Repertoire July 2024 by BOC design Inc

Made in America

Manufacturers discuss the benefits that domestic manufacturing creates for local communities and for the U.S. healthcare supply chain overall.

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Red, White, and You

As I have stated many times in the past, the Fourth of July is my favorite holiday, which makes this my favorite issue of the year. What isn’t to love about long summer days, BBQ, the pool, the lake, red, white and blue golf tournaments, baseball, friends, and family?

As I think about family, I’d like to share the story of my great aunt and uncle. They have what may be one of the sweetest love stories I have ever heard. Betty and Joe met when she was 15 years old. Betty was my granny’s sister. She and Uncle Joe spent 77 years together until last month. At 92 and 96 years old, they passed away last month within 24 hours of each other. Both from natural causes and peacefully. If that’s not an all-American love story and example to our entire family, I don’t know what is!

While that story doesn’t really fit into a traditional publisher’s letter, I had to share it because it is so special.

Now on to the magazine.

Per usual, in this issue we cover Made in America through the eyes of several manufacturers. I’d like to thank each of the manufacturers who participated in this issue – it is their way of supporting you, our reader. We hope you enjoy learning more about each of these companies and how to best position them with your accounts.

Also, in this issue we highlight three national meetings held by IMCO, PWH and McKesson. It is so nice to be totally back to normal and covering these meetings. We hope you enjoy the coverage as much as we enjoy attending these meetings each year. One plug for PWH. I have been honored to speak/host a panel for them the past few years and their content is always incredible. If you have never attended one of their meetings, I highly recommend it.

A final note on the events coverage, for the McKesson team, please take the time to go through the meeting supplement attached to your issue. These manufacturers support in so many ways.

As I close this publisher’s letter, I’d like to say happy Fourth of July. We hope you have a great holiday honoring our amazing country. I am so thankful to be an American and to live in this truly incredible country.

Dedicated to the Industry and America!

R. Scott Adams

editorial staff

editor

Mark Thill mthill@sharemovingmedia.com

managing editor

Graham Garrison ggarrison@sharemovingmedia.com

editor-in-chief, Dail-eNews

Jenna Hughes jhughes@sharemovingmedia.com

art director Brent Cashman bcashman@sharemovingmedia.com

circulation Laura Gantert lgantert@sharemovingmedia.com

senior sales executive Amy Cochran (West Coast) acochran@sharemovingmedia.com (800) 536.5312 x5279

sales executive Aili Casey (East Coast) acasey@sharemovingmedia.com (404) 625-9156

publisher Scott Adams sadams@sharemovingmedia.com (800) 536.5312 x5256

founder Brian Taylor btaylor@sharemovingmedia.com

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Repertoire is published monthly by Share Moving Media 350 Town Center Ave, Ste 201 Suwanee, GA 30024-6914 Phone: (800) 536-5312, FAX: (770) 709-5432; e-mail: info@sharemovingmedia.com; www.sharemovingmedia.com

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Working Across the Continuum of Care

Your success today is largely dependent on understanding the entire healthcare community and landscape you serve.

Â When the alarm clock sounds on Monday morning, one of the first decisions the experienced distribution account manager needs to make is: Which customers will I call on this week where I can make the most impact as a consultant, maximize my efficiency and grow my business most successfully? This has never been a simple question to answer, but it has also changed dramatically in the 21st century.

By Jim Poggi, Principal, Tested Insights

The healthcare payment paradigm

There are several factors complicating the question, most related to changes in who pays for healthcare costs. The evolution of Medicare now includes traditional Medicare (Part A and Part B) as well as Medicare Advantage programs (Medicare Part D) which cover services traditionally not paid under Medicare and Medicare supplement plans. The Affordable Care Act went into effect in 2010 and added a few subsidies intended to lower the cost of healthcare and improve access to healthcare insurance coverage, primarily for patients

not covered under an employer health plan. In addition, there are numerous private healthcare insurance plans, many of which are also payers under various government programs.

From a physician practice viewpoint, these options provide a wide amount of complexity in providing services and assuring the practice will be paid. At the same time, it complicates patient decision making about selection of healthcare insurance and healthcare providers.

From a lab perspective, add the complications of the Protecting Access to Medicare Act, passed in 2014 and enacted in 2018, which was intended to lower the cost of lab tests provided under Medicare to the level of private insurance and the complications become truly complex for patients and healthcare providers alike.

The healthcare delivery landscape

While this column will consider some of the complications associated with “who pays for healthcare,” it will focus more on “who delivers healthcare” since that person or facility is our traditional customer. WHO provides healthcare services and how they make purchase decisions is fundamental to our business, and this question leads to the more manageable changes in the healthcare system we will discuss in this column.

I am specifically intending to provide some insight into the evolution of the continuum of care and the integration of “cradle to grave” healthcare services provided by many Integrated Healthcare Delivery Networks (IDNs). The business models of IDNs

vary somewhat, but the system type I will discuss is those IDNs that provide hospital, primary care, lab, urgent care and longterm care solutions.

Today, whether you are treated as a hospital inpatient, are visiting your primary care practice, have an off hour visit to the urgent care or are under long-term care, it is possible, even likely, that one IDN will be the umbrella under which you will receive services. These sorts of systems have the broadest reach into the U.S. healthcare system and are providing a wide range of healthcare services.

What does this mean to the successful distribution account manager? It means your success today is largely dependent on understanding the entire healthcare community and landscape you serve. Not long ago, the answer to the Monday question, at least for me, was: I need to call on a few multispecialty practices with at least five physicians who cover internal medicine, hematology/oncology, OB/GYN and cardiology.

From a lab perspective, this is where the greatest opportunity for medium size and large size capital lab equipment sales were. I did not spend a lot of time in the hospitals, since the private practices I called on were not part of the hospital and they made their product purchases separately. This was a pretty good strategy before IDNs began buying up physician practices and decision making shifted to include more influencers outside of the clinicians in the physician practices. Coordination of services, standardization of lab tests and who provides them in

what settings began the transition from the private practice to the IDN in the last century and this trend continues to accelerate today.

A couple of statistics will serve to illustrate just how significant these changes have been. Recent estimates demonstrate that in 2022, the IDN market was nearly $1.1 trillion annually, with a growth rate exceeding 10% per year. At the same time, only 46% of all physician practices were independent that year. Thirtyone percent worked in practices owned by the hospital and another 9.6% were employed as hospital contractors. As younger physicians enter the healthcare market, the number of physicians employed by hospitals is growing more rapidly each year.

facilities that also owns 35 physician practices and three nursing home/rehabilitation facilities. What sorts of decisions do they make that impact your business?

They standardize which tests to perform, and where. Clinical considerations are important, but business considerations also factor in to a large degree. To be successful you need to offer a range of lab platforms that offer core lab, large group and small group tests for any specific assay. As an example, you need comprehensive metabolic test systems for each of these lab settings. At a minimum you need to offer the systems that can provide equivalent results to all settings outside the core lab and

As customer buying patterns consolidate through IDNs, developing and deploying a more comprehensive strategy and involving a larger team to help you becomes imperative.

So, this is a lot of background, but what does it mean to the successful distribution account manager? At the most fundamental level, it means that to be successful, you need to work with a much more complex decision maker hierarchy and that you are likely to work with a much broader range of colleagues from your valued manufacturers and your own company.

An IDN customer example

Let’s map out a scenario to see how lab fits in and what a successful strategy might look like.

Imagine an IDN with seven hospitals and four urgent care

that provide equivalent results to tests performed in the core lab. So, what is your story?

It COULD be the successful IDN needs to provide a range of frequently performed tests across all applicable care settings of its organization that permit lab tests to be available to initiate or modify a patient treatment program. Test deployment needs to consider both clinical and economic concerns. Results need to be compatible across the network, provide easy integration into EMR and the ability to be properly performed at the care site by a wide range of personnel.

