Shock and disruption

During the final stages of getting the March issue out the door, Managing Editor Theresa Flaherty and I also had on our to-do list coming up with a guest for the February episode of the HME News in 10 podcast. 

Given the recent decision by Philips to exit the home oxygen concentrator and ventilator markets in the United States, we thought it would be important to invite someone who could speak to the continued tumultuousness of the larger respiratory product category in the past few years. 

This is, by no means, an all-inclusive list of that tumultuousness, but consider: 

• In June 2021, Philips Respironics initiated a recall of certain CPAP and BiPAP devices. 
• In the subsequent years, Philips Respironics and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration volleyed announcements related to the recall – everything from updates on testing of the sound abatement foam used in the devices to the number of medical device reports submitted and received. 
• In January 2024, Philips Respironics announced it would discontinue 19 product categories, including its EverFlo oxygen concentrator and its Trilogy EVO vents. 
• Also in January 2024, Philips Respironics announced it had agreed on the terms of a multi-year consent decree with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration that requires the company not to sell new CPAP and BiPAP devices, as well as other respiratory devices, in the United States. 

And it wasn’t just Philips: 

• In December 2023, ResMed initiated a voluntary global field action to address possible interference with its AirFit and AirTouch masks and certain medical devices. 

Roxanne Venard was gracious enough to accept our invitation to provide a boots-on-the-ground perspective on what it has been like to be a respiratory therapist for the past few years. Venard works for Ascent Respiratory Care in Greenwood Village, Colo., and is the chairwoman of AAHomecare’s HME & Respiratory Therapy Council. 

In the immediate wake of the news, Venard, who has used Philips vents for more than 30 years, told Theresa: 

“Even after the recall and then the second recall and the problems they’ve had with remediation, it was still shocking to hear they are not going to produce vents. (It’s shocking) we won’t have that very strong brand name anymore.”   

We’ve taken this boots-on-the-ground approach to the podcast before. 

It was 2020, and the challenge was the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic and the guest was Patricia DeMaida, an RT and the sales and clinical manager for Health Complex Medical. 

The current time feels nearly as disruptive. Don’t take it from me: 70% of respondents to a recent HME Newspoll characterized Philips’ exit as significant. 

So, check out the podcast at hmenews.podbean.com and be sure to read all our coverage of Philips’ exit in the March issue.