7 Months of Silence

7 months, that’s quite a long time between posts!
We’ve had a busy 7 months at Cape Medical Supply. We’ve had an exciting 7 months at Cape Medical Supply too…sometimes the two don’t go hand in hand, in our case, fortunately, they have.
Through the spring we were going through the arduous and delicate process of due diligence on an acquisition we ended up completing in mid-June, which expanded our geographic footprint to New Hampshire and Maine and added a new brand to our stable, Seacoast Respiratory. Through that we also brought on the third son of company founders Mark and Nancy Sheehan, my youngest brother Kevin who is heading up our Professional Relations in New Hampshire and Maine.
The summer was filled with providing services to the countless visitors to Cape Cod who rely on Cape Medical Supply for medical equipment and respiratory care to make their trips safe and comfortable…it was a busy travel season in the region, great news given the ongoing economic uncertainty.
The tail end of the summer saw us dealing with a protracted weather emergency, Hurricane Irene, which caused ongoing power outages across the region and gave our operations team a chance to shine…our home oxygen patients rely on their power sources to breathe, and during prolonged power outages we must deliver supplemental back-up systems to patients so they can remain safely at home. These come in the form of compresses gas tanks, which are incredibly reliable, but don’t last very long for the typical user. Our operations team was on the road nearly 24 hours a day for over a week leading up to the storm and during the after-math, ensuring that our patients were cared for and safe and didn’t have to seek shelter or go to the ER. It is during crises like Irene that the value our industry provides to the healthcare continuum becomes incredibly evident…we performed hundreds of deliveries of thousands of tanks, deferring an incredible amount of societal and healthcare costs, and we were reimbursed $0 for that – it’s part of what we do and we are proud to do it, we simply wish our State and Federal legislators recognized the tangible and intangible value that this provides to patients and society…alas they do not, yet, but that work continues.
In November we were honored as the MA Family Business of the Year. It was a very special evening for our family and our organization. The awards ceremony was in Cambridge and featured 5 finalists in our category (mid-size, 50-150 employees). What made the award even more gratifying was the strength of the competition – there are some truly amazing family businesses in MA, and to be honored in this way was very, very special. In my remarks I made reference to the importance of small and family businesses, especially in these turbulent economic times. Family businesses create and sustain job growth at a rate that is unmatched by other firms and to see so many do so over the last three years is incredibly refreshing and inspiring.
These events are in addition to the numerous new staff additions we have announced and a host of internal initiatives that are delivering tremendous value to our patients, team members and professional healthcare partners.
So, it has been a busy time, which meant 7 months of not writing anything in this space…but for 2012 we have some nice focused content planned, which will be delivered more regularly. We will keep you up to date on our team members, our business, our legislative activities and try to do so with a dash of humor, a dose of education and perhaps a little inspiration in the process.
Here’s to a Happy Holiday Season for you and yours and we look forward to working with you in 2012 and beyond!

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