Bridwell recalls. “It sat on the therapist’s van all the time ready to go.”

That was when Bridwell owned Accurate Medical Service, which he eventually grew to six locations in New Jersey, Delaware and Pennsylvania. In 1980, when he sold the company to Abbey Medical (now Apria Healthcare), he had 18 ventilators out in patients’ homes.

Bridwell joined Abbey as vice president for two years before forming Universal Management Systems, an HME buying group and consulting firm. When UMS merged with The Med Group in 1996, Bridwell launched merger-and-acquisition firm Ultimate Resource and continues today as its president, running a veteran team out of offices in Newtown Square, Pa.

“I love what I’ve done all my life, and today I enjoy it just as much,” Bridwell says. “I have great people who help me, and I help them.”

So, given his experience in so many facets of HME, what does Bridwell see in an age of dwindling reimbursements and competitive bidding? One thing he doesn’t see is the industry’s folding up or being left with only a handful of providers supplying all of the equipment.

“[With] the various challenges that have met the industry, it seemed like it was going to end at all times,” he says. “But quite frankly, the need is there, and it’s going to continue. It’s just that there will be changes, and changes always are difficult.”

Bridwell’s advice to providers is to look for new opportunities and to change the industry so that it works whatever the challenges. One way to do that, he feels, is through lobbying, an activity that he has engaged in throughout his career.

In the industry’s current circumstances, he says, “we need to get the users of the equipment and the physicians involved, the occupational therapists and the physical therapists.”

Looking back, Bridwell says what is most fulfilling has been working with patients. He remembers building a custom wheelchair for a patient with cerebral palsy. It took about a year, working Saturdays and Sundays with a crew at his shop. Then he took another year to make another custom chair for that patient’s sister, who was confined to bed 24 hours a day.

And once, at a charity event with his wife and friends, Bridwell heard someone call out his name. When the gentleman came up in his wheelchair, he thanked Bridwell for setting him up with medical equipment when he went home from the hospital. “It’s sort of neat to have something like that embarrass you a little,” Bridwell says, then adds, “OK — I’ve done enough bragging.”

But, even if he isn’t the one to say it, Bridwell’s kindness and leadership have made a considerable impression on others.

“Over the years, Nagle has quietly been part of a good deal of what we know today as the home medical equipment industry,” a nomination letter reads. “He has touched the lives of many patients and co-workers who were always viewed as equals and friends.”

Chosen from nominations sent in by readers, HomeCare’s HomeCaring Awards^® are presented in recognition of distinguished service to the home medical equipment industry. HomeCare is proud to acknowledge the talent, dedication and generous spirit of those who make the HME community a better place, and who demonstrate the caring that HME is all about.