Do your presentations send your customers and colleagues to sleep? Simon Greenfield explains how you can liven up your sales pitch, conference or product launch with a dramatic presentation that humanises the issues, engages the audience’s sympathy and gets a few laughs. At a professional breakfast networking meeting that I regularly attend, there is a ten-minute presentation from one of the members on their business each week. I have seen hundreds of these ten-minute presentations, and they can either fly by in seconds or drag on until the audience has lost the will to live. The worst such presentation I have seen was from an insurance broker. He committed all the cardinal sins of business presenting. He talked about what he wanted to talk about instead of focusing on the needs of his audience. He was not dynamic: he stood still to read out a list of procedures his company used. He did not speak with a passion and a purpose about what he was doing: he spoke in a monotonous drone. He was nervous, which made the audience nervous. And finally, he did not come across as sincere or approachable. The best of the presentations was also from an insurance broker. He told funny anecdotes about his life in the insurance business that his audience enjoyed. And it wasn’t just entertainment: each story illustrated a point about the pitfalls of buying insurance. He spoke with a passion and a pride in his company that inspired the audience. And because he was very familiar with his material, he made the audience feel comfortable and relaxed. After the presentation, people from the audience came up to him to talk about his company; he picked up some new customers from the presentation. He still has my custom. That was six years ago, and I can still remember the stories he told! From a crisis to a drama In surveys that list the things people are most scared of, the top three are frequently death by drowning, being burned alive and having to speak in public. Putting on a business presentation should be approached in the same way as putting on a show. But actors are trained to act, business executives are not – that is how we came up with the idea of paying amateur actors to perform dramatic presentations in order to put across a corporate message. A good example of this is the presentation we wrote and performed for Medilink West Midlands at MedTec 2007 at the NEC. They had several serious messages that they wanted to get across to the attendees of the exhibition regarding the help that was available to companies in the West Midlands in the wake of the recent manufacturing downturn in the area. The three main challenges were: • How do we attract delegates to the stand in the first place? • How can we deliver the messages in a way that will keep them at the stand? • How can we get them to remember what they have heard? We decided to enact a 10-minute play every 45 minutes. The play would be performed by three actors playing a patient, a nurse and a doctor, representing local manufacturing industry, Medilink West Midlands and Advantage West Midlands. We started each performance by setting off emergency sirens and flashing lights, and this soon attracted delegates and exhibitors from around the hall who wanted to see what was going on! The patient (me) was pulled out on a hospital trolley by a nurse, who shouted for assistance while I writhed and moaned in agony. Once we had a crowd gathered, the doctor would appear and we would start the presentation: a series of light-hearted and entertaining anecdotes that illustrated each message. We hoped the delegates would enjoy the show and find the anecdotes interesting, so they would stay for the full 10 minutes and remember the messages. Finally, a tasteful T-shirt was handed out to audience members in return for their business card. This meant they had something to remind them of what they had seen, and enabled us to follow up their interest effectively after the show. Touching from a distance Another of our dramatic presentations was aimed at a more select audience: those invited to a special Innovation Dinner event, hosted by Advantage West Midlands, where the implementation of new healthcare technologies would be discussed. We were provided with a brief for a 20-minute presentation about a family learning to use medical devices and systems for assisted living. The family members were: a father suffering from persistent depression; a wife struggling with asthma; a teenage daughter with weight problems who was being bullied at school; and a grandfather with chronic health issues. The family were using a Home Hub in tandem with diagnostic, monitoring and alarm devices to help them deal with these problems. Simon Greenfield is Director of Simon Greenfield Limited, a print and promotion company based in Birmingham. For more information, call 0121 458 2579 or e-mail simon@sglimited.co.uk. The challenge was: could we show the difference that new medical technologies were making to these people’s lives in a way that was involving, convincing and entertaining? You can judge from the excerpts below how well we succeeded. Actors are trained to act, business executives are not – that is how we came up with the idea of paying amateur actors to perform dramatic presentations in order to put across a corporate message. Cutting to the chase This type of presentation is easy to do, and not very stressful. We meet up with the client. They tell us the goals they want to achieve, and we suggest about three options. Once the client has chosen which option to go for, we produce a script and submit it for approval. Once the script is ready, we employ the actors and rehearse the performance until we are word perfect and ready for the final ‘dress rehearsal’ in front of the client. We can then sort out the production for them, including the costumes, props, staging, lighting and even special effects. This method of getting the message out is excellent value for money. Not only is it highly effective in terms of achieving the stated goals, but the cost of hiring the actors and the set is no more than you would pay to book a standard exhibition stand and staff it with executives!

