Standard Electronic Ordering on the Horizon

Las Vegas

In a meeting of the minds last month at Medtrade Spring, representatives from some of the home medical equipment industry’s largest manufacturers met with representatives from the industry’s information technology companies to gauge interest in — and get the ball rolling on — standardization of electronic ordering of HME.

According to Jerry Knight, president and chief executive officer of Fidelis Software, Duluth, Ga., the product manufacturers want to explore the possibilities that would allow their clients — the nation’s HME providers — to place orders from product vendors’ electronic catalogs, using existing internal software systems.

“This could play out in ways that are as simple as agreeing on naming conventions,” Knight explained. For example, today there is no standard, from manufacturer to manufacturer, for item categories, he said. One manufacturer might put a walker in a category called “ambulatory aids,” while another might show it in a specific category called “walkers.”

Differences also exist in units of measure (how things are counted and boxed) and in image formats. Standardization in such areas would allow providers to submit orders online to product vendors without having to re-enter the data into their internal systems.

The meeting’s facilitator was Bconnected Software, a Broomfield, Colo.-based firm whose electronic order exchange technology is used by respiratory services provider Rotech and Rotech’s major vendors. Representatives from Elyria, Ohio-based Invacare, Exeter, Pa.-based Pride Mobility Products, San Diego-based ResMed; Murrysville, Pa.-based Respironics; and Longmont, Colo.-based Sunrise Medical also attended the meeting. “This really is a group effort for the industry,” said Angie Rees, Bconnected’s director of sales. “An electronic ordering solution is probably in everyone’s future, so it’s not a competitive advantage for anybody. This is about helping the industry lower the cost of doing business and about making ordering easier for providers.”

Knight pointed to the retail pharmacy industry as one that could provide an example for the HME industry to follow. The retail pharmacy industry has standardized product-ordering formats that allow pharmacies, payors and manufacturers to communicate among themselves without any question, he said.

“Ultimately, for providers, [electronic standardization] would mean ease of order entry and the ability to streamline their own product-procurement methods,” Knight said. “For software vendors, it would mean that we … could help to facilitate the workflow process, and to manufacturers, it would mean there would be some consistency through the industry that could really open the channels for electronic ordering and communication. It’s a big vision, but the opportunities are tremendous.”