MEMBER SPOTLIGHT
Fourroux Prosthetics
By DEBORAH CONN
Easy Access Facility offers transportation for patients in need
F
OURROUX PROSTHETICS
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MAY 2021 | O&P ALMANAC
Justin Hanes, CPO, LPO, co-clinic lead, digitally scans a patient. Fourroux Prosthetics was established in 1955 in Huntsville, Alabama. Over the past 66 FACILITY: years, the practice has added facilities in Atlanta; Birmingham, Fourroux Alabama; Memphis and Nashville, Prosthetics Tennessee; St. Louis; and Tampa and Pensacola, Florida. Each OWNER: Keith Watson, CPO facility is a standalone, with its own fabrication capabilities where nearly all devices are built. LOCATION: “We have a talented fabricaHeadquartered tion team,” says Ratliff. She cites in Huntsville, an example from two years ago, Alabama, with when the Atlanta facility “built locations in a hybrid body-powered and myoelectric upper-extremity five states prosthesis that was simpler and lighter for the patient than a HISTORY: completely myoelectric device.” 66 years The company has made several adjustments during the pandemic, such as limiting transportation services to one patient at a time and isolating patients at the office, as well as acquiring new cleaning equipment for vans and offices. “A lot of facilities had to lay off staff or close offices, but Fourroux never had to do any of that,” says Eli Walls, a board-eligible prosthetist,
Deborah Conn is a contributing writer to O&P Almanac. Reach her at deborahconn@verizon.net.
PHOTOS: Fourroux Prosthetics
goes the extra mile for its patients—often literally, according to Jenn Arnold, LPN, the company’s executive patientcare coordinator. Each of Fourroux’s Jenn Arnold, LPN eight clinics has an ADA-compliant van to offer no-cost transportation to patients within a 150-mile radius who need assistance getting to and from their Fourroux appointments. “With the services we provide, it’s super important that [patients] come into the office,” Arnold explains. “We do see patients in their homes and in rehab centers, but treating them in the office, where the lab is located, is essential.” Because most patients need to be seen every three months for follow-ups, “we want to make it as easy as possible.” Fourroux also offers same-day fabrication, says Caitlin Ratliff, CP, LP, co-clinic lead. Caitlin Ratliff, “For lower-extremity CP, LP amputees, we can often go from a test fitting at 9 a.m. to a laminated, delivered socket by 5 p.m. For a lot of patients, that can be crucial— particularly those in rural areas.” Ratliff says this service is beneficial to her as a clinician “because I am not hurried in my assessment,” she explains. “I see how the socket looks at 9 [a.m.] and how the volume of the residual limb fluctuates throughout the day. The patient also has many hours to walk and test the fit, giving us good feedback.”
who served his NCOPE residency at Fourroux. “In fact, we opened three new facilEli Walls ities last year.” Fourroux has temporarily put its amputee support groups, which normally meet quarterly, on hiatus, but hopes to reconvene with appropriate guidelines, says Ratliff. Other community-based activities include offering educational sessions to students at local colleges, universities, and technical schools to raise awareness of prosthetics as a career. Both Arnold and Ratliff participated as event staff at the U.S. Paralympic Cycling Open in Huntsville in April. The facility leverages advanced technology, such as computer-aided design and manufacturing, although technicians also use hand casting when appropriate, depending on the level of amputation and the patient’s needs. “We are also primed and ready to convert to 3D printing when it becomes more available and accessible,” says Ratliff. “We can already save files to that format. It’s an exciting time to be a clinician with technology advancing as it is.” Fourroux had to forgo a big bash for its 65th anniversary in 2020, but it may have even more to celebrate the next time a milestone comes along. “We’re not interested in growth for growth’s sake,” says Walls, “but we will do so if the right people come along.” The right people, according to the company philosophy, exhibit four attributes: honesty, integrity, an innate ability to care for people, and self-motivation. As a result, Arnold notes, staff turnover is rare; everyone unites in putting patients first.
