If you’re the eagle-eyed sort, you
might have noticed a recent change to
Permobil’s Global Accessories division: It’s
now known as Mobility Support Systems.

Dan Debrah, Ph.D., VP of R&D, is new to
Permobil, having joined the manufacturer
about six months ago (at press time). He
comes most recently from the hospital
monitoring industry, which manufactures
those devices that check vital signs.

“I have what I will consider the luxury of
being new in this specific space, and the
luxury is I’m learning a lot,” Debrah said.
“I’m applying the background and the
purview from which I came, and this is one
of the areas I homed in on.”

He’s referring to the word accessories
to describe components that, functionally
speaking, are so much more.

“You’re being exposed to something
new,” Debrah said, “and you think, Am
I the only one seeing this? Is it because
I don’t understand? The way that this
terminology manifests itself from whence
I came is very, very different from what I
think we intend it to mean in this space.”

Speaking a Common Language

Recently, of course, accessories have
been a significant topic in Complex
Rehab Technology (CRT). A Medicare
policy change in July — which will prevent
the future application of competitive
bidding-derived pricing to accessories
used on CRT manual wheelchairs — was
the result of years of industry advocacy and
education. Accessories is the term used
by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid
Services, and therefore has been the term
most often used by CRT stakeholders.

Said Debrah: “As I got to understand
what the section of the portfolio was, my
question was How do we call that ‘accessories’?
Accessories typically have the
connotation of something like a cupholder.
That’s not what we’re talking about here.
And that’s how we ended up on the path
of It’s incumbent upon us to call this something
different so it truly represents the
value that it has in our overall portfolio.”

In the hospital monitoring segment, he
added, “When we talked about accessories,
they were the nice-to-haves. The
end user or the customer would still get
their core need met, with or without the
accessory.”

Take, for example, a bar code scanner:
“If you’ve ever gone to a hospital, they
put the little band on your wrist, and the
nurse or doctor scans that, and it uploads
your information directly into the monitor.
It provides a huge efficiency gain. But
[hospital personnel] can still get your
information if that scanner is not there;
they can just type it in. It makes their lives
a little easier, and it does serve a critical
need, because that extra five minutes
not spent tapping the information into
the monitor is five extra minutes they can
spend caring for the patient. So I don’t
want to minimize the importance of that
accessory. But even in that case, you can
still do without it.

“In Complex Rehab, it doesn’t work that
way. The user cannot truly gain the benefit
of the mobility device they have without
these things, and that’s why we didn’t want
to cast them off as accessories.”

The Necessity of Accessories

Asked which Permobil products are considered
accessories, Debrah said, “Basically
all of our seating and positioning devices,
and then also within our current portfolio, it
includes power-assist devices. We also have
alt[ernative] drive controls and any of those
types of add-ons. The whole idea being
that there is the fundamental mobility
mechanism in the wheelchair, whether it be
manual or power. And then there’s everything
else that the user interacts with and
everything else that ensures that the user
is ultimately having the experience that we
aspire to provide.”

Debrah also recognized the need for a
change in perception. “When we’re having
our internal discussions about Here’s what
we want to do with the portfolio, what we
don’t want to do is only talk about power
wheelchairs and manual wheelchairs. And
if we have five minutes at the end: Oh yeah,
what about these accessories? Instead, they
truly should be part of the larger discussion
on how they support mobility.

“When we talk about our core values,
the first thing we talk about is user first.
It goes beyond just saying we provided
you a piece of equipment. We’re here
to provide an experience that supports
whatever lifestyle that user wants to have.
So these Mobility Support Systems are
everything that comes along with the
wheels, to ensure that their daily lives are
the way that they want them to be.”

A New Perception

Mobility Support Systems is more than just
a name change. “The culture that we were
trying to instill in the team that worked on
this and the vision that we have for this is:
We don’t want to consider these the alsorans
or nice-to-haves,” Debrah said.

Is Permobil seeking to expand that
perception beyond its own team? “I don’t
want to overstate where we are on our
current journey,” Debrah said. “I think
right now we are mostly inward looking.
But we consider ourselves a leader in this
industry, and I think part of being in a
leadership position is also leading change
and transformation and helping shape
the industry. That is certainly something
we have talked about. Right now, we’re
focused on educating ourselves, if I’m
being fair. And then there will be a time
and place for looking outward.”

Ultimately, it’s all about making sure
these critical components get the attention
they deserve. “Words matter, and
part of the changing of the [division] title
was making sure the way we approach
these things from a design perspective,
from a prioritization perspective, that
we’re changing our mindset and the
importance of that so it becomes more
than just words,” Debrah said. “We want
to put just as much focus on these as we
do on the other parts of our portfolio.
That’s where we are in our current internal
journey. Not just changing our language,
but also changing how we look at these
things and how we behave.”