Hospitals must focus on value over price for better care

Hospitals face a difficult but unavoidable challenge

Hospitals must determine how to adopt technologies that improve patient care while protecting increasingly limited financial resources.

Clinical teams typically begin with the patient: Will this technology help us deliver safer, more effective care?

Supply chain and finance teams must broaden the question: Does the clinical and operational value justify the investment?

These are not opposing priorities. The strongest technology decisions occur when clinical need, operational efficiency, caregiver safety, contracting strategy, and financial stewardship all point in the same direction. Prone positioning provides a clear example of how this evaluation should work.

Why evidence-based care can still be difficult to deliver

Prone positioning is an established intervention for appropriately selected patients with moderate to severe respiratory complications. Yet hospitals may still struggle to initiate and sustain prone therapy because manual execution creates significant operational friction.

Manual proning may require a large multidisciplinary team, coordination among nurses and respiratory therapists, time away from other critically ill patients, preventive dressings and supplies, repeated lifting and repositioning, and continuous management of lines, tubes, airways, wounds, and pressure points.

The equipment cost associated with manual proning may appear minimal, but the process itself is not free. That distinction is critical when hospitals evaluate the Pronova-O2 Automated Prone Therapy System.

The wrong comparison: equipment price versus no equipment price

A narrow purchasing analysis may compare the price of Pronova-O₂® with the apparent equipment cost of manually turning a patient. That comparison overlooks the resources required to perform manual prone therapy safely and consistently.

A more accurate value analysis compares the total cost of delivering the therapy under each model.

Five-day treatment cost comparison

Based on the Turn Medical cost model, Pronova-O₂® reduced the modeled direct cost of delivering a five-day course of prone therapy by approximately $2,647 per patient before the potential costs of pressure injuries or caregiver injuries were considered.

For a hospital treating 25 prone-therapy patients annually, that difference would represent approximately $66,187 in modeled annual savings. At 50 patients, the modeled savings would increase to approximately $132,374. These examples should be validated using the hospital’s own labor rates, utilization, injury experience, supply costs, and contracting terms.

Labor is both a clinical resource and a financial resource

The cost model highlights one of the most important elements of the Pronova-O2 value proposition: staffing. Manual prone therapy may involve eight staff members compared with two when using Pronova-O2, representing a 75% reduction in staffing requirements for the modeled workflow. The analysis also compares five hours associated with manual prone positioning with two hours for automated prone therapy.

That does not mean clinicians disappear from the patient’s care. It means fewer people may be required to perform the labor-intensive mechanics of turning and repositioning. The remaining team can focus on ventilator management, hemodynamic assessment, medication administration, airway and line surveillance, skin and wound assessment, and care of other critically ill patients.

For supply chain and finance leaders, the benefit is not merely a reduction in labor expense. It is the opportunity to redeploy scarce clinical capacity.

The financial risk of pressure injuries

Turn Medical’s model reports that approximately 42% of manually proned patients develop pressure injuries, with 76% of those injuries occurring on the face and chest. It identifies an estimated additional cost of $50,000 for a pressure injury and notes that the cost may not be reimbursable when the injury develops during hospitalization.

Manual proning also requires preventive supplies. The model cites recommendations involving dressings at a minimum of 11 pressure points.

Pronova-O2 provides continuous bilateral rotation to help offload pressure and incorporates the InteliDerm Powered Skin Protection System, which is designed to manage heat and moisture at the patient interface. Hospitals should not interpret automation as eliminating all pressure-injury risk, but reducing exposure to a costly complication can materially strengthen the value case.

The cost of caregiver injury

The model estimates the average cost of a caregiver injury at $15,600 and reports that 46% of injuries resulting in missed work are associated with overexertion. By automating the physical rotation of the patient, Pronova-O2 may reduce the lifting and handling burden placed on bedside teams.

The financial impact of an injury can extend beyond the immediate claim to include lost workdays, overtime, temporary staffing, modified duty, workers’ compensation expenses, reduced productivity, and turnover. Caregiver safety therefore belongs in the value analysis.