In addition, each setting providing lab tests needs to have a sufficient level of organization to permit efficient lab testing, effective personnel training and highquality results. A well-developed and integrated lab testing solution not only provides the right test for the right patient at the right time, but can be deployed to reduce the lifetime cost of patient care. Your valued lab manufacturer can help provide specific examples of covered life cost reduction, but a couple of well-known examples include use of hemoglobin A1c to identify prediabetics early, use of lactate and procalcitonin to quickly diagnose sepsis and reduce unnecessary use of antibiotics and use of respiratory tests in long-term care facilities to provide effective patient isolation and prevent the spread of potentially deadly respiratory pathogens.

To make this value proposition a reality, you need a suite of lab manufacturers with tests applicable in all the care settings you call on, who are also familiar with CLIA, personnel training, reimbursement and result standardization across a complex IDN enterprise. You and they also need both the technical and business personnel with access to lab decision makers, but also to higher levels in the IDN where longer term thinking strategies can determine the success or failure of your proposal. Your proposal also needs to know and understand integration of test systems and results into the customer’s EMR. In these settings, having the right strategy and coverage of important decision makers is even more critical than your lab test portfolio.

An approach that can work

The first step in approaching such a complex decision-making enterprise is to consider who they are, how they are valued in the community, what decisionmaking criteria they use and what their current testing deployment is; in other words, which tests are done where. Quarterly business reviews at the IDN level are the right settings for asking the right questions about their strategy so you can tailor a proper presentation to meet their needs and show you and your lab suppliers understand what is important to them. Your corporate account executive and you need to be in frequent communication and ready to react to customer needs and buying signals. You should also be invited to meetings as

appropriate with your key lab suppliers to discuss test deployment options and how they can impact the enterprise.

Armed with this data you can probe for unmet needs:

` To what extent do you have concerns about the spread of respiratory infections in your long-term facilities?

` What is your strategy for diabetic patient diagnosis and management?

` How does training fit into your decentralized lab testing scenario?

` What parameters do you use to consider test availability outside the core lab?

` What is your decision-making process to consider changes in lab test deployment?

` To what extent are you concerned about antibiotic usage?

Your Monday morning wakeup call

Now when you wake up on Monday, you need to think differently. You need to continue to call on your private practice customers with an eye toward consulting on how lab can provide clinical and patient treatment improvements. You and your trusted lab manufacturers can manage these customer situations with a careful and thoughtful approach.

But you also need to be mindful of the pressure private practices are under and be aware of red flags that the practice may become integrated into an IDN and that your opportunities may be reduced or eliminated based on that scenario. At the same time, if you have not developed an IDN strategy, you are at risk of losing business as more practices become integrated into these enterprises. This strategy needs a broad view of the IDN customer, a wide range of call points up to the C-suite if possible, and an all-hands-on-deck approach with your colleagues in your company, especially your corporate account manager and multiple members of your lab manufacturer organization, including technical, IT and corporate personnel.

The successful distribution account manager knows that the path to future business success is a clear understanding of your current territory and its customers. As customer buying patterns consolidate through IDNs, developing and deploying a more comprehensive strategy and involving a larger team to help you becomes imperative. Build a bigger, better team to be well equipped to compete in today’s more centralized IDN market.

How Blickman Industries Is Taking Control of Its Manufacturing

By Pete Mercer

One of the hot-button topics of conversation in the healthcare supply chain right now is the argument for domestic manufacturing versus international manufacturing. Many organizations in the healthcare supply chain rely on offshore manufacturing, but it can present a series of challenges for the shipping process and the customers receiving the orders.

Many other organizations are working to move their manufacturing facilities back to the United States to ensure the quality of the end product. Blickman Industries recently announced its own plans to close its factory in Mexico and operate fully within the United States.

In a recent podcast episode, Repertoire Magazine publisher Scott Adams sat down with Anthony Lorenzo, CEO of Blickman Industries, to discuss the history of his organization,

their place in the market, and Blickman moving its manufacturing to the United States.

About Blickman Industries

Blickman Industries is a medical equipment manufacturing company, established in 1889. Best known for their warming cabinets, Blickman’s long-standing reputation allows it to produce stainless steel and chrome solutions for the healthcare industry.

Lorenzo said, “We find ourselves most well-known in

the acute care markets, but we are seeing a lot of growth in ambulatory surgery centers, rehab centers and labs. We are seeing a lot of opportunities as they look to do sterilization offsite to make those centers work well for the larger IDNs.”

As the ambulatory surgery center market continues to flourish, Blickman is leveraging its unique position to supply these facilities with the equipment and tools needed to provide the best possible care to those patients.

The ability to offer different products in different specialties is part of what makes Blickman stand out from the competition.

“We do custom work that helps us get into project business, which is something our bigger competitors won’t do. When customers say they need a certain caster, a certain size, or even a certain type of product developed for them, we are always there trying to help them solve their problems.”

Even with a long and storied history, Blickman is continuing to innovate and produce new products for its customers. One of Blickman’s newest (and best-selling) innovations is a full-color touchscreen display on the front of the warming cabinet. Lorenzo described it as like “using a smartphone.”

Moving manufacturing to the United States

Lorenzo’s team at Blickman has just recently moved all their manufacturing to the United States, opening a factory in Lawrenceburg, Tennessee. Not only will this improve the quality of the products and greatly simplify the shipping process, but it will also give them a competitive advantage with buyers in the U.S.

The need for a domestic manufacturing source was both logistical and practical. Lorenzo’s team found that they essentially had two different facilities. Shipping orders across the Mexico border can be challenging from a logistical standpoint, but it’s also harder on the equipment that’s being shipped. These are large pieces of equipment that do not always do well in transit on the trucks, especially in the winter months.

He said, “The delays of getting things across the border from Mexico to the United States were not good for our customers. Having two facilities also created a lot of transfer costs that just slowed things down. We felt that having one facility in the middle of the country was just going to be a better, more efficient way to run the business and service our customers better.”

This move has presented its own set of challenges for the team at Blickman, but Lorenzo is certain that the opportunities far outweigh those challenges. They’ve hired 60 new team members to help successfully launch this new direction, hoping to be back to normal lead times by the summer.

Lorenzo said, “Our customers are in the midst of seeing some of those delays that have been caused by the move, but we’ll get caught up quickly. We haven’t seen many quality problems, but in making sure quality is where it needs to be, it takes a little longer to do things properly.”

Looking to a bright future

As Blickman continues to establish its foundations in Tennessee, Lorenzo is eagerly anticipating growth and efficiency for the future. Despite the recent challenges, Blickman is continuing to grow sales and hire

new team members. Blickman recently appointed Linda Walther as the chief strategy officer, a former employee for Medline, who will use her 30-plus years in the industry to help ease the many pain points of hospitals.

Since he acquired the organization about six years ago, Lorenzo said that Blickman has introduced 10 to 15 new products. He said, “We expect once we get Tennessee fully functional and everything running efficiently, we’ll be adding even more new products.”

Whatever the future brings, Lorenzo is certain that Blickman will continue to thrive – just as it has for over 130 years. Surviving through a couple of world wars, the rollercoaster of inflation, and a worldwide pandemic is no easy feat, even for an established company like Blickman.

“I think what makes the company unique is just the history of the business, the quality we’ve maintained throughout the years, the broad portfolio we offer, and our ability to be nimble and creative with our customers. We’re not a very large company, so we are able to do things faster and better than everyone else, especially once we get settled in Tennessee.”

www.blickman.com

Level Up: McKesson Medical-Surgical National Sales Conference

Courtesy of McKesson Medical-Surgical

Â More than 1,600 McKesson sales team members and 700-plus representatives from a couple hundred of the industry’s top suppliers gathered in Nashville in mid-May for the McKesson MedicalSurgical National Sales Conference. The meeting theme, “Level Up”, aimed to motivate Team McKesson to play from a position of strength and Level Up to continue winning together and with customers – all while achieving financial success.

The meeting made the most of the Nashville location. Events included an evening of networking on Music City’s Broadway and a private closing concert with a national country music act.

