LAS VEGAS (March 30, 2016)—Medtrade Spring attendees who visited the New Product Pavilion made their votes count on day three at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center in Las Vegas. The Providers’ Choice Awards (sponsored by HomeCare Magazine) yielded gold, silver, and bronze winners.
The Providers’ Choice Silver Award went to the LifeWalker Upright, the caretailing brainchild of David A. Purcell. As founder and president of San Diego-based ProtoStar Inc., the 78-year-old Purcell sought a new take on the familiar walker. Purcell recently answered several questions to help prospective buyers get a better understanding of his upright walker.
Q: Why do you think your product won the Providers’ Choice Silver Award?
Purcell: I designed this for people who need to continue walking. People get our product and try it, and they just seem to understand it. It helps people, and that’s how I designed it. I worked for more than a year just doing drawings, working with my wife, doing measurements, ergonomic studies, and trying to make it so it turned out the way it needed to for my wife, who is disabled.
Q: When did you know you had a real “winner”?
Purcell: If you look at the people, they love it. It was like magic, so I said, “Ok, lets take it from here and make it much better, and we’ve got to make it so that we can produce it in volume.” We were designed for manufacturability. We had to make it lighter weight. We wanted shock absorbers on it, and no one has ever put shock absorbers on these things. We wanted it to have cushions on the hands for people who have arthritis. We improved it, and we keep improving it. We are in production. We finished production units and I love the machine.
Q: Are you ready for providers to start carrying your product?
Purcell: We are shipping in April 2016. We have pre-production units, which we are showing and putting out now. We are still looking for dealers, and once they see the machine it’s not hard to sign them up. They get it pretty much right away.
Q: Would you describe this is as a “caretailing” product?
Purcell: It is a private pay product that is not covered by Medicare, so it has to be a dealer that has that kind of market opportunity since people have to pay for these themselves.
Q: What additional feedback have you heard?
Purcell: I had a meeting with former surgeon general, and he walked in the machine, and he said, “I get it, there is nothing like this.” My reason for doing this is to help people and keep them in good health. I was retired for 12 years, and now I am leaving retirement for life. I sold my prior company to Kodak, retired, and now I am doing something that I am truly passionate about.
Q: Do you have plans to be at Medtrade Atlanta, scheduled for October 31–November 3, 2016?
Purcell: We don’t know just yet. The Medtrade Spring show in Las Vegas was really successful for us. We picked up really good dealers, so we will see.
Visit medtrade.com for more information.
—Greg Thompson
To view additional profiles of award winners from Medtrade Spring, click here.
