Profiles of Innovation
Houston entrepreneurs change the medical equipment game, allow hospitals to puttheir patients first
Greg Salario and Gurmit Singh Bhatia operate their business — USMed-Equip, which sells and rents medical equipment to hospitals — a bit different than most.
"It's a simple business that we're in," says Salario. "Where we have success is we use technologies to intertwine, and we have efficiencies that no one else has in the industry."
That efficiency lies in allowing their clients to easily access detailed information online about what they have rented out, something Salario says most medical equipment businesses actively avoid. "The neat part about that is traditionally in this industry […] if you're a rental company you don't want the customers to know what they have on rent. Because if if they know, they might return it, because they might not be using it," Salario says.
Bhatia said he was inspired to become an entrepreneur after working for a similar company and feeling helpless over his future. "They were always going through a merger or acquisition and we were not sure if we would have a job in the long-run. That kind of put the seed in the head about owning a business," Bhatia says.
"We've always thought that if we give those customers that information to manage their business and be heroes, it'll be better off in the long run."
Bhatia said he was inspired to become an entrepreneur after working for a similar company and feeling helpless over his future there. "They were always going through a merger or acquisition and we were not sure if we would have a job in the long-run. That kind of put the seed in the head about owning a business," Bhatia says.
The partners now employ a staff of 70 people and maintain eight offices in Texas and Louisiana, with other satellite offices in Tennessee, Mississippi and North Dakota.
One of the most rewarding aspects of their business is seeing first-hand how the equipment they manage and maintain directly effects patients, including people from their own office. "It's happened with everyone in the company," says Salario, who had emergency surgery at a Cy-Fair hospital and was treated with USMed-Equip equipment.
An exchange student who was checked into a Louisiana hospital for swine flu was put on an IV provided by USMed-Equip, and an employee has likewise seen his infant son rest in an incubator he had cleaned for rental just days earlier.
In the continuing series, Profiles of Innovation, Salario and Bhatia tell videographers John Carrithers and Douglas Newman how they allow their clients in the medical community to spend more resources on care, and less on keeping track of equipment.
