May 3, 2016 – TechNation Magazine
Pronk Technologies started more than 11 years ago shortly after founder Karl Ruiter asked biomedical engineers at a California Medical Instrumentation Association (CMIA) meeting how a test equipment manufacturer could make their jobs easier. He learned just how much of a need there was for portable, durable, easy-to-use products. With this idea in mind, he developed the SimCube® NIBP simulator. The product was very well received by the HTM community.
Ruiter’s experience was a life lesson that the best ideas often come from the people who use a product day in and day out. Pronk Technologies continues to reach out to its customers and strives to meet their evolving needs. It has proven to be a very successful strategy. We recently interviewed Greg Alkire, VP of Sales and Marketing, to find out more about Pronk Technologies, its products and what we can expect in the future.
Q: What are some advantages that your company has over the competition?
ALKIRE: A hallmark of who we are is that we design and manufacture all our products at our production facility in California. This enables us to have complete control of the manufacturing process, implement changes quickly and maintain a high level of quality control. Our products are also designed tough enough to withstand being dropped 50 times from 3.5 feet and still function properly.
Q: What are some challenges that your company faced last year?
ALKIRE: One of the challenges all manufacturers have is dealing with parts obsolescence. We don’t want to put our customers in a position of owning a product that becomes obsolete. Our philosophy is to always ensure our products are serviceable for many years beyond our standard four-year warranty. This is transparent to the customer, but behind the scenes we work very hard updating our designs to support new parts to ensure the life of our products for the very long term.
Q: Please explain your company’s core competencies and unique selling points.
ALKIRE: We take pride in being the market leader in innovating devices that reduce the workload for biomeds. For example, we have led the way in reducing the bulky size of what was available on the market by at least 50 percent — that’s what SimCube® has done for NIBP simulators, OxSim® for SpO2 simulators, SimSlim® for patient simulators and FlowTrax® for IV pump analyzers. Our products also replace multiple devices and improve the accuracy and efficiency of the tests that need to be performed. We engineer solutions that are cost-effective, including reducing outlay for accessories, yet maintain a high level of quality and reliability in all our products. Last, but not least, we have gone to great lengths in our designs to ensure ease of use, such as a user interface with one-button operation for the key features.
Q: What product or service that your company offers are you excited about?
ALKIRE: We’re really excited about our new product, the OxSim Flex™. Basically, we took the smallest simulator on the market, the original OxSim SpO2 Simulator, and turned it into the most flexible. The OxSim Flex has all the great features of the original OxSim with the added capability for users to select any simulation value for saturation, pulse rate and perfusion index. We also added a color display and Masimo Rainbow SET® compatibility without increasing the size in any way. The software can even be updated remotely. We believe this will continue to position the next-generation OxSim Flex as the market leader for testing pulse oximetry.
Q: What is on the horizon for your company?
ALKIRE: We are focused on continuing to develop innovative products that are not only compact, cost-effective and easy-to-use but also shift the paradigm in how test equipment is viewed and utilized. Access to electronic test results is another important focus for us, in particular providing solutions that are not proprietary and that can be adopted across any platform, including CMMS systems. We developed a new product called DataSnap™ that provides the ability to collect electronic test data from our infusion pump analyzer, FlowTrax. This data can be imported with a single button press into any type of database, document, spreadsheet or file format. You can speed up your testing and accuracy of IV pumps utilizing FlowTrax, and capture those test results into any CMMS on the market or IV pump manufacturer test software.
Q: What is your company’s mission?
ALKIRE: Pronk Technologies’ mission is to serve the Healthcare Technology Management community by providing innovative products to refine and streamline the biomedical maintenance and support process. Biomedical engineers in the field need equipment that is portable, affordable, rugged, reliable and easy to use. We design and manufacture specialized diagnostic tools that are tailored for this environment.
Q: Is there anything else you want readers to know about your company?
ALKIRE: We take pride not only in manufacturing products for the Healthcare Technology Management community, but also in our educational program where we travel to biomedical associations to conduct presentations on topics impacting our industry. It is 100 percent educational where we provide background on a particular technology or issue along with tools and tips on how best to address it. Feel free to contact us if you would like a presentation at your local biomedical association or facility. Contact us via email at sales@pronktech.com.
