Page 28 - HME Busines, Nov/Dec 2018

BLUE RIBBON HME
New Product Award 2018
Another year into our New Products of the Year Awards program, and 2018 sees another set of
top-drawer HME offerings.
At its core, the business of home medical equipment is about the kinds of devices and products that can make a true difference in patients’ lives. Bearing that in mind, providers want winners. They want the kind of items they know will come in first place with their patients.
That’s why HME Business conducts its annual New Products of the Year Awards program. For five years now, we’ve been hunting for the kinds of products that turn in a blue ribbon perfor- mance. And it’s not just products either. The awards program also covers the types of busi- ness services and products that help providers operate more efficient businesses and provide better service to their patients and referral partners.
This year’s edition of the New Products of the Year Awards saw particularly hot competition among products in the sleep, mobility, retail and respiratory categories, each trading on their
innovation and quality. Shifting over to the busi- ness services and business technology entries, the entries reflected providers’ ever-growing need for resources that help them respond strategically to market shifts and reimbursement policy changes.
Most importantly, this is a provider-judged competition. While HME Business might orga- nize the program, we work with a blind panel of judges from the HME provider community who review and score all the entries. Because of the increased turnout in entries, this year’s compe- tition required us to add some new judges to support the effort, and we’re indebted to all the judges for generously contributing their time and expertise, and we are grateful for their industry spirit for wanting to support a provider-judged awards program to help their industry peers.
Ultimately, the judges selected 12 winning products this year.
By David Kopf
The winners came from a variety of categories: • Business Services
• Business Technology – Specialized Solutions
Home Access
• Incontinence & Urology
• Mobility – Power & Manual Wheelchairs • Mobility – Scooters
• Respiratory – In-Home Equipment
• Respiratory – Portable Equipment
• Retail (a tie between two products)
• Seating and Positioning
• Sleep – Resupply Items & Related Sleep
Products
We initially reported on the winners in October,
and HMEB Publisher Karen Cavallo and I gave them their awards at the 2018 Medtrade Fall Expo in Atlanta, which ran October 16-17. However, now it’s time to take a closer look at our winners and see why they stand out as blue-ribbon examples of what the HME industry has to offer:
10 HMEBusiness | November/December 2018 | hme-business.com
Management Solutions | Technology | Products