🔒Health reference cards bolster Scrubs and Stuff’s top line

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Ben Loveland initially thought his startup company would primarily sell scrubs to healthcare workers — hence, its name, Scrubs and Stuff LLC.

But doing some research, the registered nurse discovered significant competition in that space and high cost of entry. He changed gears, focusing largely on healthcare reference cards that fit behind a medical worker's identification badge.

“They're kind of like a little quick reference tool,” Loveland says. “You're putting the information right there at your fingertips.”

The cards aren't necessarily for information that should be memorized or used all the time, he says.

“But you need the high-risk, low-volume things — so the things that you can't maybe memorize because you don't use them all the time, but you really want to know a set number or set piece of information,” says Loveland, 32, who is also a part-time nurse in the emergency department at MidState Medical Center in Meriden.

Numerous cards are available, including quick references on laboratory values and EKG interpretations. He also sells cards featuring the well-known Wong-Baker FACES Pain Rating Scale through a licensing agreement with the Wong-Baker FACES Foundation, plus badge accessories like lanyards and badge clips and reels.

“It has really resonated with healthcare workers,” Loveland says of the quick references for nurses, doctors, physician assistants, paramedics, and others.

Scrubs and Stuff's revenue growth bears that out.

Revenues grew last year by about 86 percent, he says. Gains the year before were slightly greater than that.

“We've definitely seen some amazing growth,” Loveland says.

With revenue numbers climbing, Loveland isn't sure he can maintain the same growth rate. So far this year, revenues are running about 20 percent above 2014, he said.

His products are sold through the company's website, http://escrubsandstuff.com/, and a few uniform stores, he says.

“These are, in a lot of ways, a perfect product for that type of store,” Loveland says of healthy store sales.

He sees potential for more store exposure, but hasn't been able to devote as much time to it as he would like while juggling the many demands of a growing business, which comprises him and one employee.

“With all this growth, I feel so fortunate and it's a great problem to have, but it makes it challenging to expand to other avenues,” Loveland says.

He has more plans for the Wong-Baker FACES Pain Rating Scale, which also is sold on posters and key chains, including incorporating it into other products with FACES images.

Loveland says his wife helps him focus his many ideas; consultants also offer assistance.

He believes, too, that his products could have applications in other industries needing reference cards.

“I'd love to work with other people who have some technical knowledge and can identify some problem areas and we can definitely find solutions,” he says.

Loveland says he enjoys working as a nurse, which allows him to keep his skills fresh, use his products, and see what other healthcare workers need. That, in turn, helps him think of new ideas.

His interest in heath care started early, he says.

“Maybe it started in Boy Scouts; I liked the first aid merit badge,” he says.

Loveland became a medical response technician on an ambulance at 14, emergency medical technician at 16, EMT 1, which is a step higher but not paramedic level, at 17. He held that job through college, then became a registered nurse.

When he was 14 on the ambulance job, he made a standardized pocket card for himself reminding him of standard patient information he needed to collect.

After becoming a nurse, he found the reams of paper reference guides informative, “but it wasn't in any kind of form that was going to be useful to me while I was working out on the clinical floor,” he says.

So he made a pocket guide for himself with key information from the paper documents.

He wanted to make a pocket guide for every emergency department in the country, he says. But he simplified his vision to create easy-to-access reference cards.

“We kind of haven't looked back from then,” Loveland says.

Sarah Scott, a nurse in the geriatrics medical unit at Yale-New Haven Hospital, has the EKG reference card stored behind her badge. She's been a nurse for about a year and found it especially helpful when she was new to the field.

“I used to use it a lot and I still reference it at times,” she says.

It's good piece of mind to have it handy, especially in hectic moments, Scott says.

“I think it's a great idea,” especially for new graduates entering the profession, she says. “You can just look down and flip it over and reference information, which is really nice.”

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