BeaconMedæs has the deepest roots in the entire medical gas industry. Our heritage includes such famous names as Ohio, Ohmeda Medical Engineering, Medishield, Medaes, Fluid Energy, NASH, Beacon and Puritan Bennett. There are no more famous set of names.
The history begins with two companies, Ohio Chemical in the US and Medishield in the UK. Airco, a US industrial and medical gas manufacturer acquired Ohio Chemical and changed its name to Ohio Medical. During this period Ohio developed the Diamond I outlets and later the very revolutionary Diamond II. The basic design of the Diamond II is now used in virtually every medical gas outlet design in use today.
In those days, the preferred vendor and technology for medical air and vacuum was the NASH Liquid ring, but neither Ohio nor Ohmeda were successful in developing a relationship with NASH, and so the companies competed in the marketplace with NASH more often than not the winner because of their excellent technology. Ohmeda did not manufacture their own medical air or vacuum products but had an outside vendor who manufactured them as an OEM supplier.
