YARMOUTH, Maine - HME News, the leading source of information for the home medical equipment industry, has teamed up with Access Business Media to produce the HME Exposition & Conference. The event will be held April 21-23, 2009, at the Baltimore Convention Center in Baltimore.

"We believe that our involvement in this event will help provide the leadership that's necessary to bring the industry together--and move it forward--during these difficult times," said HME News Publisher Rick Rector.

In many ways, the Expo is a logical extension for HME News, he said. For the past 11 years, the publication has built a rock-solid reputation with providers and other industry stakeholders for reporting industry news and expressing opinions that "tell it like it is." The HME Expo is also an extension of the HME Business Summit, a high-level conference for HME owners and executives. The Summit provides industry data on Medicare utilization and financial benchmarks. It also offers intense networking and original research that gives providers the information they need to run more successfully.

"That's our vision for the Expo, only on grander scale," Rector said. "No one else is doing that. Just as HME News connects manufacturers to providers to consultants to lobbyist to member service organizations and to everyone else attached to the HME industry, the Expo will do the same. It will be a gathering spot for innovation on all fronts."

HME News is owned by United Publications, a publisher of b2b newspapers based in Yarmouth, Maine. Access Business Media was started earlier this year by three former Medtrade show directors--Cory Smith, Art Ellis and Kevin Bird--and Grayson Lutz, a long time operations professional.

In deciding to co-produce the Expo, Rector said, Access's model for the show "impressed us."

For example, he said, the Expo will be held in Baltimore so providers can easily travel to Washington and advocate for industry issues. For this very reason (advocacy), industry stakeholders have been calling for a show to be located in or near Washington for years. What's more, a portion of the event's profits will return to the industry through a foundation that will help finance industry advocacy efforts and other initiatives.