Posts from — July 2006

Recycling medical devices raises concerns
The debate concerning reusing “disposables” continues - as it should.

Invacare - a world leader in home healthcare, rehabilitation and mobility products - has just released their earnings for Q2 2006. The pressure of Medicare reimbursement on the earnings is no big surprise - especially to readers of this blog.

Gray Surgical is a West Australian based company and is 100% Australian owned. We have been in operation since 1996 as a designer and manufacturer of premium quality surgical retractors. Surgical retractors are instruments that are used during extended surgical operations in order to provide maximum exposure for the surgeon.

GRAY SURGICAL is committed to providing surgeons and hospitals with excellence in products and service.

Our range of table mounted surgical Retractors and Instrument Holders are designed to provide optimal surgical exposure and are compatible with most other retraction systems.

In addition, our products are ISO 9001/2000 accredited, FDA approved, TGA approved and have CE certification for distribution throughout Europe.

We are actively seeking to expand our distribution network in the USA, South Africa, Canada, Israel, Greece, South America, Saudi Arabia, Austria, Russia, Singapore/Malaysia (South East Asia), Turkey, Eastern European countries and would welcome enquiries from suitably qualified parties. Email us at gray@graysurgical.com

Advanced Vascular Dynamics (AVD) is the world leader in post - catheterization femoral hemostasis. AVD’s lead product line, the CompressAR* System, has been used for over 30 years to successfully achieve hemostasis on millions of patients. The CompressAR* system provides benefits to clinicians and patients and is used in cath labs, nursing units and interventional radiology labs throughout the world.

AVD is looking for qualified distribution partners in the following key countries: Denmark, France, Norway, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland.

Please contact Matt Semler directly at Advanced Vascular Systems for further inforamtion.

*CompressAR is a Registed Trademark of Advanced Vascular Dynamics.

Here is the latest (from Bloomberg) in the power wheelchair struggle; seeking to gain consensus between the CMS Medicare, manufacturers and consumers.

Bloomberg.com: Politics
July 18 (Bloomberg) — Johnson & Johnson, the world’s biggest maker of medical equipment, and about 70 nonprofit groups are fighting the U.S. Medicare program over a proposed coverage limit for a wheelchair that can climb stairs, curbs and even traverse gravel and sand.

Not only is Johnson and Johnson trying to get reimbursement approval for this revolution in medical mobility but so are hundreds of consumers (organizations).

This comes at a time where the very process of obtaining power wheelchairs through Medicare is being challenged with new rules (once again) having been published in the last two weeks. There are of course reasons for this but this is not the subject at hand.

What is true (my opinion) is that in the past the mobility industry, either through lack of insight into what constitutes all the stakeholders - at best - or at worst through egotistical, bloody minded competition, neglected to address the needs of their biggest customer - CMS. This is now changing - at least superficially - with industry groups having been formed to address the situation specifically.

The IBOT from Johnson and Johnson represents several challenges - not least of which is with industry where companies like Invacare have objected to the special classification of reimbursement of the IBOT.

The fact (OK, my opinion) is that the IBOT would represent a huge step forward in terms of patient mobility and would be great, not only for consumers but also for industry in general. It is a product that would add significant value to an industry trying desperately to distance itself from the rapid trend to the low end (price and consumer utility) crowded commodity segment of the business.

Is industry up to the challenge…

If this is of interest to you you may also want to read:

(Why) Would You Invest In The Homecare Industry

and

Return Of The (Homecare) Vikings which describes how investing in the value added end of power mobility seems to pay off!

Brain implant succesfully (Brain Gate Trial) helps tetraplegic achieve additional mobility. Full text in Nature

Wimbledon Wheelchair Doubles - its that time of the year again!