Wieland Healthcare is known for its innovative, patient-first furniture. The Indiana-based business entered the patient furniture market about 30 years ago, after the United States government mandated that behavioral health facilities should feel residential rather than institutional. The problem was that residential furniture was not durable enough for the job. The team recognized the gap in the market and jumped in to provide furniture that could stand up to the rigors of an institutional setting while still making the space feel like home.
The company has been growing successfully ever since, making a name for itself by delivering innovative solutions for unmet needs. After profiling the rising star in 2023, Manufacturing in Focus is checking back in this month to hear the company’s latest news.
Wieland Healthcare’s focus continues to be on providing the most durable and reliable solution—and making sure that solution best fits the patient’s needs. The team’s relatively new Soul collection, which includes the Soul mate and Soul sofa, has proven to be a hit. “It’s our most recent, most innovative product offering that we’ve introduced to the market,” says Market Manager Emily Wentz.
The Soul sofa is a multifunctional unit with an open base and legs that are tall enough for the Soul mate to slide underneath for storage. This companion piece functions as an ottoman and nightstand, or can be unfolded to transform into a rolling chair, allowing families to sit closer to their loved ones.
The Accord collection is another popular Wieland Healthcare offering. In a signature, patient-first move, the team has added more options to its Accord recliner, which has been on the market for about a decade and is ideal for patients receiving infusions. “We’ve added things like heat and massage and a fold-down table that gives the nurse, the caretaker, or even the patient an extra surface to work from or to set their tablets or personal belongings on,” Wentz explains. “And then we’ve also implemented power options—places for you to plug in your tablet or your phone while you’re sitting there getting treatment.”
To get these additions just right, the team listened carefully to patient feedback and responded. “In all that we do, everything is based on Voice of Customer research, making sure that we’re doing the right thing, that we’re solving problems and not creating more problems,” says Wentz. Wieland took the entire picture into consideration and recognized that patients will be in the Accord recliner for the entire duration of an infusion; this means paying attention to details such as “the placement of where the power plug is and the kind of massage that’s implemented into the chair—making sure that the heat doesn’t get too hot for the oftentimes fragile patients that are sitting in the seat. We’ve also made the seat and the back more comfortable, considering that people are going to be sitting in these chairs longer than they might if they were just in a typical [healthcare] environment, where you see most recliners. We’ve made sure that the seat and the back are much more comfortable to sit for longer periods of time.”
The company’s specially designed sleep sofa, which gives families the opportunity to spend days as well as nights at their loved one’s bedside, remains popular. The sleepToo sofa includes an adjustable table so that family members don’t have to leave the patient’s room to eat. And the table-couch combo transforms into a bed with a simple push of a button.
Wieland Healthcare has consistently been ranked as one of the top ten manufacturers serving the acute healthcare market. “We’re incredibly proud to be among them,” Wentz says. “I think that we’ve earned our place in the industry based on [our] warranty and product reliability. That’s always been a key factor in our success. We stand behind our products… If it’s broken, we’ll fix it. It’s just that simple. And I think it says a lot about our commitment to being reliable and it fosters trust with our customers. They keep coming back.”
This strong focus on customer service ensures that customers are taken care of throughout a product’s lifecycle. “When you become a customer of Sauder Manufacturing, the Wieland brand specifically, you’re part of the family from the moment that you purchase a product all the way through its life,” says Wentz. “We’re going to be there with you every step of the way. If you have an issue, you know you can always count on us. Call customer care, and they’re going to connect you to the right person. You’re going to be taken care of when you have a Wieland product in your facility.”
Of course, a continuously evolving market has been one of the challenges the company has faced on its road to success. “Since COVID, this market, this industry, has been ever-changing,” Wentz tells us, and paying attention to customer research has been key to overcoming this challenge. In fact, this “has always been the backbone of everything that we do: actively listening to what’s going on in the market—with our customers, with nurses, and with our designers and even the dealers, our distribution channels. It’s about making sure that we’re actively listening to feedback directly from each of those individuals and then taking what we’re hearing and applying it directly to the products that we’re trying to get to market.”
The company even has a program dedicated to gathering and listening to customer feedback. “We’ve just hired someone new to help us maintain that and keep it sustainable. It’s not just sending out surveys and emails, but it’s going to the customer on-site—visiting their facilities, going to trade shows throughout the country, nurse shows, design shows, healthcare facility shows—to get at every angle and extract as much information as possible.”
Continuous improvement is currently a key focus for the company. “A lot of times, you’ll hear continuous improvement or CI, and sometimes it can be just a buzzword, but here we literally live and breathe continuous improvement,” Wentz says. “We have people dedicated to that in those programs, from holding Kaizen events, to lean practices, to filling out A3s for [problems]. We’re continuously trying to improve things and not just on the production floor, but even in the office, in our marketing processes, and in our customer care processes. Because we realize that ultimately, that’s what’s going to satisfy the customer. If we can improve ourselves here, it’s going to trickle down to our customer too.”
Not content to rest on their laurels, the team has more solutions in the works for the near future. “We are looking at launching a couple of new products, one of which is another recliner option,” Wentz shares. She can’t release too much information about this exciting development just yet, but the product is sure to hit home with patients and providers alike. “As always, the goal is to solve problems with the patients and the caretakers. That is, of course, our main goal.”
After three decades of delivering innovative, patient-centered solutions, the Wieland Healthcare team is more than ready to keep meeting this goal.
