Taking Charge of Chronic Pain
November 06, 2018
According to the Centers for Disease Control, approximately 1 in 12 people live with Chronic Pain that is so intense, it actually interferes with daily life. Based in Orange County, CA, Electronic Waveform Lab Inc. is dedicated to solving America’s Chronic Pain problem through state-of-the-art technology. With the unveiling of their innovative H-Wave device, researchers uncovered a way to not only treat, but target, the root cause of Chronic Pain for lasting positive outcomes.
Host Intro: Hi, I’m Rochelle Reiter. Agency Principal at Orange Label. Just this past September, The Centers for Disease Control released a study highlighting one of the most prevalent health conditions in America: Chronic Pain. According to the study, approximately one in 12 people live with Chronic Pain that is so intense it actually interferes with daily life. Chronic Pain has also been linked to anxiety and depression, opioid dependence and an overall reduced quality of life. Chronic Pain is at the core of some of America’s most pressing healthcare epidemics, but the solution isn’t always as simple as taking a pill. In fact, the CDC specifically mentions the need for safer and more effective alternatives for pain management in their report. But if opioids are not a safe choice for Chronic Pain management, where can we turn for fast, effective, non-addictive methods of treatment? If you’ve turned in to our previous interviews with Kerry Burnight from GrandPad or Patrick Johnson from BioPhotas, you already know that technology is a powerful tool for improving quality of life and this concept also proves true when treating Chronic Pain. Based in Orange County, CA, electronic Waveform Lab Inc. is dedicated to solving America’s Chronic Pain problem through state-of-the-art technology. With the unveiling of their innovative H-Wave device, researchers uncovered a way to not only treat, but target, the root cause of Chronic Pain using electrotherapy. Now, H-Wave is a trusted method of Chronic Pain treatment among physicians, therapists and even professional sports teams. Here to tell us more about this game-changing product is electronic Waveform Lab Inc. President Ryan Haney. Ryan, welcome to The 19.
Ryan: Thank you, Rochelle, it’s great to be here.
Host: So, let’s start from the beginning — how did you get into healthcare?
Ryan: You know, it wasn’t much of an intentional decision. My family had started a business back in the 80s and I grew up knowing H-Wave, being around the brand, the company and the product. I knew the product was great, but I was young. I went away to college, I thought I’d end up in the Bay Area, it was the 90s. I was going to go work for some cool tech company and that’s where I thought I’d be. What happened in college — I needed a job. I needed to start doing sales, and even though I’d be around the brand and company for years, I had never personally walked in a doctor’s offices, walked into therapy offices, treated patients, hands on, and I started doing that every day and knocking on doors and most importantly working with patients. I hit a point rather quickly, where I said, “You know what? This is a cool tech company, this is actually an amazing company.” And one thing led to another, graduated college and started working full time at H-Wave and started doing marketing, then sales management, and eventually led to the position that I’m in now as the President.
Host: That’s amazing. So, you started out wanting to be in tech and you ended up in tech, and it’s great because it’s a family business so you’re really getting to work with people you know and love, and that’s awesome. So, what was the inspiration initially behind H-Wave?
Ryan: You know, I think they wanted something different and better than the current paradigm. Drugs are the go-to treatment for Chronic Pain and they’re rather devastating. And beyond that, most drugs don’t really solve any issue any way. They cloud the senses more than they solve anything related to a person’s Chronic Pain, and they really felt that something different and better was needed. Something that the patients could also control. One thing about treatments for Chronic Pain is that if it isn’t something that the patient can control and use on their own — you know there’s only so often that a patient can walk in and use a therapy office or a chiropractic office, those things can be great. But they’re not on demand, not available 24/7 and that’s what drugs do have is they’re on-demand, patients have them in their hand and if you want to keep those drugs out of the patient’s hand, you’ve got to put something in their hand they can use on-demand to get relief when they need it. But the problem is that something better was needed. Something more effective.
Host: Mhm! So, how does the product itself work? Can you tell us a little about that?
Ryan: Yeah, there’s a few main functions. One of the biggest differences of the product and how it works is it’s not about masking pain. And when you think about electrical or electronic stimulation, which is the broad category that H-Wave is in, most of the devices are about surrounding the pain sight and masking the pain. And that has its place, sometimes those are cheap and easy interventions and you might give them a try. But they often don’t work or they don’t provide lasting or cumulative benefits. The major function of H-Wave is really to move nourishment and waste. At the root of so much pain and disability is an accumulation of waste and congestion. Swelling, edema, whatever you want to call it. And the primary function and benefit of H-Wave is to stimulate the lymphatic system to flush out that waste and also stimulate the circulatory system to bring in nourishment. And it’s that movement of waste out and blood and nourishment into the area that facilitates a faster recovery and gets rid of what is so often the root cause of pain and other limited function.
