Med Emporium

Statewide partner Med Emporium is a premier medical boutique that provides comprehensive respiratory equipment and services. Since their early days as a company in the 1990s, they have worked to improve the lives of people living with ALS.

“We’re very blessed to have this partnership with The ALS Association,” said Chris Burgess, Vice President of Clinical Services for Med Emporium, who has been with the company for nearly 20 years. “In the beginning, we perceived there was an unmet need with the ALS community. As we waded into ALS clinics, we saw there were several needs that were different from other diseases.”

As they discovered needs and ways to serve what they perceived as an underserved population, the management of Med Emporium made it their mission to improve the lives of people living with ALS. In ad-dition to supporting the ALS clinics throughout North Carolina, they continuously stress ALS education with their staff. “We go over it and over it and over it,” Chris said.

“With Med Emporium, there’s a top-down commitment to the ALS community,” Chris continued. “We commit tremendous resources, financial and personnel-wise. Our clinical staff is very committed. They bond with these patients. We become a tight-knit community. Everybody at all levels is involved with it, whether it’s through the clinics, Walks or events like the North Carolina ALS Caregivers Conference. We’re all in. The ALS community is a big part of us.”

Like The ALS Association, Med Emporium is committed to serving and empowering people with ALS to live their lives to the fullest.

“Ultimately, it comes down to improving quality of life,” Chris said. “We want to increase quantity of life, too, and I believe we do that.”

While he admitted there are challenges to working with the ALS community, he emphasized that there is progress and hope. He pointed to changes in technology and techniques, and advances in research and clinical trials.

“We want to do what we do better than anybody else, and we want to do it better than we’ve done it before,” Chris said. “If we’re not doing it better now than we were five years ago, and we’re not doing it better in five years than we are now, there’s something wrong. We’re not going to become complacent. We’re driven to push on.”

With partners like Med Emporium by our side, we at The ALS Association North Carolina Chapter will push on toward a cure for ALS.