MAC, Rapid Response, Eastern Dist. intro groundbreaking PERS solution, dealer program

PLYMOUTH MEETING, Pa. and SYRACUSE, N.Y.—Medical Alarm Concepts on June 22 announced a new PERS solution, which the company said will revolutionize the PERS industry. The solution features the new MediPendant, the first hands-free, two-way voice-enabled, wearable communication device with a 600+-foot range from the base unit. The device allows the wearer to roam freely inside and outside the home without the fear of an emergency occurring too far away from the base unit to be heard. The solution is monitored by Rapid Response's new UL-listed, EMT-staffed, 40,000-square-foot, Syracuse, N.Y.-based PERS monitoring center, Life Safety Monitoring, which offers full-time, bilingual monitoring of the MediPendant device for accounts in the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico.

According to MAC CEO Howard Teicher, MAC's aim was to “correct what was wrong with the PERS industry.” Teicher said MAC's new solution is different because until now end users needed to be close to the base unit of the PERS solution in order to listen to the dispatcher and communicate the emergency. “If the end user isn't at the base station, what do they do?” Teicher said. “We've built and marketed the industry's only monitored, two-way voice, full duplex audio PERS pendant. It's pretty cool.”

According to Rapid Response president Jeff Atkins, LSM, through its monitoring of the MAC MediPendant, will take the PERS market to a whole new level of service. “When you're doing a product launch like MAC's doing you have one shot. If it doesn't go flawlessly it can set your whole program back,” Atkins said. “Rapid Response has been an industry leader in technology for the last 17 years, and we have the capacity for large growth companies. Both Rapid and LSM can change and move very quickly in a changing environment. We don't have to add seats, we already have the training program in place … It's not just one thing, it's the people, the technology, and the training that separate Rapid and LSM from all the rest.”

A MediPendant dealer program, coordinated up by Eastern Distributing regional sales manager Joe Russotto, will be rolling out in mid-to-late August. Russotto, who is accepting dealer applications now, claims the dealer program will be a boon to dealers looking for more. “The most attractive thing is that we've got a medical emergency alert system that's different from all of the PERS systems that have been out there for the last 20 years,” Russotto said. “The other thing is, unlike all of the other PERS products out there, we're not going to make the MediPendant available to any dealer. You have to be a MediPendant dealer in order to have access to the product … We're not going to have a situation where, like in the intrusion business, you can have 15 guys in a given market all selling the same product.” Teicher said the dealer program arrives at just the right time. “Security business is down all over the place, so we're coming into the market at a really good time, because the security dealer is looking for another means of generating what he lives on—recurring revenue,” Teicher said. “And he's starting to see that the PERS industry is a great place to do it.”

More information on the MediPendant and the MediPendant dealer program can be found at MAC's website www.medicalalarmconcepts.com.