 

Medical & Healthcare Industry Confer

Hyatt Hotel, Birmingham, 4 June 2008

The first ‘Confer’ event, hosted by Medilink West Midlands, brought together nearly 130 delegates from the medtech industry and related organisations. The theme of the day was ‘Big, Bigger, Too Big?’ – the drivers, dynamics and drawbacks of growth for medtech companies.

The opening session featured presentations from two UK healthcare companies. Philip Salt, CEO of Salts Healthcare, described the company’s ascent from a small firm to the UK’s leading provider of stoma care services. Praising the role of HITF, Salt emphasised the need for stronger dialogue between the NHS and industry.

John Jeans, Chairman of GE Healthcare UK, discussed the complex adoption landscape of the NHS and the growing importance of the preventative healthcare model. He called on the industry to engage with policy-makers in order to build an innovation-friendly culture in which companies can look forward to sustainable growth.

The day’s keynote speech came from IVF pioneer and broadcaster Professor Lord Robert Winston, who emphasised the need for the healthcare industry to communicate more effectively with the public. Using historical examples, he argued that public mistrust of medical science is often justified. He called for a wider dialogue to build awareness: “If innovation is to be nurtured, public engagement is a vital process.”

His speech led into a lively debate including the previous speakers and the audience, dealing with the issues raised. This was followed by presentations on how medtech companies can gain coverage in print and online media.

Finally, a structured ‘dance card’ networking event allowed delegates to share ideas and forge business opportunities – a fitting end to a day that, in Harold Wilson’s phrase, took place in “the white heat of technology”.

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BCS Annual Scientific Conference 2008

Manchester Central, 4–6 June

This year’s British Cardiology Society Annual Scientific Conference was attended by 2,390 delegates. Of those 1550 delegates who stated their profession, around 450 were consultants, 340 were trainee cardiologists, 230 were cardiac physiologists and 170 were cardiac nurses.

The 2008 conference saw a record number of educational sessions on a wide range of topics in cardiovascular healthcare. The accompanying exhibition featured 85 exhibitors, including 60 medtech and pharma companies. There were also stands for healthcare charities, cardiology journals and recruitment companies. BCS provided an internet café for delegates.

Among the highlights of the exhibition were the regular demonstrations of healthy cooking at the Servier stand and the StressVue Exercise stress testing system at the Philips stand. The exhibitors showcased a wide range of diagnostic and interventional technologies, together with infection control and healthcare IT solutions.

Home may not always be where the heart is, but the BCS Conference showed the scope of cardiology services widening across a range of hospital, primary and domestic care environments.

 

 

In the tenth of our series on healthcare industry professionals, Alan Budge, Marketing Communications, Quality Assurance & Regulatory Affairs Manager for Agfa HealthCare UK Ltd, talks to On Target about his working life.

Your role is a complex one. What are the consistent themes within it?

The most consistent theme is customer satisfaction. Any marketing communications role is about trying to meet customer needs and work with the sales team and marketing colleagues, who are geared towards customer satisfaction. Another part of my role is ensuring that our products and systems match those customer needs.

In both areas of my role I’m dealing with people: not only customers but colleagues and people in regulatory/governmental roles. There is a high degree of synergy between these elements. I’m looking at quality assurance from a sales perspective, applying the regulatory requirements to the UK/Ireland marketplace and making sure the products are fit for purpose in this context – and appraising regulatory authorities rapidly if there are any vigilance issues.