Host: Wow. So, can you tell us about the benefits that people experience from using H-Wave? Yeah and there’s a lot of benefits, there’s a lot of different diagnoses and patients that can be treated. The biggest things we want to see: of course, pain relief is the thing people talk about the most, but in the end, we want to see things that are objective and measurable. The two biggest things that are measured–whether by ourselves or our employees, but also in published research–is medication reduction and functional improvement. So in most of our research, it’s over 65% of patients are seeing a significant reduction in their pain medication and/or elimination of pain medication and about 80% of patients are seeing an improvement in their functional capacity, their daily living, what they can wake up and do every day. And then obviously, there’s the amazing things we see on a regular basis– the Christmas cards we get, the patients that we’re working with one-on-one and they breakdown or they cry because it’s been so long since they’ve seen relief or you have patients talk about what a depressed state they’re in and how they couldn’t participate with their wife, with their husband, with their family and how now with H-Wave and having that on-demand relief, they’re able to get back to their lives.
Host: Mhm. I noticed on the website, there are some success stories. Is there anyone that stands out to you that’s truly amazing?Ryan: I mean there’s the fun and exciting ones in pro sports, and that’s not the everyday patient, but you know, we have Gary Vitti, the long-time trainer for the LA Lakers who wrote us a great letter saying back in the Kobe-Shaq era, that after an ankle sprain, H-Wave was really a key factor in helping Kobe return to the finals and win a championship, which is amazing to hear.
Host: Yeah, that’s quite amazing.
Ryan: Now, the reality is that everyday it’s more about treating John and Suzy and Sally and Mark and the average patient, and there are so many stories. It’s really fun, what our employees get to do every day is be a part of that cause a big part of what our company does is communicate and interact with the actual patient who are using the products. So, we hear these amazing stories about people that were on the verge of wanting to give up and their life just feeling like it had no hope and really every day we’re hearing those stories, so there isn’t even one that stands out. We’re constantly reminded almost every day of people that are really making transformations and so thankful and appreciative of what we’ve been able to provide them.
Host: Wow. Now, do you sell most of your product through doctor’s office and rehab facilities, or is it mostly through direct to consumer?
Ryan: So historically, and even today, virtually all of our products are sold through physicians or more specifically, a physician prescribes the product for a patient to then take home and utilize.
Host: What do you attribute H-Wave’s success to with marketing to doctors?
Ryan: Well no doubt the technology and product are fantastic and great and truly unique, but really it comes down to what employees do– the service that they provide and more importantly their commitment to our foundation of the company, which is, “nothing else matters if we aren’t getting results.” And all of our field employees, we now have about 100 of them throughout the country that work with doctors, work with patients and their entire focus is getting results and demonstrating and showing results on patients. We don’t ask for sales, we don’t try and set up big programs or do anything elaborate or fancy until we’re getting results. We let sales and we let the good things come from those results.
Host: What a great story. Now with the results, do you have a standard process that you go by or with your sales people, how are they getting these results and these stories back from people?
Ryan: Yeah, obviously a lot of training is provided to our representatives. H-Wave is, beyond the technology, a lot about the service as I mentioned that the representatives provide. It’s not something you can just study and learn overnight, so we do a lot of corporate training and a lot of learn-by-doing in the field, because to get the right results with the product, representatives have to be really confident because you’re walking into patients who might be hypersensitive or maybe been in pain for five, ten plus years and they have a lot of apprehension. You have to have a lot of confidence and the right attitude and a lot of knowledge of how to adapt. There’s a lot of trial and error to develop a custom protocol for patients that’s going to work best for them, because it’s not cookie cutter, it’s not one-size-fits-all.
Host: So, are your people delivering the protocol or the physicians themselves?
Ryan: The physicians give the background information, which is one of the many things representatives use to develop that custom protocol. So they’ll use the diagnosis and conversations with the physician, they’ll talk to the patient about their issues and really try to determine what’s at the root of those symptoms. Back pain isn’t always an issue about something in the back, although the symptoms might be in the back and so on and so on, wherever the issue might be in the body.
Host: Mhm. So, how do you go about marketing the product?