“When New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio ended up on the phone with me, it really hit home at that moment that this was not a politicized event and we were in a true emergency,” said Master Medical Equipment and ReNew Biomedical Co-Owner and President Mark Taylor, “Around March 12, calls started pouring in – specifically from early virus hotspots like New York City and areas around New Orleans. “Overnight, we went from receiving approximately 2-3 requests for new ventilators a week to hundreds of orders per day!”
Taylor also said that this didn’t even include the number of frantic calls the company, and he directly, received regarding out of service ventilators needing immediate service to be recertified and moved out to frontline locations.
“I specifically remember receiving a phone call at 10:30 p.m. on a Saturday night from a hospital CEO in Alabama,” Taylor said, “His smaller community hospital was overrun with early COVID-19 patients
and they were desperate for ventilators and the necessary IV pumps to facilitate the vent use.”
Since mid-March, the pace has not slowed down at MME or ReNew Biomedical – sister-companies – housed in the same building headed by Mark Taylor.
“Our team went from 10 mph to 100 mph literally overnight,” Taylor said, “For weeks, our full team pulled together, working 15 hour days, seven days a week.”
And that same team, even working 100 hour weeks, was full of ingenuity – figuring out ways to do things better, faster, and more efficiently than ever.
“On March 24th, the FDA issued an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA), modifying how medical devices, specifically ventilators, are approved for sale and resale,” Taylor said, “This really opened the door for different ideas and supplies for the repair of ventilators on our ReNew side.
“It also initiated some community partnerships for us that the Jackson Chamber connected us with.”
As a member of the Board of Directors for the Jackson Chamber, Taylor knew that the Jackson
Chamber could, and should, be a resource for MME and ReNew during this time.
“Our ReNew team had some great ideas on how to expedite repairs to ventilators with the issued EUA, but lacked either the components or engineering capabilities,” Taylor said, “The Jackson Chamber was an incredible resource for us, matching us up with local facilities like Teknor Apex, Toyota Bodine,
and Henderson Stamping for assistance.”
Continuing, Taylor said “We’ve called it ‘MacGyvering’,” describing their process for repairing and testing medical devices sent in for refurbishing. Traditional “test lungs,” designed to test individual
ventilators to ensure their functionality, were backordered – including new units and spare parts.
Additionally, traditional test lungs test only one unit at a time.
“Our diverse ReNew team, which has backgrounds in the armed forces, large hospital systems, and manufacturing, figured out how to use Teknor Apex hoses and a very specific size latex glove to replicate the resistance of the test lung,” Taylor said, “With this creativity and ingenuity, we can now test up to 40 ventilator units at a time!”
This ingenuity helped MME and ReNew to fill incredible order numbers all over the country in record time. While new devices even can have months long backorders, by using the new systems they have developed, the team has been able to receive, repair, test, and ship out 80 ventilator units to TEMA (Tennessee Emergency Management Agency) in less than a week.
As the pandemic continues across the world, MME and ReNew continue to fill these
orders – repairing and shipping certified and usable units internationally to countries like Brazil,
Argentina, and Italy.
All of the resourcefulness and long hours for Taylor’s team has, understandably, taken its toll.
“We’ve had several team members become very emotional about the whole situation,” Taylor said, “But as they’ve heard the stories and even fielded some phone calls themselves from customers and heard the emotion and thankfulness in their voices, they’ve all had a feeling of satisfaction and really a sense of relief that we can actually do something about this global situation.
“We have a renewed sense of pride in ReNew!”
Through this entire explosion of sales, repairs, and service, Taylor said that there is nowhere that he would rather Master Medical Equipment and ReNew Biomedical be located than Jackson, TN.
“Jackson is really a shining star in the Volunteer State,” Taylor said, “Many people don’t realize that Jackson’s location directly on I-40, about halfway between Nashville and Memphis, is within a day’s drive of 76% of the US population.
FedEx and UPS hubs are close.
“We can get anything, anywhere, very quickly,” Taylor said, “We are so thankful for our community and how they have helped us succeed during this time. Places like Teknor Apex, Toyota Bodine, Henderson Stamping, our local Jackson Chamber, and people like Lyn Tisdale at West Tennessee Healthcare, Tim Chapman, Hose Technical Manager at Teknor Apex, and (CEO) Kyle Spurgeon at the Jackson Chamber.
“We’ve done our best to give back a bit during this time by doing things like supporting local businesses – ordering lunch in for our employees every day from local restaurants during this busy time.”
One thing that Mark hopes will come from this situation is that the value of BioMedical Technology and Technologists will truly be understood.
“The bulk of the current BioMed Technologist population is beginning to age out,” Taylor said, “There is a huge need for vocational training in this area and this pandemic has really shed a light on that.
Besides the armed forces, there are only a few places to be trained. We hope that Master Medical
Equipment and ReNew BioMedical can be a leader in training for the future.”