Marketing is very much about driving services and products towards the goals of customer satisfaction, while meeting agreed company targets. Quality assurance feeds into the marketing messages to some extent, though certain standards (such as CE Marking) can be assumed. When someone buys an Agfa product, they have a right to assume that the product and the processes used are regulated and to the required standard. Quality management is a very important aspect, and the marketing messages need to bring that out.

What happens in your typical working week? What challenges do you face?

Well, it’s always hectic – there’s never a dull moment! As far as the marketing side is concerned, there are always exhibitions and advertising/PR activities going on – as I am responsible for the UK, Ireland and Nordic region, there are inevitably clashes. Trying to clone myself is the difficult part!

A typical day will be busy from start to finish. I try to minimise the amount of time I spend on e-mails: it’s the main form of communication that we use, but I still try to deal with things by telephone when I can – that way, I don’t waste time reading back through threads. We have a PR agency that I meet with at least once a month and talk to three or four times a week, and an exhibition/design company that we have worked with for quite a while and knows what we need. You can easily spend a lot of time fire-fighting and not enough trying to see the bigger picture ahead.

Customers include senior device specialists at MHRA, radiologists (usually heads of department or business managers) who use our products, trade associations and those sitting on governmental and standards bodies. And I also deal, for example, with radiographers who are looking for sponsorship for their May Ball or departmental seminar! I would hate to think that I gave anyone less than my full attention, whether they are a junior starting out or a very senior individual.

You can spend a lot of time being internally focused, so it’s important to redress that with external involvement – at the end of the day, it’s the customer who decides whether we are a successful organisation or not. Networking – meeting people who are making decisions and producing policies – is very important.

How is the market for digital imaging and EPR solutions changing?

The UK imaging market has changed dramatically in the last two to three years with the advent of the National Programme for IT: the whole UK market is now digital and PACS-based for radiology. Few high-technology markets have changed so fast in modern times. Five years ago, Agfa was mainly selling X-ray film solutions; now it’s selling healthcare IT solutions. We were one of the first imaging companies to recognise the importance of digital imaging and act on it. There has also been significant consolidation of suppliers in the industry, and more is to come.

NHS Connecting for Health has done a first-class job of taking PACS forward. Now the electronic patient record holds out the prospect of similar transformation for all areas of the hospital, and we are focusing our attention on EPR and a wide range of digital workflow solutions. There are a lot of concerns to be addressed for NHS Trusts, companies and patients about how the EPR will work – once we have it in place it will be of great value, but getting there will be a challenge.

 

 

The way in which hospitals provide and manage their medical and diagnostic equipment is changing radically.

This has profound implications for NHS procurement. David Rolfe, Managing Director of Asteral, looks at a new model for healthcare sales: the Managed Equipment Service.

The NHS is under increasing pressure to focus more on patient needs, while at the same time improving its financial management. This double bind is similar to the pressures that healthcare companies face in an increasingly competitive global market.

One successful strategy employed by businesses to improve both financial management and customer satisfaction is to develop long-term partnerships with a small number of suppliers who really understand their business. This frees them to focus on their core activities of developing new products and looking after customers.

Pioneering NHS managers are adopting similar strategies, and looking for new ideas and methods to improve efficiency.

The procurement cycle

The traditional way of procuring new major items of medical equipment, from high-end MRI scanners through to theatre equipment and ultrasound, is through a series of one-off procurements governed by EU rules. Each purchase involves a number of timeconsuming steps – some of which add value, but many of which simply distract NHS staff from their role in treating patients, leading to poor morale and fewer patients being treated.

Typically, once an acute Trust had identified the need for a new piece of equipment, it would either have to embark on a fundraising campaign or have to find the money from its annual capital budget. Once funding was agreed, a beauty parade of providers would be assembled and procurement staff would advise and make recommendations to clinicians – usually based only on information provided by the sales teams of the prospective suppliers.

Due to the ad hoc nature of this approach, equipment was often used long after its correct lifespan, leading to patients being diagnosed or treated using technology that was obsolete. Once the equipment was installed, the Trust would pay for a service and maintenance contract, but would have little recourse in the event of poor performance and limited data on the equipment’s reliability. In due course, the equipment would reach the end of its useful life and the whole cycle would begin again.

