LeeSar prepares to expand Fort Myers facility

FORT MYERS, Fla.- LeeSar is planning to break ground on a 100,000-square-foot facility in Fort Myers this spring.

Just about every medication, syringe, and surgical tool, used at the Lee Memorial Hospital and Sarasota Memorial Hospital, comes from the facility.

Nonprofit LeeSar negotiates the best prices, and supplies the items, holding down costs by cutting out the middle man.

“I tell them, I appreciate what they’ve done for us in the past, but we can’t afford them today,” said Bob Simpson, president of LeeSar.

LeeSar was founded 14 years ago, with 40 workers. Now it employs 440 people. They pack boxes with supplies for 22 hospitals in Florida and Alabama.

“We go right to the source of where the product is manufactured,” said Simpson, “and if I can get that product price as close to the source of the product, then we save the hospitals a lot of money. That’s what this facility does.”

Workers pack trays for individual surgeries, giving the surgeons just what they need, and cut down on waste. After the surgeries are complete, tools that can be re-used, return for washing by hand and high-powered machine.

In another room, workers mix drugs for individual patients. LeeSar says if a for-profit company mixed the items, it might boost the prices by 100 percent. The model of cost-efficient medical supply is growing around the country.

“That falls on myself and others in health care, to find initiatives and new ways, to provide that health care,” said Simpson.

LeeSar prices are so low, it’s now supplying most fire departments and ambulance crews in Southwest Florida.