What do you get when you combine two customer-centric, renowned healthcare brands?

The result is a company on par with Arjohuntleigh—a global healthcare group dedicated to creating products and solutions that serve a range of patient handling needs, including medical beds, wound healing, deep vein thrombosis (DVT) prevention, bariatric care and diagnostics.

Arjohuntleigh was established in January 2007, when ARJO—a Swedish company in the Getinge Group, known for its innovation in patient handling and caregiver protection—merged with Huntleigh—a public limited company based in the UK that built a brand on wound and DVT prevention.

The merging of those two companies combined with US integration set a global ball in motion. ArjoHuntleigh has experienced outstanding growth over the past two and a half years by building on decades of brand identity and values while reinventing and continuing to strengthen its position in the market.

“The identity of the company has not changed; it’s grown,” says ArjoHuntleigh President and CEO Philip Croxford. “We’re focused on good, old fashioned customer orientation—it’s very much in line with the Swedish philosophy.”

Croxford is a pharmacist by training and worked in a variety of clinical settings for a number of years before joining ArjoHuntleigh.

“I’m very white-coat oriented,” Croxford says. “I believe the patient is king and I believe the most important thing we can do is serve their needs.”

Continuous Improvement

As any successful company must, ArjoHuntleigh set out to refine and perfect all of its processes upon merging.

The company integrated Lean and Six Sigma practices in several areas of business and has seen its service performance improve significantly as a result.

By eliminating process inefficiencies and reducing costs, Croxford has found that ArjoHuntleigh’s customer service experience has elevated as well.

 “I’m very passionate about using Lean and Six Sigma principles to create a delightful customer experience, rather than just simply focusing on bottom line profit,” Croxford says. “I want to make sure the customer has a better experience based on the changes we make.”

An independent market research agency systematically follows up with a sample group of ArjoHuntleigh’s customers to measure its customer service performance and the company regularly receives exceptionally high scores. Its dedicated service technicians are even compensated on their performance.

Products the Market Needs

There are few healthcare companies available that offer the same range as ArjoHuntleigh’s selection of well-rounded patient-handling solutions. ArjoHuntleigh’s products don’t just improve patient health and dignity—they lessen the impact on caregivers as well.

“Caregivers are typically forgotten in this equation,” says Croxford. “The average age of caregivers in this setting is close to 50 and there’s a nationwide shortage of nurses. Not injuring our precious population of nurses is a good thing.”

ArjoHuntleigh’s products are critical to the market; especially because ten US states have recently passed legislation to require that hospitals implement patient handling programs and/or purchase equipment that reduce injuries to caregivers.

The company’s most revolutionary product is its consultant services program called Diligent®.

Diligent combines ArjoHuntleigh’s Lean initiatives with its highly trained Diligent Consultants to help facilities reduce facility-acquired injuries. ArjoHuntleigh maps patient flows and clinical processes in a healthcare facility, and then proposes new ways the organization can physically handle and manage patients. Notably, ArjoHuntleigh’s Diligent service comes with a performance guarantee to reduce injury costs by a minimum of 60 percent. Over the last ten years the company has seen results regularly achieving in excess of 90 percent.

“It’s the only performance guarantee in the industry,” Croxford says. “And it’s an example of Lean excellence in a clinical, customer centric environment.  The results improve patient and caregiver safety as well as the whole healthcare experience.”

Optimally, Diligent is a huge opportunity for providers to upgrade their care and save money. In the last ten years, Diligent has saved facilities over $500 million in injury costs.

ArjoHuntleigh is able to save customers money in a variety of areas, particularly by helping them compete against CMS “never events,” or preventable injuries that should have never occurred in the healthcare environment and will not be covered by insurance providers.

ArjoHuntleigh employs the latest technology at hand to develop products like the Enterprise® Bed, which prevents falls through a unique sensitive zone that detects all patient movement, and Flowtron®—a pneumatic compression device that can be placed around a patient’s leg to mimic the motions of the calf muscle and prevent DVT events.

“If you went into a hospital today, you’d be hard pressed to find enough hoists, lifts or high quality beds, or DVT therapy equipment deployed as part of clinical practices,” Croxford says. “It’s a vastly underpenetrated environment. Our products and training deliver results and address an unmet need.”

Looking Forward

Croxford anticipates an upcoming explosion in the patient handling arena and is working to ensure that ArjoHuntleigh will continue to be at the forefront of the industry’s increasing needs and retain its market leading position.

In five years or so, Croxford expects the company to be twice its size. The last few years have seen ArjoHuntleigh bring on about 30 new employees annually.

In fact, the company built a new, 35,000-square-foot office in 2009 to accommodate its merger and is already in a position to expand another 7,000 square feet later this year.

For ArjoHuntleigh, expansion has never led to a departure from core values. Through the years, the company has retained its customer-centric goals.

“We do good work and we make a difference in people’s lives,” Croxford says.