Product Spotlight

Big Benefit, Small Size

CHART's new SeQual eQuinox POC combines a small, portable form factor with ease of use.

• By David Kopf
• Apr 01, 2014

Good DME can take time to develop. One example of that is CAIRE SeQual’s eQuinox portable oxygen concentrator. The tiny POC highlights ease of use and transportability, along with a slew of new features that have been under development for sometime.

The POC started as a project at SeQual, before the San Diego oxygen equipment maker was purchased by Chart Industries — CAIRE’s parent company — a little more than three years ago, says Brett Townsend, sales and marketing director at Chart Industries. The goal was to add a range of new user features while cutting down the size. Not an easy feat, but one that continued after the acquisition.

“We continued to capture user, provider and patient feedback on things that they wanted to see from the Eclipse, and we encapsulated it into the eQuinox,” Townsend explains, adding that, all told, the POC has been a project four years in the making.

The 14-pound eQuinox continues to deliver the clinical benefits providers have come to expect from the SeQual Eclipse POCs, but now includes some unique user enhancements.

Once of those enhancements is the Multi-Language Voice Interface offers a new layer of ease to users by providing verbal confirmation of changed flow rate settings, as well as announcing battery times and any alarms. The language can even be changed to offer feedback in the end user’s most comfortable language. To that end, the eQuinox speaks eight languages in total.

This is a key development for older patients who might need some “ease of use” assistance, and especially visually impaired users. “It’s the first smart POC,” Townsend says.

“If I take out the battery, it will audibly tell you that it has lost power and it needs the user to plug in a battery or external power.

“If you change the setting, it will give you audible confirmation that it has changed the setting,” he continues. “It will tell you any alarms. If you have a kinked canula, it will tell you that. So it gives direction on how to fix the alarm codes.”

And for moments when silence is golden, the device can be muted, if need be as well. Also, speaking of sound, Townsend notes that the eQuinox is the most quiet portable oxygen concentrator, as well.

Portable Performance

Weighing in at only 14 pounds, the newly designed, easy-to-maneuver frame makes the SeQual eQuinox the lightest weight POC able to offer 3.0 LPM continuous flow. In that respect, uses and providers could consider this a smaller version of the SeQual Eclipse 5.

“We duplicated the performance; it has the largest bolus output of any portable concentrator available,” Townsend says. “So the performance is exactly the same as from the Eclipse 5, this is just put in a 35 percent smaller, lighter weight package.”

Providing continuous flow options from 0.5 LPM to 3.0 LPM and 9 pulse flow settings from 16 mL to 192 mL, the SeQual eQuinox can meet a patient’s 24-7 needs. The comprehensive dosing selection allows a patient to be treated at rest, during sleep, at exercise, and at altitude.

In terms of power the small package is still powerful enough to give patients the freedom to enjoy life without worrying about battery life. A 12-cell pack comes standard, while an optional, longer lasting 24-cell battery pack, the eQuinox can achieve 2.75 hours of operation at 2.0 LPM. (The standard battery lasts about half that time.)

As the device runs, a display shows how much battery life is left at the current flow setting. If the flow is adjusted, the battery life will adjust and recalculate accordingly.

Also, now the battery is accessible from the front. This means that if the patient is traveling and has the device under a seat or in a tough to reach space, swapping out the batter is that much easier. The larger battery also mounts in the same way, and in terms of looks, the 24-cell pack sticks out from the device a little more, but that’s about it.

The eQuinox is also fully functional on AC Power, DC Power, and battery power. Wherever a patient goes, the eQuinox goes with them and keeps up with the various activities of daily living.

For traveling patients, the device is FAA approved and sports a large airplane logo on the front to ensure airport and airline staff know that fact. The eQuinox is now on the market and already shipping. Providers interested in finding out more should contact:

SeQual eQuinox
CAIRE Medical
www.cairemedical.com
(800) 874-0202

This article originally appeared in the April 2014 issue of HME Business.