The meeting opened Monday with a celebration, as dozens of Sales team members were recognized with awards for their performance in the previous fiscal year.

The focus on Tuesday was on team McKesson, with opening sessions, an address from McKesson

CEO Brian Tyler, and the Power of McKesson internal resource show and sales segment content.

In addition to the programming for Sales team members, suppliers had their own track that included an opening session, reverse tradeshow and content sessions, showcasing McKesson capabilities, as well as exclusive events with McKesson Sales leaders for preferred suppliers.

The meeting culminated Wednesday with a big day for

suppliers and team McKesson alike. More than 2,500 attendees “showed up for the bell” to start the day off by hearing from guest speaker Jay Wright, a Hall of Fame basketball coach who led the Villanova Wildcats men’s team to two NCAA Championships. The tradeshows that followed lasted most of the rest of the day and featured 200 booths on two floors. A reception and concert for all attendees closed out a very successful conference.

PWH Builds Legacies Through Connection

Legacy was the theme of the sixth annual PWH Leadership Summit.

By Rachel Bailey, Editor, PWH ® Connect Journal

Â The Professional Women in Healthcare® (PWH) organization held its sixth annual PWH Leadership Summit in Louisville, Kentucky, April 29 – May 1, 2024. The PWH Leadership Summit is our industry’s only conference dedicated to inclusive leadership development. Derby City was a fitting place to honor the legacy of PWH and all the great organizations that have built our industry. Thanks to Summit sponsorship from 15 industry-leading organizations and for the generous support of 24 corporate partners, PWH brought together 270 industry leaders. Our dynamic program was curated by the PWH Leadership Summit Committee, led by April Shomper, Sr. Director, Events Strategy & Planning, Vizient. Thanks to their hard work, the event emboldened attendees to reflect on our leadership legacies, build connections and implement rituals for resilience as we continue to lead through change.

The 2024 PWH Leadership Summit had a record turnout of 270 industry leaders, many of whom are pictured here during the event’s networking dinner held at the Louisville Palace Theatre.

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“Legacy is an imprint with impact,” said PWH Chair and Vice President, Innovia Corporate Sales, Allison Therwhanger, as she inspired attendees to be intentional about our “ripple effect.” Therwhanger also reminded us that this year marks the 20th anniversary of PWH. “The PWH mission is our legacy – creating an inclusive healthcare industry equally led by women and men. I want to thank all of you who continue to support PWH and our great industry.”

Vizient sponsored the event’s opening keynote speaker, Adam Markel, who explained that being resilient and adaptable to the changing environment means you don’t bounce back. Instead, challenges bounce you forward. To be resilient and adaptable, however, we must prevent fatigue and burnout with “recovery rituals” that sustain our mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual well-being. What are your recovery rituals?

After the opening session, attendees enjoyed a reception before heading out for small group networking dinners at various restaurants in downtown Louisville. I had the pleasure of dining with several members of the PWH Cultural Diversity & Inclusion

(CID) Committee, chaired by Enid Oquendo. Our dinner group included Joe Machicote, Chief Diversity Officer, Premier, who helped the PWH CID Committee recently complete a 32-page white paper entitled “Cultural Inclusion & Diversity in Healthcare: Shaping the Future of Leadership.” It provides foundational information about the state of diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging (DEIB) within our industry and is available on the PWH website (www.mypwh.org/ pwh-cultural-inclusion-diversity).

Day two of the Summit began with “Leadership Insights,” sponsored by Midmark. Five industry leaders elated attendees with unique 15-minute talks on leadership.

` Sharyn Ford, Strategist, Trainer & Coach, Strategic Visions International, reminded us that we are all still recovering from the pandemic world as we rebuild our lives. Her story urged us to strategically unplug regularly and build organizational capacity for resilience.

` Mark Zacur, CEO, Avantik, inspired us to learn from both effective (e.g., adaptable) and ineffective leaders. Our privilege to serve this great industry obligates us to instill passion in our teams to work and help people every day.

` Jessica Wells, Sr. Director, Customer Experience, Vizient, encouraged us to “tend” our legacy by first taking stock (looking behind, around, and clearing the clutter). Next, celebrate accomplishments before deciding how best to grow forward.

` Marisa Farabaugh, SVP/ Chief Supply Chain Officer, AdventHealth, challenged us to engage lifelong learning and provided a three-step framework to bolster success: One: Learn something new. Two: Act on it. Three: Communicate and share it.

` Gary Corless, Advisor, Former CEO & Board Member, PSS World Medical, taught us how to multiply our growth by balancing strengths with their counterparts. Be both bold and humble; thoughtful and active; demanding and grateful.

Legacy was the theme of the sixth annual PWH Leadership Summit held April 29-May 1, 2024, in Derby City, a fitting place for the organization to also celebrate its legacy and its 20th anniversary.

PWH Chair and Vice President, Innovia Corporate Sales, Allison Therwhanger, inspired attendees to be intentional about our legacies as we serve this great industry.

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The morning session ended with a presentation of PWH Awards. We congratulate the following outstanding industry members:

` Jessica Carney, Senior Specialist Member and Field Communications, Premier, received the 2024 Sandi Parker Leadership Scholarship with funding from Graham-Field.

` Andria Davis, Director, Supply Chain Operations, VCU Health, received the 2024 GHX Leadership Scholarship.

` Vicky Lyle, Vice President, Industry Association, Owens & Minor, received the 2024 Jana Quinn Inspirational Award.

` Sue Hulsmeyer, Chief Human Resource Officer, Midmark Corporation received the 2024 Anne Eiting Klamar Leadership Award of Distinction.

After various breakout sessions ranging in topics from workplace identity to technology turbulence

and communication skills development, B. Braun sponsored a “Fireside Chat.” PWH Corporate Partner Committee Chair Jen O’Reilly, who also serves as Vice President, OPM Corporate Accounts for B. Braun, facilitated a conversation on “Change: Obstacle or Opportunity.” Jim Brook, Sr. Vice President / General Manager, Vizient and Christine Arme, Sr. Vice President, MedSurg, Solventum shared some hot takes: “Clarity is knowing the path, not every step; Be curious, openminded, respectful, and excited!”

GOJO, Makers of PURELL sponsored the final leadership panel on day three. Scott Adams, Publisher of Repertoire Magazine and Managing Partner of Share Moving Media, moderated the session entitled “Leaving Your Leadership Legacy.” Our panelists shared thoughts on legacy:

` Emily Wilburn Andrews, CEO, Wilburn Medical said, “At the end, it’s what stands and what lasts; You do not need to have it all together to be a mentor.”

` Meena Miller, Vice President and General Manager, OR Products Kits & Services, Owens & Minor said, “The sky is the limit. If you set your mind to it, then you can do it.”

` Diana LeFabvre, Executive Vice President, Medline said, “It’s the imprint of our values; There is a small amount of people we impact, and it may not be someone we have met.”

` Carrey Jaros, GOJO, Makers of Purell said, “There are little things we can do every day that add up to make a difference; Find a nonprofit board to join. It will teach you and help you build a network.”

Again, the PWH mission is to create a more inclusive healthcare industry equally led by women and men. We hope you join us in this mission and in-person next year for more mentorship, education and networking. Save the date for the 2025 PWH Leadership Summit in Frisco, Texas, March 31 – April 2, 2025. Bring more colleagues and customers with you!

The PWH Board is comprised of voluntary and active PWH members who also serve as members of the PWH Executive Committee, as Chairs or Vice Chairs of the organization’s nine other committees, and as Board Advisors.

Outcome-Driven Innovation

Shift your business perspective through a job’s-based approach.

The medical product supply and manufacturing company Dukal recently went through the process of rebranding with the goal of accelerating product evolution and mitigating risk in the supply chain.

