Latest in furniture, flooring products help create improved hospitals

Healthcare Purchasing News, May, 2003 by Curt Werner

Talk about getting no respect There aren't too many elements of a modem hospital that receive less recognition than furniture and flooring. But in much the same way that an umpire who quietly and effectively does his job and goes unnoticed throughout a ballgame, furniture and flooring in a hospital are unsung, assiduous performers.

The chairs, tables, sofas, vinyl, linoleum and carpeting found in every hospital contribute to marketing, comfort, infection control and patient care. Few product categories can rightfully make that claim.

First, furniture. A few large manufacturers supply U.S. hospitals with their furniture, which can range from seating and even sleeping items in patient rooms to clinician stools for patient care. As it is with several other product categories such as patient transfer items, specialized bariatric seating has become an area for manufacturers as they seek to meet the demands of an increasing population of obese patients and guests.

Furniture makers have found that the even during tough economic times, there is opportunity in the hospital market. "There's no question that the healthcare market has been really aggressive for us the last few years," says Joe Erba Jr., president and CEO of Brayton International, High Point, NC, a division of MI-based Steelcase Inc. "The need for renovations and for new facilities has led to a hot market" Erba says that many hospitals built in the 1970s are nearing the end of their shelf-life and administrators have decided that it's time to renovate or even move.

There's another, less obvious factor than a deteriorating hospital that goes into the decision to renovate or move: the nursing shortage.

"For reasons that are both physical and psychological, hospitals have found that patients get well faster and don't need quite as much attention from nurses if guests are around for longer periods," says Erba "It used to be that guests were ordered out at a given time, but today hospitals want friends and relatives to stay longer, sometimes overnight."

That strategic and policy shift presents both a challenge and an opportunity for furniture manufacturers. One challenge is to squeeze furnishings for sleeping into thousands of small existing patient rooms. "As hospitals make this transition that changes the patient footprint the hospitals go through renovations that require more equipment and more multi-use furniture," says Erba. "Some products now serve as a sofa by day and a bed by night, but because of the small space available those sofas can't fold out, so there is a design challenge for doing more with less space." Brayton's has responded to those demands with ingenious products like sleeper-chairs and wailsaver recliners, multiuse products that convert easily from day to night use.

Since patient rooms vary from hospital to hospital, which translates to varying needs in each room, designers from Brayton and other manufacturers now use sophisticated computer-assisted design software to produce a few chassis, then modify the seating product atop each chassis to fit the needs of the customer, saving money in a production process that years ago would lead to runaway costs.

In general, furniture pricing has been kept down not just through design savings, but through the finely tuned negotiating tactics used by group purchasing organizations. Even with price pressures, customers seem to better understand that it's worth a few dollars more to purchase better quality furniture products. "Today's GPOs are better than they were years ago at looking at the total cost of ownership of furniture products," says Erba. "There are no single-source contracts and today's GPOs are very aware of where the opportunities are. They realize that products must last. Plus, they also understand that there is a premium on specialty seating." He also says that in response to demand for improved products, manufacturers have offered warranties for as long as 10 years.

It's difficult to categorize the market size because there are so many variations on designs. But Erba places spending in the 2003 U.S. contract furniture or commercial non-residential markets at approximately $1.5 billion, a figure split between new construction and renovation projects. Erba says that currently there is more new construction taking place furniture is keen. Without ranking the players, in addition to Brayton, the better-known names include Herman Miller, Zeeland, MI; Hill-Rom, Batesville, IN; Stryker Medical, Kalamazoo, MI; and Nemschoff Furniture, Sheboygan, WI, a company that has been producing a wide range of furniture for hospitals for 50 years.

There are also a number of smaller operations that produce interesting lines as well. One example is Blickman, Lodi, NJ, a 105-year-old company that offers several popular stainless steel stool and table lines that are used mostly in patient care and exam rooms. Blickman acquired J.B.Call, a Burlingame, CA-based manufacturer of chrome healthcare equipment and seating products in 1997 and now sells lines of Blickman-JB Call products in a range of colors.