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The Business of Mission Community Hospital

A look at the companies that supply the California hospital with virtual records, equipment repair, and laundry services

Kevin Cooley

Equipment maintenance

Federal and state agencies require hospitals to inspect biomedical equipment regularly. That's why certified technicians from enBio in Burbank, California, test the machines at Mission Community Hospital and perform any necessary maintenance. They inspect critical equipment, including the anesthesia machine pictured here, quarterly; devices such as blood pressure monitors and X-ray machines get biannual checkups. CEO Arthur Zenian founded enBio in 2008. It has 26 employees and services roughly 200 West Coast hospitals and clinics.

Laundry services

Mission Community Hospital generates about 35,000 pounds of laundry each month. The 145-bed facility outsources the wash to Angelica, an Alpharetta, Georgia -- based company with a nationwide network of dozens of laundry facilities. Angelica picks up, launders, and delivers roughly 800 million pounds of linen a year. It has 5,500 employees and is headed by CEO Stephen O'Hara. The company was founded by Cherubino Angelica in 1878 to provide uniforms to railway workers.

Electronic records software

Instead of sifting through medical files on paper, doctors at Mission Community browse through X-rays, lab results, and medication profiles on touchscreen computers loaded with software from Add-In Solutions of Los Angeles. Doctors can also check the electronic records on their cell phones and get alerts if a patient's lab results come back as abnormal. Ash Davé was the chief information officer for the Cedars-Sinai Health System before founding Add-In in 2002. The company has eight employees.

Surgical head covers

Head covers from Medline Industries (including the one worn here by orthopedic surgeon In Soo Kim) help protect patients from bacteria and other contaminants during surgery. In addition to head covers, which are made of latex-free synthetic material, Medline makes and distributes more than 100,000 other products, including surgical gloves. The Mundelein, Illinois, company, which was founded in 1966, has more than 8,000 employees and thousands of customers worldwide.

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Kasey Wehrum

Staff writer Kasey Wehrum has written for Inc. magazine on subjects ranging from the businesses behind professional bull riding to gadget inventor and father of the infomercial, Ron Popeil. His work has appeared in the New York Times, Worth, Budget Travel, and on MSNBC.com. He lives in New York City.

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