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DOTmed Industry Sector Report: Hospital Furniture/ Exam Room Vendors

by Kathy Mahdoubi, Senior Correspondent | January 13, 2010

As for the swine flu scare, Wayne says, "hospitals are in limbo because they don't know what to do about the pandemic situation. The fear is they won't have enough bed space."

Some resellers are in the process of repositioning themselves to aid hospitals looking for extra beds when needed.

Captive market pressures

Wayne says hospitals are becoming increasingly shrewder about snatching up used inventory. "They seem to be more aggressive as the economy gets worse," he says. "Being a manufacturer, they will try to sell at any cost."

Piedmont Medical resells Hill-Rom, Midmark, Stryker and other manufacturers' beds and stretchers. Byron Wurdeman, president of Piedmont, has the biggest inventory of used beds in the country. Facilities include a 40,000 square foot facility in Dobson, N.C., and another 75,000 facility in Mount Airy, N.C. His customers are hospitals and surgery centers, nursing homes, schools, governments, and "anybody else who wants a bed."

Wurdeman says sales in the business have been down because original manufacturers are holding all the cards. "You could say it's because there is less inventory to come by," he says. "And just recently, the market changed again because the manufacturers are cutting out parts discounts. Resellers are getting pinched by the price of original manufacturers' parts; when manufacturers go up on their prices, you have to increase your prices, which may make you less competitive."

For Piedmont, the Hill-Rom 850 has been the mainstay of the industry because of its simplicity, reliability and ease of repair, but they are becoming increasingly more difficult to come by, and the fact that manufacturers now offer reconditioning only makes matters worse for resellers. "The manufacturer has the pick of the litter and they've got feet on the street," says Wurdeman. "They've got a rep or two going back to the hospitals to get those trade-ins. They can sort out what they want and crush the rest if they choose to."

Frugal in the exam room

Martin Enterprises, owned and operated by Jim Martin, is a government surplus resale company specializing in hospital furniture, including exam room tables and other products. Some of the major manufacturers of exam room furniture are Midmark Ritter, Hamilton Medical and Clinton Industries. Martin says he gets a lot of demand for the Triton DTS chiropractic tables and the electronic-lift Hamilton series exam room tables, which can go for around $1,500.

"The government surplus market is quite active," says Martin. "Some of the equipment is brand new and has been just sitting on the shelf or in storage."