Tonda Franklin, from Banner Health in Tucson, Arizona, works with Sizewize beds. “The key is making sure the user understands the product, for instance, knowing the bed can support 600 pounds whether the patient is on the edge or in the middle. Sizewize comes in and trains each nurse on features like that.”

LINET is also very involved with training. The company has trainers who spend time on site with new equipment and the staff. Bain, of LINET, said that ideas for innovations have come from their customers, making time spent training a benefit for the company as well. “Many inventions came from nurses. We spend a lot of time in the environment learning, observing, understanding, and we hope our products reflect what the end-users want.”

Tim O’Malley, president of EarlySense, also focuses on training. “We establish performance benchmarks for the clinical team, for instance, in the area of reducing falls. We work with our customers to see what improvements they want, and then we’ll set goals. Our team will be there until they reach those milestones. We are involved for the first three months and we have a presence there, and are available.”

Company philosophy impacts bed designs
Westbrook, of Sizewize, says the company functions at the intersection of consumer and medical bed technology. “One example of a specialized bed we created involved taking half of a medical bed and half a consumer bed and putting it together so that a recovering amputee patient could stay with their spouse. The solution that we developed would provide air therapy on one side and the other side was a standard consumer bed.” This bed is called the hybrid companion bed. The VA is a big customer base.

Likewise, Ganz from NOA Medical Industries touts the advantages of being a smaller company with no hierarchy, where decisions can be made quickly. NOA Medical puts a big emphasis on customer relationships. NOA Medical is focused on rural hospitals with 50 beds or less, and manufactures bed frames only.

LINET’s Bain says, “facilities are moving to gel mattresses for super-high comfort with high wound prevention, or a convertible mattress that’s foam with air cells incorporated. This combines a high level of wound therapy with a high level of comfort, which impacts patient satisfaction scores. Comfort is one of the biggest complaints affecting reimbursement.”

Hill-Rom’s Solomon says the company is focused on patient safety. “Our beds generate up to 31 data points, any of which can be streamed into an EMR for documentation purposes, over wired or wireless connections. The value of this integration is directly tied to patient safety. Take patient weight: in many hospitals, medicines are dosed off the patient’s weight as listed in the EMR. If there is a transcription error, the resulting incorrect medication dosing can be very serious. Our customers report seeing a great deal of value in having the data goes straight from the bed to EMR.”

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