Repertoire Magazine ’s Scott Adams interviewed Charles Abbinanti, President of Dukal, in a podcast on using OutcomeDriven Innovation® to identify and solve for unmet needs within the healthcare industry. Through outcome-driven approaches, Abbinanti explains how Dukal and industry leaders can employ the “Jobs-To-BeDone Theory” to break down where the industry is now and where it needs to be heading.

The Jobs-To-Be-Done Theory asserts that health systems and customers buy a product not because they want it, but because it helps them to complete a job. For example, when people go to the hardware store, they don’t want a quarter-inch drill bit; they want the ability to drill a quarter-inch hole.

Jobs-To-Be-Done is best defined as a perspective – a new lens through which you can observe markets, customers,

needs, competitors, and customer segments more insightfully. Customers are not just buyers; they also include job executors. And while technology, environments, and trends change, the Job-To-Be-Done remains the same.

Shifting your perspective through a job’s-based approach allows you to rethink your competition, uncover your customers’ jobs, identify new customer markets, and provide stability during disruption.

Uncovering your customer’s Job-To-Be-Done

The first step when beginning the outcome-driven innovation journey, said Abbinanti, is to identify the job executor. The job executor uses a product or service to get the core functional job done. They are the reason the market exists. Abbinanti recommends then identifying what job the job executor is ultimately trying to get done. Every Job-To-Be-Done requires a plan with a pre-determined set of steps, and according to Abbinanti, the formula includes discovering where the job begins and ends, the optimal flow of processes, and the identification of desired outcome statements.

“From outcome statements, determine how important the job is to the customer, and then how satisfied the customer is with the current solution.” Your goal is then to identify

potential solutions and become a problem solver for your customer – how can you minimize the time it takes to complete an outcome or minimize the likelihood of a disruption?

Where the industry is headed

Dukal plans to use aspects of the Jobs-To-Be-Theory as a foundation for the company’s strategy going forward. The company launched a recent supply chain solution project, called Dukal InSightTM, using outcome-driven innovation.

InSight helps distributors, and their customers, have constant communication around potential disruptions. Suppliers and their customers are notified as early as months ahead of time, allowing for a trusted partnership. InSight allows Dukal to solve supply issues far in advance to solve shipping delays before they impact the job at both the distributor and clinician level.

By the end of 2024, Dukal plans to offer the InSight service for forecasted business for customers, not just existing

Dukal InSight helps distributors, and their customers, have constant communication around potential disruptions. Suppliers and their customers are notified as early as months ahead of time, allowing for a trusted partnership.

The future of medical product innovation

Dukal has also applied outcomedriven innovation to their sector of the medical product industry. According to Abbinanti, the company assisted neurosurgeons in the New York area using the same methodology. The New York clinicians expressed to Dukal that they wanted to create better structure and better hold for spinal fusion procedures using the patient’s actual bone.

By interviewing a series of manufacturers, distributors, and end users to determine how to mitigate risk in the industry, Dukal came up with a solution benefitting both the customer and the clinician. The project explored medical supply chain disruptions, specifically addressing when products are delayed or late, which leaves suppliers and distributors with no time to respond and assist for success on the clinician level.

Dukal InSight is a supply chain visibility tool that provides clarity to customer orders throughout the process of delivery from the start of the assembly line, all the way to the customer’s dock. Dukal

orders, taking the risk out of the equation and allowing distributors and self-distributing health systems full visibility and transparency on the statues of their order to best serve patients.

“Delays happen, and the system allows Dukal to know about delays 60 to 90 days in advance, updating the customer with a report showing everything they ordered, the status of the shipment, where the products are located, and the new expected delivery date,” said Abbinanti. “This allows Dukal to have a conversation with the customer and figure out how it will impact them, and how we can best find a solution.”

Dukal, in turn, developed a solution for clinicians, inventing a bone dust collector (Capseus BDC-15) that provides costeffective local autograft generated at the surgical site allowing surgeons to collect any volume of locally drilled autologous bone directly at the point of suction without any additional pressing steps. The product is a new and innovative opportunity to assist the neurosurgery and orthopedic industry. According to Abbinanti, the BDC-15 is “just one example of the products that the company has developed using outcome-driven innovation on the product side.”

The company is also looking to launch other programs around minimizing risk in the medical product industry on the quality and regulatory side. The FDA just launched a new policy that all manufacturers need a new quality management system by 2026 that ensures clinical risk mitigation. Abbinanti said, “with the FDA policies on the forefront in the industry, Dukal is consistently considering how to use outcomedriven innovation to drive growth through products and services that help us mitigate risk.”

IMCO Convention: “A Greater Connection”

Courtesy of IMCO

Â The IMCO Convention is always an annual highlight, and 2024 was no exception. Every year, Vendors and Member distributors come together for three days full of engaging opportunities for networking, collaboration, education, and professional development.

IMCO is thrilled to have introduced eight new Members and 10 new Vendor Partners since the 2023 Convention. This year-over-year growth is a direct reflection of the value IMCO provides and is vital because it enables us to enhance our support through program development and strengthening relationships with our Vendor partners.

Highlights

In an effort to create an even higher level of engagement between our Vendors and Members, IMCO reimagined our Keynote and the SEL Playbook sessions, introduced a brand-new networking opportunity, and strengthened an already impressive lineup of professional development and education.

A definite highlight was the keynote experience with DrumCafeUSA. Through the universal language of music and rhythm, and an African Djembe drum on every chair, this high-performing team of musicians entertained, engaged, and motivated. Using various drum-calls, they instructed the group in drum technique and effectively demonstrated how

working in unity and connecting with each other allows us to achieve common goals and unlock the power of our full potential.

The Collaboration Cabana was a new, poolside networking opportunity for those attendees arriving on Sunday afternoon. This inaugural event garnered enthusiastic participation and was a fantastic way for both Members and Vendors to kick off Convention and make new connections during the ice breaker challenge or to casually exchange ideas, discuss relevant issues, and cultivate new relationships in a relaxed and sunny atmosphere.

Another notable highlight was the elevated SEL Playbook session. The Sales Emphasis Line (SEL) program focuses on partnering with our preferred Vendors who go above and beyond to support IMCO Members. The always popular Sales Playbook session, featuring short but impactful presentations from our SEL Vendors, was reimagined and revitalized this year, emceed by sales and relationship expert Dan Howington, who kicked off the sessions discussing the “Keys to Influence”. Howington also skillfully moderated the sessions with SEL Vendors, ensuring their maximum impact.

Other education highlights included: Balancing Investment, Service Level, and Profitability, Jon Schreibfeder, Effective Inventory Management, Inc

Creating a Highly Connected, Highly Engaged, and Winning Team, Ben Murphy, Titus Talent Strategies

The Strength of the Independent Distributor and Insights on the Future – Panel featured Joel Rich/GOJO, Scott Williams/Grove Medical, Marie Rabin/CARA Medical, and Jim Macholz/Atlantic Medical Solutions, Mike Marks, Indian River Consulting

HIDA Government and Regulatory Update, Linda Rouse O’Neill, Healthcare Industry Distribution Association (HIDA)

Accessing Business Resources to Improve Your Bottom-Line Profits, Bob McCart, IMCO

Succession Planning: A Crucial Pillar for the Independent Distributor, Janis T. Dezso, j. DEZ Strategies, Inc and Allison Therwhanger, Innovia Medical/PWH Chair

Practical Digital Marketing for Maximum Return, Kevin Manley, Vital Link Digital Marketing Services, IMCO

Celebrating Our Member and Vendor Partners

Nestle was chosen as the IMCO 2023 Vendor of the Year! Members valued their exceptional customer service and support, as well as their commitment to maintaining inventory levels. They were in good company, as we had many deserving nominations this year!

With a record year of the number of nominees from Vendors and Members, the 2024 Steve Dennison Scholarship winners demonstrated strong sales and operations support of IMCO programs and EPIC/SEL Vendors. The winners were awarded travel and accommodations at the IMCO Convention as well as recognition throughout the meeting. Congratulations to:

` Ricky Bustamante, American Medical Supplies & Equipment

` Erica Osterlo, Bell Medical Services, Inc.

