Jul 30 2010
Hospitals are accommodating the increasing number of obese patients by buying larger medical equipment,
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports.
The new purchases are "eating into capital budgets and driving growth in the plus-sized medical equipment market. … More than six in 10 hospitals around the country have seen an uptick in the number of morbidly obese patients, defined as those with a body mass index of more than 40, according to a June survey of hospitals by the market research firm Novation. … More than one in three hospitals have been renovated to account for obese patients or are planning to do so in the near future, according to the Novation study." Some of the changes include larger beds, stronger stretchers, bigger rooms, wider wheelchairs, larger tubing for surgical equipment and special operating tables. Such "equipment is often pricier than standard equipment" (Ghose, 7/27).
 This article was reprinted from khn.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.
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