BusinessReport.com

As John Berges reflected on his godmother’s longtime suffering with leg ulcers, he researched the condition, consulted an engineer and proposed a device called AirPerfect.

Berges’ research indicates 800,000 to 1.2 million Medicare recipients (his target client) deal with chronic venous leg ulcers, which is the result of literal “bad blood” accumulating in legs from failing valves in the veins.

“Our device heals venous leg ulcers in about 90 days,” he says. “Patients do self-treatments at home and, once healed, they get on a maintenance program.”

The AirPerfect device fits over the leg to the knee like a boot and helps drive and force the old blood back to the heart so it can reintroduce oxidated blood and nutrients to heal venous leg ulcers. Medicare offers similar devices, but Berges says his device uniquely employs a technology called “calibrated gradient pneumatic sequential compression” that translates into treatments that can be uniquely applied to each patient. It also means the treatment will feel good, which he says is critical in ensuring the patients are compliant in doing their treatments.

Berges, who is the owner, CEO and head of marketing, and Greg Fasullo, chief technical and manufacturing officer, started the company Digital Air to market the AirPerfect device.

“The AirPerfect is the only FDA-approved device utilizing computer chip technology that addresses the clinical, functional and financial needs for treating venous leg ulcers,” he says.

Every device is programmed based a doctor’s instructions, which is pass-key protected to avoid accidental readjustments but can be adjusted to ensure treatment is comfortable and even desirable. The device stores and records in real time 500 therapies that can be downloaded and printed. Having hard copy therapy reports help ensure compliance and reduce fraud in Medicare.

Medicare spends $5 billion to $7 billion a year on what he says are mostly unsuccessful treatments while initial testing with AirPerfect has shown impressive results.

“This personalized digital compression therapy accelerates healing time in half and prevents recurrence,” he says. “It is estimated the AirPerfect can save Medicare up to $3.4 billion for each new annual enrollment group.”