` Chris Theodore, Ocean Medical Inc.

IMCO’s Equipment Performance

Incentive Contest (EPIC) is yearlong equipment selling contest in which Members sell 10 key Vendor lines of products and earn points based on sales orders and Vendor interactions throughout the year. The 2023 EPIC winners were:

10th: Denise Coulombe, Surgo Surgical Supply

9th: David Gordon, DMJ Enterprises, Inc., DBA Unident/ Unimed (USA) LTD.

8th: Ricky Bustamante, American Medical Supplies & Equipment

7th: Sergio Bustamante, American Medical Supplies & Equipment

6th: Aaron Polonsky, MedStock, Inc.

5th: David Ellis, Atlantic Medical Solutions

4th: Brian Hodgson, Omni Medical Supply, LLC

3rd: Kristina Pacheco, Canada Medical Ltd.

2nd: Victor Amat III, American Medical Supplies & Equipment

1st: Angi Muse, Booth Medical Equipment Co. Inc.

Tuesday Highlights

Tuesday’s Trade Show is always productive, providing an important

platform for our Members and Vendor Partners to connect and engage face-to-face, have strategic conversations, share knowledge, and develop business and partnership opportunities. This year we had 94 booths with Vendor representatives available to share about products and services.

The show floor was a busy place for our MIP program participants, with more than $1.2 million being handed out. Congratulations to the more than 92% of IMCO Members who earned dollars on this program in 2023. There are 53 MIP Vendors participating for 2024. Reach out to these partners to discuss available

growth opportunities. Full details of the program can also be found on AccessIMCO.

Tuesday evening, everyone had a swashbuckling good time at the IMCO Pirate P-aaaaarty to close out Convention. We spotted pirates, buccaneers, captains, and even a Kraken!

The venue was transformed into a pirate’s paradise, complete with a ship’s mast, drunken captain, barrels of rum, and treasure. It was a night of adventure and camaraderie, marking the perfect finale to a fabulous Convention.

Best Booth went to Vanguard Safety and their Pirate’s Den of Treasures.

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Awards for Best Costume awarded Tuesday Night went to:

1st – Anthony Battaglia and Fabien Pampaloni, Pocket Nurse 2nd – Carla Rodych and Kristina Pacheco, Canada Medical 3rd – Manny Losada, Optimal Healthcare Solutions/MedPro Assoc.

Our Member and Vendor Raffle awarded a $1,500 Gift Card to Chris Theodore, Ocean Medical Inc. and Todd Hallstrom, Anavasi Diagnostics. Congratulations to all our Winners!

Bill McLaughlin, CEO of IMCO shares, “The IMCO Convention continues to be a showcase of the strength of the

independent distributor in the medical distribution industry. Here is to another year of collaborating and forging stronger connections as we navigate the year ahead!”

Attendee Responses to the IMCO Convention:

Anthony Battaglia, Pocket Nurse Enterprises, LLC – “IMCO’s Annual Convention forges a greater connection, an indispensable opportunity for independent medical supply dealers like us to deepen our bonds with fellow members and vendor partners. It’s a unifying event that brings together a passionate community, kindred spirits devoted to empowering

independent businesses and catalyzing innovation in healthcare. The synergies and collaborative energy woven throughout create an unparalleled atmosphere of unity and shared purpose.”

Curtis Lawrence, Verona Safety –“I have come to expect the very best from the IMCO team, and your team always comes through. I have NEVER worked with a better group of helpful, fun, nice people in my life. I look forward to this show every year.”

Chris Theodore, Ocean Medical –“Just as iron sharpens iron, I left this year’s meeting feeling better equipped, more knowledgeable,

established new relationships with both vendors and fellow members and had fun in the process. Thank you, IMCO, for all you do to keep us prepared and competitive in a dynamic industry. Your efforts are greatly appreciated, and I’m honored to be a part of the IMCO family. As was demonstrated at our meeting, we all are beating our drums individually that collectively create a beautiful symphony. Together, we can create beautiful music that can’t be ignored and will greatly improve the medical industry.”

Matt Meyer, First Quality Products – “Thank you again for hosting another great show this year. As always, it was well planned and very fruitful for all involved.”

Karen Decker, MYCO Medical Supplies – “MYCO had exceptional show interaction with Members. I couldn’t be happier. We are developing new relationships and have been doing work on our end to find out how we can better serve your Members.”

Mark VonHolle, Lighthouse Worldwide Solutions – “The

synergy and shared objectives between IMCO’s independent medical distributors and Vendor Partners foster an exceptional environment for collaborative success. IMCO’s convention stands out as a beacon of effective collaboration, setting a high standard that many organizations are still striving to achieve. Through their mastery of fostering engagement and cooperation, IMCO has created a platform where mutual benefits thrive, and collective goals are achieved. We are delighted to be a part of the IMCO family!”

Supplier Spotlight: AliMed

AliMed modernizes its digital systems to better serve its customers, distributor reps

By Daniel Beaird

“We focus on delivering a wide breadth of products that serve a continuum of clinical settings from acute through post-acute.”

AliMed has helped customers solve clinical and business problems for over 50 years through product innovation, informed sales and customer care reps, and reliable delivery. But after the pandemic hit, it found itself needing to modernize.

Specializing in high mix, low volume

AliMed is a niche medical device supplier and manufacturer offering high-mix, low-volume product assortment. About half of the products that it sells are either branded, proprietary, or manufactured by AliMed.

“We take great pride in the fact that we’re not just distributing national brands,” said Adam Epstein, CEO of AliMed. “But we’ve also focused on the clinical and business needs of our customers, and then we productize solutions.”

AliMed can help distributor reps solve some of their most challenging problems through a wide range of offerings, depending on the unique needs of their customers.

AliMed specializes in three key market segments:

1 Behind the red line. AliMed sells all of the accessories around the patient in the OR.

“We sell all of the products that are used to put the patient into

position,” Epstein said. “So, table surfaces, table accessories, retention straps, and patient positioners. For example, for a wrist surgery, it’s an arm board, pads, and skinfriendly straps. We sell all of that.”

“It’s not just individual products either, but an entire solution,” he added. “We sell the table accessories that clamp onto the table along with the pads and positioners that mitigate pressure ulcers for longer surgeries. We also have patient transfer equipment, a huge line of radiation

protection, IV stands, skin markers, PPE dispensers, stands, and carts. Anything that’s required to keep the patient secure and the clinicians productive and safe.”

2 Radiation protection. AliMed sells a variety of products around this category including aprons off the rack and custom aprons.

“For an individual or institution, we can add something simple like a logo, monogramming, or colors, or completely custom fit aprons,” Epstein said. “We also sell radiation protection glasses, gloves, shields, mobile barriers and anything that protects the clinicians while they are performing their duties.”

Epstein also highlighted AliMed’s ability to design radiation protection around its customers’ specific needs. The types of aprons used in imaging centers, teaching hospitals, and interventional radiology suites, for example, differ.

“We studied the needs of these different user groups and designed products specifically for them,” Epstein said. “By being both the designer and the manufacturer, it allows us to create a broader offering, and one that’s tailored to solving their business and clinical problems. One example of this is our AliTrack cloud-based inventory management software, which uses RFID technology to track the condition and location of a facility’s radiation protection garments. It even alerts them when it’s time for a replacement. It makes quick work of Joint Commission inspection prep!”

3 Post-acute and rehabilitation facilities. AliMed is best known in rehabilitation and post-acute facilities for its splints and braces, orthoses, and positioners.

Epstein said, “That business tends to be much higher mix and lower volume, with a variety of specialized patient needs. Much of that product we keep in stock for same-day shipment, which supports our 97.5% fill rate. Managing that complexity efficiently is made possible with our new ERP system, which is one reason why we invested in it.”

