Recommendations on Standards for the Design of Medical Diagnostic Equipment for Adults with Disabilities, Advisory Committee Final Report

ADOPTION OF A 19 INCH HEIGHT MINIMIZES COSTS TO HEALTH CARE PROVIDERS

In the absence of Committee consensus commending a departure from the existing broadly accepted transfer surface height maximum of 19 inches, information related to costs is especially critical to take into account in determining the minimum standard height for medical examination tables and chairs. We (representing medical table and chair manufacturers) estimated the costs of various examination table heights under consideration by the Medical Diagnostic Equipment Technical Advisory Committee using third-party data that represents approximately 80 percent of all distributed examination tables sold in the United States.²⁷ This data was presented to the MDE Advisory Committee Meeting held on February 26 and 27, 2013.²⁸

To determine the total number of examination rooms in the United States, we reviewed the CDC National Ambulatory Care Survey, and found that there are approximately 639,000 exam rooms in the United States today.

From this total number, and based on historic trends, we estimated that physicians will build new, or remodel existing, exam rooms at a rate of 4 percent each year, but the total number of examination rooms will remain unchanged from year to year.

Also based on historic trends, we estimated that physicians will replace equipment in 7 percent of their examination rooms each year, including new and replacement medical tables.

We also estimated that the average annual inflation rate will be 3% over the next ten years.

NOTES

^27. Medical table install base derived from U.S. medical distribution sales data, as provided by Global Healthcare Exchange (GHX), found at http://www.ghx.com/product-pages/solutions/supplier-solutions/sales-data-analytics.aspx

^28. The full meeting minutes, as well as a copy of the presentation delivered, can be found in Appendices A and B to this report.