CSI attacks market on two fronts

After 25 years of making those heart-pressure monitors you find in the back of drug stores, Chuck Bluth is convinced that his company's newest products are at least five years ahead of anything the competition could put together.

Pharmacy chains, however, haven't moved as quickly as hoped by Bluth, the president and chief executive officer of Sparks-based Computerized Screening Inc.

So Bluth and his staff are following a two-pronged approach.

First, they're developing new markets for the company's health monitors.

Locations ranging from health clubs to physicians' offices to skid-row health clinics now are home to CSI equipment.

CSI is pushing hard, meanwhile, on an advertising campaign to ease pharmacies' lease costs on the new generation of CSI equipment.

CSI's top-of-the-line health station these days is far removed from a simple blood-pressure monitor.

It still calculates blood pressure, to be sure, but also checks a consumer's pulse rate, weight and body-mass index and provides health-risk assessments.

Before long, Bluth said, a lung-capacity test will be available.

"Anything non-invasive, we're going to have it," he said.

But the bigger deal is this: The newest CSI Health Stations are connected to the Internet, which allows consumers to log and update the personal medical records they create at the health kiosks.

If they want, consumers can give their physicians access to the CSI Health Station records.

(The company just put a bunch of work and money into meeting stringent new federal laws on privacy of medical records.) Because the Health Stations are Web-enabled, they can provide a wealth of health information and specialized services.

CSI recently, for instance, inked a deal with the personal trainer of bicyclist Lance Armstrong to provide training information to Health Station users.

That, Bluth said, helps get CSI in the door at fitness clubs.

Other applications? A Florida cardiology office uses a CSI Health Station to perform routine checks of patients before they're seen by a doctor, freeing nurses for other jobs.

Public health officials are using Health Stations in poor neighborhoods to get people to pay greater attention to their health needs before they make an expensive trip to an emergency room.

"We create our own markets by bringing concepts to the table," Bluth said.

In all, some 3,500 Health Stations have been installed in institutional settings.

Pharmacy chains, however, have been slow to adopt the new health kiosks, and CSI currently has its retail program in a moratorium after about 500 machines were installed in pharmacies.

The big issue for retailers is cost, said Bob Sullivan, a veteran pharmacy executive who serves as CSI's executive vice president.

The company hopes it can woo advertisers aspirin makers and the like who want to deliver their message to consumers seated at a Health Station.

The ad revenue would help offset retailers' lease costs.

At the same time, CSI tries to convince retailers that the Health Station can be an important traffic builder.

Bluth, whose other business interests range from apartment development to ownership of the Cal Neva hotel and casino at the north shore of Lake Tahoe, is passionate in his belief that the Health Station can play a role in controlling the nation's health-care costs.

"We can't keep spending money like we are," he said.

"The only way to change it? We have to get you involved as a person.We have to get you the tools you can use."

When Bluth got into the business a quarter century ago, devices that tested blood pressure were little more than novelties most, in fact, worked as coin-operated vending machines.

Today, some of the machines CSI's 45 employees build at its 30,000-squarefoot plant at Sparks are installed in oak cabinets.

That, Bluth said, makes a statement about the dramatic improvement in the products' image as well as their technology.

CSI sees lots of other potential for kiosks with Web access.

The company is busy, for instance, trying to convince state officials that Nevada should roll out kiosks that can deliver drivers licenses.

The written test would be monitored from a remote location, a digital camera in the kiosk would take a photo, and a printer inside would produce a temporary license.

The same kiosk, Bluth said, easily could be used for services ranging from voting to providing contact information about elected officials.

Privately held by Bluth, CSI has the luxury of spending years and buckets of money on promising projects.

The Health Station, for instance, was six years in development.

But Bluth also expects a payback for his patient investment.

"I estimate I have a five-year run before anyone can touch me," he said about the Health Station.

"In five years, I want to own the business."