AliMed has a wide variety of products that can meet patients’ needs with over 15,000 active products serving 12,000 customers worldwide. “We love selling through distribution,” Epstein said. “A significant portion of our business is specifically

designed around servicing big box distributors.”

AliMed has three groups of specialists to service the acute space. MTMC (MedTech/ MedCare) covers territory responsibilities, regional account managers focus on a narrower group of products and serve the needs of the customers in product support. Finally, AliMed is expanding its product management group and hiring specialists for each product area.

“It’s about ensuring we’re focusing on the products that are most relevant to our customers,” Epstein said. “Then expanding the offering to give them the widest variety of options depending on their customers’ specific needs.”

AliMed’s modernization Well-known for its catalog, AliMed had to rethink its model when everyone started working remotely and supply chain problems arose.

Everything from how customers discover pricing, how they order products and how those products are delivered was on the table. “Even down to how we inventory products in anticipation of our customers’ needs,” said Epstein. “We really had to rethink the business and modernize our IT systems.”

So, AliMed made significant multi-million-dollar investments in upgrading its entire business.

“Last year, we upgraded our ERP system and everything that plugs into it,” Epstein said. “This included our tax platform, EDI platform and customer experience module that’s powering our call center – both inbound and outbound – have been upgraded.”

AliMed is finalizing its PIM (product information management) system, its DAM (digital asset management) system, and its e-commerce platform later this year. “Our syndication feeds and e-commerce platform really allow us to deliver content like product information and pricing where, how, and when the distributor or end customer wants to receive it,” he said.

Epstein says AliMed is redesigning itself to be much more user friendly and accessible, whether the customer is a DIY (do-it-yourself) customer or a DIFM (do-it-for-me) customer. Everything is being re-designed starting from and then around servicing the customers’ needs.

AliMed’s future

AliMed’s business is expanding on two fronts through serious investment. One is on digital transformation and the other is on new product focus for specific customer classes. AliMed has historically sold into some customer classes that require broader offerings than it had.

“We focus on delivering a wide breadth of products that serve a continuum of clinical settings from acute through post-acute,” Epstein said.

As AliMed’s digital systems continue to evolve, it makes it easier to do business with its customers and deliver content and purchasing options that it hasn’t had in the past.

“Now we can deliver product solutions when, where, and how the customers or distributor reps want it,” Epstein concluded. “That is the key to keeping the reps productive and retaining happy customers. That is truly the key to AliMed’s future.”

Rarely a Straight Line

Dukal’s Peter Isaac took a few unexpected twists and turns on his career path before landing in med/surg sales.

By Pete Mercer

Â Finding a professional path you truly care about can be a challenging process. Many people who are in careers that they love didn’t start out there – it often requires a sort of trial period to find what your purpose is and what you are passionate about.

which is why I like to lump it all into healthcare solutions.”

Primed for success

Peter Isaac understands this. His journey to a career in med/ surg sales is a fascinating representation of what it can look like when you haven’t quite found the right niche yet – there might be places where you are satisfied and enjoying the work, but it’s not always the exact fit that you are looking for.

Repertoire Magazine recently spoke with Isaac, now a strategic account manager at Dukal, about his journey to the med/ surg sales space, the importance of company culture, and his career aspirations. He covers the Northeast region, including all of New England, the state of New York, and Pennsylvania, providing what he refers to as “healthcare solutions.”

He described the mission of Dukal, saying, “We actively work with our partners to gain market

share, help them build their book of business, establish contracts, and develop supply chain solutions for them and their customers. It’s not just within acute care, physician offices, or long-term care facilities. Sometimes there’s state and municipal government offices that are involved with that,

Medicine has always been a big part of Isaac’s life. He grew up the son of a physician and even studied science at James Madison University in Viriginia but didn’t necessarily feel drawn to make it his career. It was always more of an area of interest, not a career aspiration. Isaac has worked in higher education, real estate procurement for the federal government, and even served as a Peace Corps volunteer twice. In 2017, he said that he “tripped and fell” into a med/ surg sales opportunity at a company selling instruments in the laboratory space in Rhode Island. This role put him in conversations with key decision makers and end users, not just the purchasing department of an organization. With that experience and exposure to the medical field, he was primed to succeed at Dukal. He joined the organization in February 2021, where he had to get up to speed with Dukal’s portfolio in the middle of a pandemic. He said, “I feel like Dukal takes pride in bringing in the right type of people. People that can be taught, coached, and understand the organization’s goals and

Peter Isaac

objectives and match those goals to their own.”

Isaac spent time training with his supervisor to learn about his client base and portfolio for the first couple of months. More than anything, Isaac said that his training helped him to better understand who to reach out to about different aspects of the business – he feels comfortable having conversations with the vice president of sales, vice president of supply chain, vice president of marketing, the director of purchasing, and the senior director of product development.

Why culture matters

Company culture matters. As a hot button issue over the last few years, it’s more important than ever for companies to establish a healthy company culture that is designed to take care of its employees. The earlier that starts, the better off your employees will be in the long run.

According to Isaac, the company culture at Dukal is collaborative and celebratory. He said, “They celebrate everyone’s successes. If someone gets recognition from a partner, they celebrate that. If someone runs a marathon, they celebrate that. It’s not just a professional milestone that they celebrate, they just genuinely enjoy celebrating each other.”

That healthy culture was present even during training. He said that Dukal actively works to ensure that their team members are successful, giving them the foundation and information they need to perform, while allowing the team the freedom to achieve the goal in the best way that works for them.

Isaac recognizes the strong leadership at Dukal for what it

is. “You know the true sign of a strong organization when someone goes and thanks literally every department that helped them get there. The success of strategic account managers or account executives is based on contributions from the whole Dukal team. Our successes don’t happen if we don’t have the support from our executive team, an amazing product development team, if we don’t have an amazing marketing team, if we don’t have a global sourcing and supply chain team that is world class, if we don’t have a sales support team that helps compile information, coordinate contracts, or help get samples out. It really is a team effort.”

“I do feel that you want to be able to maintain a highquality product and provide high-quality services that our and partners expect and deserve, but you always need to be aware of pricing. I do think there is some common ground where everyone can be happy with the result,” Isaac said.

That’s what makes building these relationships so critical to the success of your organization and your performance as a sales rep. Even with the challenge of meeting customers where they are in relation to the price of the product and their need for the product to treat patients, it’s important to establish a

“You know the true sign of a strong organization when someone goes and thanks literally every department that helped them get there. The success of strategic account managers or account executives is based on contributions from the whole Dukal team.”

Resolving pain points in 2024

One of the biggest points for healthcare organizations today is pricing for supplies and products. Isaac said, “We always need to remain price conscious, but we live in a world where prices are going to continue to increase,” Isaac said. Reps can’t let pricing get in the way of the product itself and how it can help providers improve patient outcomes. At the end of the day, they need to be able to treat their patients – when you can leverage the value that your product provides, it should ideally be easier for the customer to make the purchase.

relationship and a sense of trust with partners to facilitate some of these conversations that may be difficult to have.

“Maintaining strong relationships with our partners is extremely important,” he said. “Sometimes I have to deliver news that might not be ideal, but we are actively working towards a solution, and we may have a temporary fix that’s available. I am always in the mindset that if I am trying to establish such a relationship, I need to be timely in my communications. I need to be able to effectively identify the problem and provide a solution.”

The Moments that Matter

Preparing your sales team through sales enablement to excel at client meetings.

By Pete Mercer

Â Fewer things will kill a sales rep’s reputation than coming to a sales meeting underprepared or completely unprepared. A lack of preparation is a bad look for the sales rep and the organization, which is why they need to be equipped with the proper resources to adequately prepare.

While the sales rep has the responsibility of representing the company and the product with excellence, it’s the responsibility of the organization and its leadership team to equip the sales team with resources and training that will support them through the sales process. That’s where sales enablement comes in.

Repertoire Magazine recently spoke with Robert Fox, the director of global revenue enablement at Domo, Inc., about what sales

enablement means, how organizations can use it to ensure the productivity of their sales teams, and the qualities of a good coach. Domo is a software development company that helps customers leverage data to drive better results for their business.

