[Sponsored] Corporate Profile: Welmed, Inc.

On Welmed

“Family-owned, innovative and responsive” are three adjectives Dave Fliss and Tan Jie used to describe Welmed, when speaking with John Wallace, editor of OR Today. Dave Fliss and Tan Jie, the co-founders and partners of Welmed Inc., had much more to say about their privately held, disposable medical products business.

It all goes back to early 2006 when their extensive network of factories, customers and dear friends within the industry offered the idea to form a disposable medical device manufacturing company. With over 75 years of combined experience within the medical industry, Dave and Tan Jie did not give it a second thought. Welmed quickly became a reality, officially founded in July of 2006.

“It was an exciting time for us, both professionally and personally,” says Dave.

“Our combined talents were a perfect match, with Dave’s business development, entrepreneurial spirit and experience, network of loyal customers and product development along with my experience, in quality, manufacturing and factory management,” says Tan Jie.

Welmed continues to be a family, woman-owned organization based in Chicago, manufacturing and selling disposable products to thousands of health care customers including hospitals, surgery centers, distributors, OEMs, sterile kit manufacturers and more.

On Innovation

“Disposable medical supplies is an extremely competitive industry and dominated by huge corporations with powerhouse brands, so we needed to find our niche,” explains Dave. “It’s all about the customer, listening and learning and most importantly, effectively and efficiently responding to their unique needs.”

With this simple, customer-centric concept, innovation became one of the company’s founding principles and continues to be real at Welmed today. A few innovation examples Dave and Tan Jie described include products such as their fracture table hip drape, GoGreen biodegradable isolation gown and thermal warming products.

All-In-One Fracture Table Hip Drape

One of Welmed‘s lead, on-staff clinicians was in the OR observing a total hip replacement procedure. The patient was positioned on a state-of-the-art fracture table and Welmed carefully observed the sterile draping procedure. Surprised to see that five unique sterile drapes were used to create the proper sterile field, the ideas started spinning. In partnership with the surgeon, a customer partner and the clinical and product development teams, Welmed’s All-In-One Fracture Table Hip Drape’s first prototype was created. Clinically validated and patented, the sterile drape continues to be used today.

Features of the All-In-One Drape Solution for Use with Fracture Surgical Tables include:

• Eliminates the Need to use Multiple Drapes
• Designed for Use Across a Variety of Designs and Table Manufacturers
• Clear Film for Optimal Visibility & More

GoGreen Biodegradable Thumb Loop Isolation Gowns

“With the explosion and continued growth of COVID, just about everyone has seen the blue, plastic gowns donned by health care personnel throughout the pandemic. Personal protective equipment (or PPE) is now a household name. It’s nearly impossible to not think about the millions of pounds of plastic, blue gowns in our nation’s landfills, even global landfills,” Dave says.

With such a concerning thought, Dave’s ideas started flowing and Welmed’s biodegradable isolation gown was developed. It’s distinctive, bright green color can’t be missed. The most important facts about the gown include:

• Bio-assimilates naturally and fully decomposes in a landfill environment within 6 months without remaining microplastics
• Proudly made in the USA with U.S. controlled materials
• No special storage, handling or disposal steps required … dispose per standard policy and practices
• Environmentally friendly to help achieve customers’ green initiatives

Dave continued on to say, “Thankfully, Welmed’s GoGreen Gowns were available and helped a number of large health systems during the peak of the pandemic. We are very proud of this innovation and look to serve increasing demand from our customers.”

Thermal Warming Products

“Maintaining normothermia during surgery is critical and studies indicate even a one-degree drop in patient temperature can increase chances of infection, increase recovery times and in some cases result in death. Welmed’s innovative disposable patient warming surgical drapes are designed with integrated warming technology to maintain normothermia while in the operating room for surgical procedures up to 4 hours,” Dave says.

“A warming pad is integrated in the actual disposable surgical drape (patent-pending) and actively warms the patient’s core and large extremity areas with significant arterial circulation,” Dave explains.

Welmed has also developed a line of perioperative warming and thermal products, including thermal and warming drapes and thermal bouffant caps and booties. In addition, Welmed’s patent-pending product designs are focused on having significant impacts on costs, efficiencies and outcomes.

• The sterile, disposable surgical warming drape is used just like the sterile disposable surgical drapes used today — place the surgical drape on the patient, perform the procedure and dispose of the drape properly post use.
• Welmed patient warming surgical drapes do not require machinery, ongoing maintenance, or laundry costs (like reusable drapes and blankets).
• Welmed’s warming surgical drapes do not require equipment transfer, maintenance or setup, Dave says. Additionally, there is no need to attach tubing, cords, filters or other attachments to a machine or the warming drape.
• Welmed products are designed to help reduce the risk of infection. “By being a disposable item, you’ve greatly reduced the chance of possible acquired infection from one patient to another,” Dave explains. “Most warming machines today use forced warm air through reusable hoses and are used from patient to patient.”

On Responsive Service

Welmed prides itself on serving customers personally whether it’s via reachable customer service representatives, sales representatives, management team members or very often, Dave and Tan Jie directly.

“It is not unusual for our customers to just pick up the phone and call us,” says Dave. “We love it, as we learn directly from our customers, often leading to new solutions, quick resolutions on issues and improved service.”

Welmed Delivered when Others Couldn’t and Even Added a New Size for a Customer

“In one call, we had a large customer who was struggling with chemotherapy gown allocation and needed us to fill their gaps quickly,” says Dave. “We said that we were up to the challenge, and we delivered their first order of 250 cases of chemotherapy gowns within three days. The customer was impressed with the quality of the gowns and told us they were equivalent or better quality than any gown they had purchased previously. We went above and beyond to meet the customer’s quality requirements and delivered the gowns they needed fast.”

“The same customer told us they needed a custom-size chemotherapy gown. We said that we did not make that size, but they asked us if we could. When we said yes, they were impressed with our willingness to help. Our team worked with the customer to design and develop a new product to their required specifications. With the high-quality, fast delivery, and flexibility that we offered, we became one of that customers preferred vendors.”

Customers Share Feedback

“Thankfully, our customers tell us how they feel with our ongoing, regular customer satisfaction surveys,” says Dave. When asked why they would refer Welmed, a few customer quotes include:

• “I like their transparency, open communication, turnaround, and product delivery. They offered competitive pricing during the pandemic.”
• “They helped us out when no one else had the products.”
• “They were easy to work with and they met my needs.”
• “I like being able to order from them directly.”
• “They were able to give me samples so we could try out products before we bought.”

On Quality

“On quality, it’s non-negotiable. Especially, as a small business operating in an industry supported by multi-billion-dollar organizations. We knew upon founding Welmed that our products had to be better than our competition and were actually clinically designed to improve upon the best within the industry,” says Tan Jie. “The results prove it with Welmed’s quality complaints at 1 in 1 million!”

Trusted Supply Chain Partner

“Everyone hears daily, sometimes ad nauseam, about broken supply chains across just about every industry and we all know from the shortages of PPE, health care was no exception,” says Dave. “It is important for our prospective and current customers to know they have a choice and can further strengthen their supply chain by considering new, vetted vendor partners.”

“Beyond working with our customers on a direct basis, we also work with a broad array of distribution partners, offering customers the convenience of ordering via their ‘standard processes and systems.’ Please pick up the phone and call, it is truly that easy and we will see if we can help.”

For more information, contact Dave Fliss or Tan Jie at 847-514-4641 or email: davefliss@welmed.us

You can also visit www.welmed.us.