View From The Field
Sanford, FL
Written By: Edgar Galan
From the balmy southern reaches of Florida, we are pleased to present you the Sanford Med One office. It has been an amazing journey as I have seen this office grow since the inception of the Sanford location over three years ago. Just this year, we were excited to expand from our original small office. We now have almost triple the amount of space to store and process more equipment at our new facility. At our prior location, we had to zig-zag through a maze of racks and equipment just to get in the office. It took a lot of perseverance and working with electricians, painters, flooring installers, IT, and general contractors, but my team was able to succeed in getting the new office completed.
Besides completing local deliveries, our office has been almost like a small hub of the East Coast. We have the benefit of working with the Alpharetta, GA, and Morrisville, NC offices to share and distribute equipment across the region. We also assist in managing the overflow of equipment needing PM (preventative maintenance) in the region. When equipment requires PMs, we have the opportunity to swap out freshly PM’d units with units requiring PMs. Chad (the Alpharetta manager), Zack (the Morrisville manager), and their teams have been instrumental in this process, along with my Sanford team: Dave, Pete, and Chris.
Our day-to-day operations here in Sanford are anything but typical. We can start off the day by cleaning and processing equipment. Then an hour later, we are delivering six different items to six different customers across the state of Florida. That’s just before lunchtime. Over the course of the day, there is loading or offloading of equipment to and from the trucks, then cleaning and processing of equipment again upon arrival back to the shop. That is just during the day. We get the opportunity to be on standby for our customers' needs as we remain on-call during the evening. To know that we provide a service that may lead to possibly saving a life or easing one's pain brings us satisfaction in all our roles here at the Sanford location.
One example that comes to mind for an unusual day was preparing for a hurricane that was en route to Florida. We prepped the entire warehouse in anticipation of the storm. All equipment on lower shelving was put on top shelves. Those racks were then bagged, taped, and unplugged. Ventilators were placed in the box truck, and the box truck was parked in the warehouse. The storm came and left, and calls started to pour in for vent requests. At the end of the day, 97 percent of the ventilators available in our office were in the hands of our customers.
A great asset to the Sanford office has to be our customers. I believe we have some of the best in the nation. When Med One first started in Florida, our customers were the ones who reached out to their in-network contacts to promote Med One. They raved about how clean our equipment is and how fast deliveries were completed. So our customers shared their experience within the hospital group. That laid the groundwork for our growth here at our location. My team and I take the opportunity to always thank and remind them of how important they are to us. Without them, there is no us.