It might be a great hospital bed, but how exactly do you make it go up and down? And that support surface-how do you clean it? Patients are peppering home medical equipment providers with such questions these days, prompting providers to ask manufacturers to supply simple instructions on caring for the HME they make.

Manufacturers are listening. Not only are they are making products that are easier to use and clean, they are offering training for providers and supplying instructional guides-sometimes in several languages-to end-users.

"It's not a huge problem," says Jay Ramirez, product manager for San Fernando, Calif.-based Precision Dynamics Corp., about the pleas for information, "but I know it exists, and we are continuously working on that very issue. We try to visit providers and communicate information about our products to them. It's a key issue in the industry right now."

If patients are unsure how to use a product, it can present problems not only for the provider but the manufacturer. "People send back products because they don't know how to take care of them," says Kevin Nichols, communications manager for Charlotte, N.C.-based Medisana USA, referring to Medisana's bed and pillow covers. "I don't think the customers realize that they can wash our products in the regular wash and leave them to air-dry, and that lack of consumer knowledge needs to change."

End-users also want more simplified, less institutional-looking products, providers tell manufacturers. "The drive behind simplifying HME is to make [patients] feel comfortable and not have a hospital bed in their room," Ramirez says.