A far more effective approach to equipment management has been devised by borrowing best practice principles from other industries.

Breaking the mould

Managed Equipment Service (MES) is just that alternative model, designed to address the shortcomings of the traditional approach to purchasing medical equipment. It takes the principle of outsourcing non-core activities that is common in business by transferring responsibility and risk to third-party specialist organisations with appropriate expertise.

The MES provider becomes a partner to the acute Trust, providing a single point of contact to handle procurement, maintenance, training, financing and other aspects of medical equipment management. The range of activities that can be outsourced to a single point of contact is shown in Figure 1.

Some equipment manufacturers provide MES solutions themselves, but MES really comes into its own when it is vendor-independent. Because companies such as Asteral procure large volumes of equipment from all of the major manufacturers, they are able to gather sophisticated intelligence on which products are most reliable and valued by clinicians. They also have no particular alliances with manufacturers or suppliers of medical equipment. This enables them to support the best purchasing decisions across all potential equipment suppliers, matching customer needs to the available technology solutions.

Having accurate data on reliability is essential. It enables MES providers to reduce maintenance costs and equipment downtime. Consequently, vendor-independent MES providers are able to provide guaranteed equipment uptimes for acute Trusts. As a result, waiting times come down and last-minute cancellations are reduced, leaving staff free to concentrate on diagnosing and treating patients rather than managing equipment failure.

A flexible friend

Other benefits flow from a managed service approach to procurement. From a financial perspective, MES is attractive because it offers a planned, long-term strategy. An MES can deliver predictable financial savings, as well as offering further savings through improved efficiency and the transfer of risk to the MES provider.

The MES model also helps to address the perennial challenge of how to support innovation in a sustainable way throughout the NHS and within individual Trusts. A managed approach to equipment means that early adopters with a clinical need can access cutting-edge products in a timely and planned way, thus genuinely improving the services they deliver.

MES can be introduced as a stand-alone contract or as part of a major hospital building programme such as a PFI framework. For example, Asteral is working in a pioneering partnership with Peterborough (Progress Health) PLC to provide managed diagnostic and theatre equipment services to three NHS hospitals in Peterborough: the new acute hospital, the Integrated Care Centre and the Mental Health Unit.

The Asteral team are working closely with the Trust to ensure that the new hospital building supports all of the equipment required and is suitable for any manufacturer’s equipment in the future. Asteral will project-manage the equipment installation and acceptance testing, ensuring that the new hospital is ready to deliver full services on schedule.

Asteral also provides an MES for all the equipment in the new imaging department at the Whittington Hospital, London, which opened in November 2006. The vendor-independent scheme has provided a broad range of new equipment, including six Philips Digital Radiography rooms, a 64-slice Siemens CT Scanner, a Philips Achieva 1.5T MRI Scanner, a GE Infinia Gamma Camera, six Philips ultrasound units, three Phillips Mobile C-arm Image Intensifiers and an Xograph digital dental unit.

Like all innovation, MES forces us to change how we do things – but these changes deliver real operational progress for NHS acute Trusts, to the benefit of staff and patients.

Another fine MES

Managed Equipment Service is an innovative approach to procurement that takes the worry and effort of managing the medical equipment supply and transfers it to a specialist. With an MES in place, availability of medical equipment is no longer an issue for clinicians or managers.

Like all innovation, MES forces us to change how we do things – but these changes deliver real operational progress for NHS acute Trusts, to the benefit of staff and patients.

David Rolfe is Managing Director of Asteral. David has worked on developing asset services and solutions for the NHS since joining the Brook Henderson Group in 2000. Previously, David worked in structured asset finance for the Royal Bank of Scotland.

Asteral is the leading vendor-independent Managed Equipment Service provider to the NHS, with a 10-year track record of managing medical equipment for NHS Trusts. Its customers include University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust, Whittington Hospital NHS Trust, Whipps Cross University Hospital NHS Trust and Peterborough and Stamford Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. For more information, visit www.asteral.com or contact David Rolfe on 0118 900 8100 or info@asteral.com.