Disability Boutique

Debbie Heft is sold on Rehability, a surprisingly chic store for people with disabilities in a surprising location, a new outpatient rehabilitation center in Allentown.

Heft, who lives in an apartment nearby and has a host of medical problems, frequently drives her wheelchair to the new 3,300-square-foot store in the Good Shepherd Health & Technology Center.

She bought a crochet hoop there that clamps to the armrest of her wheelchair, and a cuff she uses to create a thicker handle for the tiny crochet hook she needs to make baby clothes. She got an umbrella that clamps to the back of the wheelchair and a hot-pink flag that makes her more visible during her long jaunts in traffic.

"I think it's marvelous," she said of the store. "I love it."

Rehability is an experiment in retailing.

Traditionally, stores that sell medical equipment have been stripped-down, functional affairs with little visual appeal. Rehability is colorful and artfully merchandised, more like a Discovery Channel or Whole Foods store than its drabber predecessors.

And it is aimed at people with a wide range of disabilities, from those who need a wheelchair to those who can't hear the TV without driving their housemates crazy. There are even a few products for aging dogs.

Good Shepherd's leaders wanted the store to be about solutions for people who may not even consider themselves disabled.

"It's not a store for people with disability. It's a store for people who want independence and function," said Sally Gammon, Good Shepherd's president and chief executive officer. "Our goal is to help people get their needs met, to stay in their homes, in their life, in their recreation, doing whatever it takes to keep them a happy and comfortable human being."

The board at Good Shepherd Rehabilitation Network, which serves 35,000 patients a year, thought it was too hard for disabled people to find products that could make their lives easier and more fun: TV-screen magnifiers, a talking microwave, brightly colored canes, even a pinball machine for the disabled.

The board thought the time was right for a store that brings together products to help aging and disabled people function better and more independently. After all, baby boomers are entering their senior years. Many are also taking care of parents.

"We're really stepping into it at an ideal time," said Charles Marinello, a Good Shepherd vice president.

Whether the store, which opened in September and has 3,500 products, can make money is a question. "It remains to be seen, but it's a really good idea," said Gerald Katz, a health-care consultant with Kurt Salmon Associates in Plymouth Meeting.

During the late '90s, a number of hospitals tried opening pharmacies or selling durable medical equipment - big-ticket items like wheelchairs that insurance companies cover - but many gave up on it because they lacked retailing expertise, Katz said.

Hospital experts said Rehability's boutique approach is very unusual.

Chuck Hepler, manager of rehabilitation-equipment services for JeffQuip, a Boothwyn medical-equipment company owned by Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, said the company tried a retail store in Center City, but couldn't make it work. JeffQuip, which sells equipment that insurance covers, doesn't have a showroom. It orders directly for specific patients.

Hepler said he wonders whether Rehability will make it. Customers today can buy grab bars for the shower, adult diapers, and large-handle kitchen supplies in many locations. Some independent drugstores even carry scooters. He said he doesn't know whether there will be enough people willing to travel to a specialty store. "Frankly," he said, "I just don't think the volume is normally there."

Large numbers of people with disabilities don't work and may not have the money for snazzy wheelchair wheel covers, or a $9,999.99 pinball machine, said Jean Minkel, a physical therapist who consults on assistive technology.

But Good Shepherd officials said there were also plenty of retirees who could use grabbers, sock donners, and large-print calculators. Or caregivers who could afford a gift for a disabled relative. Minkel said she thinks they have a point.

"Rather than buy them the 13th nightgown, why not buy them a reacher?" she asked.

Rehability does not accept insurance reimbursement, so it largely steers clear of items that insurance would typically cover. Gammon, Good Shepherd's president, said a consultant - a medical futurist, to be exact - cautioned hospital leaders against relying on insurance at a time when payments were shrinking. "If you only focus on insurance and government-related reimbursement . . . you're writing your going-out-of-business story," she said the futurist told them.

The store's ambience is meant to appeal to baby-boomer sensibilities and convey a message. "Really, what we're trying to do is create a positive expectation of the future . . .," Marinello, a Good Shepherd vice president, said. "The spirit of it is, 'Everything's going to be OK.' "

Good Shepherd brought in Marinello, whose background is retailing for companies like Macy's and Bloomingdale's, months before the store opened. The nonprofit invested $1.8 million in building and in stocking the store.

So far, business has been steady, but the store is well behind Good Shepherd's projections that it would take in $2 million its first year.

Marinello said it has been a challenge to get the word out about the store. The hospital has advertised, and is making the rounds of organizations for people with disabilities.

Meanwhile, the store's Web site - www.rehabilitystores.com - is drawing customers from around the country.

Good Shepherd, which recently entered into an agreement with the University of Pennsylvania Health System to provide long-term acute care and rehabilitation at Graduate Hospital, wants Rehability to start making a profit in two years. If it's not doing well within three, it's gone. "We're not going to be in this if it's losing money, because it's not directly serving people," Gammon said. Her ultimate goal is to use proceeds from the store to help other services.

She remains optimistic enough about Rehability to be considering opening satellite stores in other locations, including Philadelphia.

So far, items for children and dogs are selling well, but vitamins are not. Fancy canes and giant calculators are popular. Lots of people like the wheel covers and the pinball machine, but they're not buying yet.

Sean McHugh, a Rehability sales associate who lost his lower right arm in an accident five years ago, said Rehability is a big improvement over the alternative: shopping in multiple catalogs or on Web sites.

Heft agreed. "I don't like shopping catalogs," she said. "I like to see things for myself."