Business Notes

Hospital food is dreadful. Hospital bills are frightful. Yet they are nothing compared with the humiliation of the traditional hospital gown, an ill-fitting slice of flimsy fabric secured along the spine by shoelace-style ties that expose patients to drafts in the darnedest places. But the No Moon Co. of La Jolla, Calif., has built a better hospital gown: a soft, thick, robe-like garment with an overlapping flap in the rear held in place by strategically positioned Velcro tabs.

Conceived by brother-sister team Anita Chaffee and Tim Russell, the $16.35 No Moon costs at least three times as much as its low-end equivalents. But, says Chaffee, "for the extra money you are getting a gown that has much more function, design and comfort to it." After a trial order of 12 dozen from La Jolla's Green Hospital in January 1990, the gowns were boosted by exposure at the California Association of Hospitals and Health Systems convention in Palm Springs last October and an article in Modern Healthcare magazine in January. Result: the company has received inquiries from over 50 hospitals in 25 states + and sold nearly 2,000 gowns.