What is sales enablement? The process of sales enablement is designed to train and equip sales reps with the tools and

Robert Fox

resources they need to sell the value of your products and solutions. It’s all about ensuring that your sales team is going into each meeting prepared to not only sell your products, but also sell your company. Essentially, sales enablement is the built-in processes your organization has to support the sales team. This can range anywhere from hands-on training for sales reps, assigned coaches and mentors to mold your sales team, or content from the marketing team to support the sales process.

Fox defined sales enablement, saying, “Sales enablement, in my mind, is having the knowledge, the skills, the processes, and the tools available to make you most effective in the moments that matter.” So, what are the moments that matter? For Fox, he looks at the moments that matter during the sales process, which generally includes a discovery period, proof of concept, and closing.

“I think the biggest opportunity is the most successful sellers today are people that come in with that mentality that they are coaches to their customer. Think about how busy people are today – they don’t have time to talk to different people and do the research they need to do.”

As the sales landscape changes, sellers must shift into a more consultative role, advising customers on the value of the product and the partnership your company can provide. This is especially important in the healthcare space, as there are plenty of solutions that do similar things, if not exactly the same, across the board.

“It has to be about the value of this tool and what is available to them,” Fox said. “It’s not only what it is and what it does, but what’s the value to the user in terms of the return.”

One of the most important things to know about sales

enablement is that it’s a process, not an event. As companies and industries continue to migrate and change, we must ensure that our sales reps are equipped with the latest pieces of information to be most effective.

Implementing sales enablement to navigate challenges

One of the biggest opportunities for companies that implement effective or comprehensive sales enablement is the ability to quickly solve problems and navigate challenges. Sales reps equipped with the necessary tools

and resources can work around many of the challenges presented in a sales situation.

For example, your team can work through what a sales conversation with the prospective customer could look like. Fox said, “We can use different pieces of role-play content, which says that if you are a head of HR, if you are the head of operations, if you are X, here are your business challenges. This is how we as a company can help you achieve your goals.”

Cold calling a prospect is never easy, which is why sales enablement can be such a critical tool. Not only can this process give you a starting point for the conversation, but it can also help you to identify the pain points of

the person or company that you are trying to reach.

“You need to come in almost with a point of view to say, ‘Thank you for your time, I’ve spoken to a number of people in your role, and they generally tell me they are struggling with these specific issues. Are any of these things that you’re struggling with now?’ The quicker we establish credibility and trust, the more successful we are going to be engaging with that person.”

Perhaps most importantly, sales enablement equips the sales rep to become a coach for the customer. The landscape for sales, especially in healthcare, is changing every single day. Sales enablement allows you to meet those changes head on by pushing your

The Qualities of a Good Coach

Fox listed three necessary qualities of a good coach.

` Honesty – Perhaps the most important quality, honesty is a base requirement for anyone who wants to serve in a coaching capacity. Coaches must establish trust with those they are coaching, or it won’t work. Fox said, “If you don’t have trust from the beginning, the person is not going to take in what you are saying to them. You need to be credible.”

` Be a guide – A good coach wants to empower their teams to come to the right decisions on their own. It’s not about having the answer – you should be able to guide your team members to the correct course by asking them what they think first. When you can guide your team through their sales interactions, it’s a powerful catalyst for change in your organization.

` Listen first – Listening is not a universal skill, but it is a skill that all good coaches need. When your team is coming to you for help, one of the best things that you can do is to listen first. While you’re listening, ask questions to better understand the challenge – ideally, those questions will illuminate the path forward for the coachee and give them ownership over their own decisions.

team to work as consultants to the customer base. Through this process, they can enlighten and encourage your customers to see the value that your organization offers, both through the product line and the partnership.

“I think the biggest opportunity is the most successful sellers today are people that come in with that mentality that they are coaches to their customer. Think about how busy people are today – they don’t have time to talk to different people and do the research they need to do,” Fox said.

The difference between coaching and managing

At the end of the day, sales enablement will work best through the right leadership. The leadership team will dictate what the sales enablement process will look like, which makes the difference between managing and coaching more important.

Managing is about what you are delivering to the company. A manager can handle the numbers, statistics, and the data of your organization – keeping everything organized while pushing forward progress. Part of the role of a manager is coaching, ensuring that your team members feel supported and heard while they are out on calls and making connections. Additionally, coaching can help your sales team to better appreciate and celebrate their successes as they come.

Fox said, “A lot of managers need to understand that regular ongoing coaching around opportunities is one thing, but you do have to take a step back every once in a while and have a personal development coaching session with your team.”

CRM

Uncovering the gold in the “dirty word” for salespeople.

By Brian Sullivan

Â Ah, CRM. Three letters that, for some, might as well be shorthand for “Compulsory Redundant Mundanity.” There’s a common misconception in the world of sales that Customer Relationship Management systems are the shackles that tie you to your desk, bogging you down with data entry when you could be out there, closing deals. But let me tell you, if you’re in that camp, you’re missing out – big time. CRM doesn’t need to be a dirty word. In fact, it can be your golden ticket to more sales, better relationships, and a more organized life. Let’s break down the wall of resistance and discover the gold hidden within CRM systems.

1 A Personal Assistant Who Never Sleeps

Think of your CRM as the most diligent PA you’ve ever had. It keeps track of every interaction, remembers every preference, and never takes a day off. With

CRM, forgetting to follow up is a thing of the past. It’s like having a second brain dedicated solely to making sure you’re the most attentive, informed salesperson you can be. This isn’t just about being efficient; it’s about being

effectively omnipresent in your client’s world without burning the midnight oil.

2 The Blueprint for Your Day

Ever feel like you’re busy but not productive? A CRM system is

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† Valid through December 31, 2024. Promotion may not offer additional discounts for BD Veritor™ Plus System users under existing pricing contract/ agreement. Offer is applicable to new and current BD Veritor™ Plus System users. The value of any rebates, discounts, or incentives provided may constitute a “discount or other reduction in price” under Section 1128B(b)(3)(A) of the Social Security Act (42 U.S.C. Sec.1320a-7b(b)(3)(A)). Customer shall satisfy any and all requirements imposed on buyers relating to discounts or reductions in price, including, when required by law, to disclose all discounts or other reductions in price received from BD and to accurately report under any state of federal healthcare program the net cost actually paid by customer. * In the USA, the BD Veritor™ System for Rapid Detection of SARS-CoV-2 & Flu A+B has not been FDA cleared or approved but has been authorized by the FDA under an Emergency Use Authorization for use by authorized laboratories; use by laboratories certified under the CLIA, 42 U.S.C. §263a, that meet requirements to perform moderate, high, or waived complexity tests. The product is authorized for use at the Point of Care (POC), i.e., in patient care settings operating under a CLIA Certificate of Waiver, Certificate of Compliance, or Certificate of Accreditation. This product has been authorized only for the detection of proteins from SARS-CoV-2, influenza A and influenza B, not for any other viruses or pathogens; and, in the USA, the emergency use of this product is only authorized for the duration of the declaration that circumstances exist justifying the authorization of emergency use of in vitro diagnostics for detection and/or diagnosis of COVID 19 under Section 564(b)(1) of the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act, 21 U.S.C. §360bbb-3(b)(1), unless the declaration is terminated or authorization is revoked sooner.

This product has been authorized only for the detection of proteins from SARS-CoV-2, not for any other viruses or pathogens; and, in the USA, the emergency use of this product is only authorized for the duration of the declaration that circumstances exist justifying the authorization of emergency use of in vitro diagnostics for detection and/or diagnosis of COVID 19 under Section 564(b)(1) of the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act, 21 U.S.C. §360bbb-3(b)(1), unless the declaration is terminated or authorization is revoked sooner.

