The online magazine Eastsider LA recently featured CalOx1 because of our ongoing efforts to help fight COVID-19 and save lives. The following highlights some of the key elements of that article.
When the Yaeger family started CalOx 84 years ago, they never could have imagined how their company would be such an important in-home solution for patients during a global pandemic. When COVID-19 first hit California in spring 2020, CalOx began strategically shifting resources in order to focus on assisting COVID patients who are recovering in their homes, while also working alongside home-based respiratory therapists.
Pivoting to Care for in-Home COVID-19 Patients
CalOx began to serve their very first COVID-19 patient on March 30, 2020. At that start of the pandemic, COO Steve Yaeger and his staff were serving on average two to five patients per day. As the case count began to increase in June, that number increased to 77 patients per week. As of early December 2020, CalOx is now serving 275 patients, and they expect that number to only increase as we continue further into winter.
To prepare for that end, Yaeger and the CalOx team are prepping to respond to the surge in cases throughout the winter by working alongside the Veterans Administration and Los Angeles County Health Services. As hospitals release patients with personalized oxygen needs for their homes, CalOx is able to adapt and provide support through medical equipment such as oxygen concentrators.
Keeping Customers & Staff Safe
Incredibly, at the writing of this article, CalOx has supplied over 1,000 patients in the Los Angeles area with oxygen concentrators for their own homes. CalOx has been able to serve all of these patients while also keeping customers and staff safe amid ever-changing state and local COVID-19 protocols. Installing contactless methods of pickups and deliveries, CalOx has been able to work hand in hand with respiratory therapists to provide patients at home with helpful respiratory care.
In addition to all of this, CalOx has proudly not needed to lay off any of our 36 employees during these uncertain times.
Supply Chain Challenges
The largest concern for CalOx is ongoing supply-chain challenges. While most of the public has heard of supply chain issues related to ventilators, the reality is that oxygen concentrators have their own unique supply-chain issues. While most oxygen concentrators are manufactured stateside, many key components are manufactured globally, which has been affected by many pandemic-related slowdowns.
“The global supply chain has shut down so many of those avenues,” says Yaeger. “It’s an ongoing problem.”
Nevertheless, Yaeger and the CalOx team have tirelessly persevered through these challenges by carefully acquiring so many of these life-saving oxygen concentrators along the way. These decisions will continue to serve patients both now and after the pandemic, when CalOx will continue to care for aging populations in need of respiratory assistance from their own homes.