The Home Medical Equipment Standards Association was organized to bring providers and manufacturers together to create a more manageable and orderly supply chain throughout the industry.

HMESA members want to ensure efficient transfer of information between manufacturers and HME providers. Its goal is to create a schema that will allow the two groups to manage product item data in an electronic format that can be easily understood by all parties.

Today, 15,000 HME providers and 150 manufacturers work to give consumers both performance and selection in HME. The complexity of the industry has exploded as a result, with more product categories, more selection within categories and more options available with individual products.

Manufacturers describe like products differently, and each has its own specifications, model numbers and unit measures for packing and shipping products.

Providers have their own methods of tracking and managing a crushing volume of data. Systems to manage data have sprung up haphazardly, and inefficiencies have been heaped upon inefficiencies.

Who in the industry hasn’t wondered if
standardization wouldn’t be cost-effective?