Five-day risk-adjusted cost comparison

Under these assumptions, Pronova-O2 produces an estimated 32% reduction in risk-adjusted cost per patient. These figures illustrate how relatively small per-patient differences can become material when applied across a hospital or health system.

Illustrative annual savings based on the model

These amounts are modeled estimates, not guaranteed savings. They should be recalculated using facility-specific assumptions.

Building the business case for Pronova-O2

Establish annual eligible patient volume. Review patients who received prone therapy, met criteria but were not proned, experienced delays, required repeated manual turns, or were transferred because prone therapy could not be supported operationally.

Calculate the actual cost of manual proning. Include staff type and number, preparation time, turning time, return-to-supine time, frequency of turns, overtime, premium labor, supplies, dressings, training, and time diverted from other care activities.

Analyze pressure-injury performance. Review incidence, severity, location, treatment cost, added length of stay, reporting implications, and nonreimbursed expense.

Review caregiver injuries associated with lifting, turning, and repositioning. Include workers’ compensation claims, lost days, restricted duty, overtime, and replacement staffing.

Measure operational readiness. Determine whether the hospital can consistently assemble a manual proning team at night, on weekends, during high census, and when multiple patients need intervention simultaneously.

From cost avoidance to clinical access

The most important benefit may not appear in a spreadsheet. When prone therapy requires a large team and extensive coordination, clinicians may delay the intervention or reserve it for the most deteriorated patients. Operational barriers can unintentionally become clinical barriers.

By making the process more manageable and repeatable, Pronova-O2 may support earlier intervention, more consistent protocol adherence, fewer delays caused by staffing availability, and greater standardization across shifts and facilities.

Contracting should facilitate value, not end the discussion

Turn Medical is contracted with Group Purchasing Organizations and the Federal Supply Schedule, and in some cases the hospital may only need to activate the applicable agreement through its supplier portal. Turn Medical is also a registered small business, which may support organizational supplier-diversity goals.

Even when a health system has a primary supplier agreement, purchasing from another qualified vendor does not automatically create noncompliance. Many high-compliance tiers require approximately 80% to 90% of relevant spend with the primary supplier, potentially leaving 10% to 20% available for other purchases, depending on the contract.

The appropriate next step is not to assume the purchase is prohibited. It is to involve supply chain early, verify the applicable agreement, and identify the correct purchasing pathway.

Supply chain is a partner in the process

The best way to move Pronova-O₂® through the approval process is not to work around supply chain. It is to give supply chain the information needed to support a defensible decision.

A strong submission should present the clinical problem, current workflow, direct manual-proning costs, pressure-injury exposure, caregiver-injury risk, expected annual volume, acquisition or rental structure, contracting access, implementation support, and defined measures of success.

A limited evaluation or pilot can also help the hospital validate assumptions before broader adoption. Useful metrics may include staffing per turn, time per procedure, adverse events, pressure injuries, staff feedback, protocol compliance, and total cost per treated patient.

The better financial question

The question is not simply: How much does Pronova-O₂® cost?

The more meaningful questions are: What does manual proning already cost us? What clinical, labor, injury, and operational risks are built into the current process? What is the cost of delaying or underutilizing an evidence-based therapy because it is too difficult to execute?

Turn Medical’s cost model suggests that Pronova-O₂® may reduce direct labor, time, and material costs by approximately $2,647 per patient and may reduce modeled risk-adjusted costs by approximately $11,339 per patient over a five-day course of therapy.

The exact outcome will vary by hospital, but the broader conclusion is clear: manual prone therapy is not free.

At Turn Medical, the goal is not simply to add another vendor or another piece of equipment. It is to help hospitals create a safer, more efficient, and more sustainable pathway for delivering prone therapy to the patients who need it.

Source note: Financial and operational figures are drawn from Turn Medical’s “A Cost Analysis of Manual Prone Therapy vs. the Pronova-O2 Automated Prone Therapy System” (SLM-004_REV-A). Facility-specific results will vary.