BDVeritor.com

your personal planner on steroids. It helps prioritize your day, focusing on high-value activities that move the needle. It’s about working smarter, not harder. By analyzing data and highlighting opportunities, CRM systems ensure that your time is spent on leads and tasks that directly contribute to your bottom line. It’s like having a roadmap for success, laid out each day, guiding you on where to go next.

your prospects and customers is stored in your CRM. This repository of information is a treasure trove for personalizing your approach and tailoring your pitches. It allows you to make every conversation meaningful and relevant, striking chords with your clients that competitors simply can’t match. It’s not about data for the sake of data; it’s about transforming information into insights that win business.

CRM isn’t a dirty word; it’s a goldmine waiting to be tapped. It’s about efficiency, strategy, and relationships – all the things that make sales exciting and rewarding. By embracing CRM, you’re not just surviving in the world of sales; you’re thriving.

3 The Follow-Up Machine

In sales, fortune favors the follow-up. CRM systems are designed to make sure you’re the first and last person on your prospect’s mind. With automated reminders and templates, followups become less of a chore and more of a strategic advantage. It’s about staying relevant and timely without the hassle of manual tracking. This constant presence builds trust and keeps the dialogue moving, pushing deals closer to the finish line.

4 A Repository of Riches

Every interaction, every preference, every tiny detail about

5 Strategizing for the Big Win

CRM systems excel in helping you see the forest for the trees. By aggregating data, they provide a bird’s-eye view of your sales pipeline, highlighting trends, and identifying opportunities for growth. This macro perspective is invaluable for strategic planning, allowing you to adjust your tactics and approach based on solid data rather than gut feelings. It’s like being the master chess player who’s always three moves ahead.

6 Building a Legacy of Relationships

Sales are not just transactions; they’re relationships. A CRM

system helps you nurture these relationships over the long haul, ensuring that no client or prospect feels neglected. By keeping track of important dates, preferences, and past conversations, CRM helps you build a legacy of positive, enduring relationships. It’s about being remembered not just for what you sold, but for how you made your clients feel.

7 The Ultimate Feedback Loop

Finally, CRM systems offer a feedback loop like no other. They track what works and what doesn’t, providing you with actionable insights to refine your sales process. This continuous improvement cycle ensures that you’re not just keeping pace but setting the pace in your industry. It’s about being a lifelong learner, always evolving to meet the needs of your clients and the demands of the market.

So, there you have it. CRM isn’t a dirty word; it’s a goldmine waiting to be tapped. It’s about efficiency, strategy, and relationships – all the things that make sales exciting and rewarding. By embracing CRM, you’re not just surviving in the world of sales; you’re thriving. So, dust off that CRM system and see it for what it truly is: your partner in making sales not just a job, but a career filled with success, satisfaction, and maybe a little bit of fun. Remember, in the realm of sales, knowledge isn’t just power – it’s profit.

Brian Sullivan, CSP, is the founder of PRECISE Selling and a leading voice in the field of sales training and development. He believes in the potential of every salesperson to achieve their best and continually challenges sales professionals to reach new heights. To have Brian Sullivan or one of his stable of trainers and coaches help your team get to the top, visit him at www.preciseselling.com

In AI We Trust?

Many primary care physicians are ready for AI, but they have conditions.

Â Forty percent of U.S. physicians say they are ready to use generative AI (GenAI) when interacting with patients at the point of care, according to a recent Wolters Kluwer Health survey. More than 80% believe it will improve care team interaction with patients, over half believe it can save them 20% or more time, and three in five (59%) believe it can save time by summarizing data about patients from the electronic health record. (GenAI refers to technology that can create content –e.g., text, images, videos – by studying large quantities of training data.)

But along with high hopes come expectations. For example, 58% of the physicians surveyed said their No. 1 factor when selecting a GenAI tool is knowing that the content it was trained on was created by medical professionals. Nine out of 10 (89%) said they would be more likely to use GenAI in clinical decisions if the vendor was transparent about where the information came from, who created it, and how it was resourced.

In October 2023 the American Academy of Family Physicians set forth eight principles to help ensure that AI or machine learning (AI/ML) is appropriately applied to family medicine. Repertoire spoke with Steve Waldren, M.D., chief medical informatics officer for AAFP, about the eight principles.

Principle No. 1: Preserve and Enhance Primary Care

As the patient-physician dyad is expanded to a triad with AI, the patient-physician relationship must at the minimum be preserved, and ideally, enhanced. “When AI/ML is applied to primary care, it must enhance the 4 Cs of primary care (first contact, comprehensiveness, continuity and coordination of care) and expand primary care’s capacity and capability to provide longitudinal care that achieves the quintuple aim.

“AI isn’t intended to allow family physicians to see more patients, but to minimize the time and effort of administrative work and give them more

time with their patients,” says Dr. Waldren. “At this point, the technology is being used more on the administrative side than the clinical side.” As an example, he talks about “ambient listening,” an AI-driven tool that transforms a recorded conversation between doctor and patient into a clinical note for the electronic medical record.

“I spoke with one doctor who told me that before AI, they spent about 12 minutes doing clinical notes per patient. After implementing ambient listening, the time went down to 2 minutes. Later, we became aware that the average time for notes went up to 3 minutes. When we asked why, we were told, ‘Because of ambient listening, I have more time to be in the room with the patient and more time to provide some preventive services the system was advising me to perform.’ That speaks to the potential comprehensiveness of some of these systems.”

Principle No. 2: Maximize Transparency

AI/ML solutions must provide transparency to the physician and other users so that the solution’s efficacy and safety can be evaluated. Companies must provide transparency around the training data used to train the models.

Companies should provide clear, understandable information describing how the AI/ML solution makes predictions. Ideally, this would be for each inference, but at least provide a conceptual model for decision-making, including the importance of data leveraged for the inference.

“Really, we are talking about the trustworthiness of AI,” says Dr. Waldren. “The bottom line is, the user – be it a physician, nurse or patient – has to trust it. There are multiple ways to gain trustworthiness, but the greatest is through transparency, meaning the developer says, ‘Here is the data this model was trained on, here are the demographics and background evidence.’ Physicians don’t necessarily want to go through reams of data and studies,” he says. “But there will be opportunities for entities to provide assurance of these models, be they public or private.”

Principle No. 3: Address Implicit Bias

Companies providing AI/ML solutions must address implicit bias in their design. We understand implicit bias cannot be completely eliminated. Still, the company should have standard

Steve Waldren, M.D.

‘Developers tend to think more about how their tool captures data than how it can fit into the larger clinical workflow.’

processes in place to identify implicit bias and to mitigate the AI/ML models from learning those same biases. In addition, when applicable, companies should have processes for monitoring for differential outcomes, particularly those that affect vulnerable patient populations.

Principle No. 4: Maximize Training Data Diversity

To maximize the generalizability of AI/ML solutions, training data must be diverse and representative of the populations cared for by family medicine. Companies must provide clear documentation on the diversity of their training data. Companies should also work to increase the diversity of their training data to not increase or create new health inequities.

Principle No. 5: Respect the Privacy of Patients and Users

AI/ML requires large volumes of data for training. It is critical for patients and physicians to trust companies will maintain confidentiality of data from them. Companies must provide clear policies around how they collect, store, use and share data from patients and end-users. Companies must get consent for collecting any identifiable data and the consent should clearly state how the data will be used or shared.

Principle No. 6: Take a Systems View in Design

An AI/ML solution will be a component in a larger work system, and therefore it must be designed to be an integrated component of the system. This means that the company must understand how the AI/ML solution will be used within a workflow. The company needs to have a usercentered design approach. Since the vast majority of AI/ML solutions in health care will not be autonomous, the company must understand and leverage the latest science around human/AI interaction as well as quality assurance.

Dr. Waldren believes this is an area that needs improvement. “Based on my experience with stand-alone apps, developers tend to think more about how their tool captures data than how it can fit into the larger clinical workflow.”

Principle No. 7: Take Accountability

If an AI/ML solution is going to take a prominent role in health care, the company must take accountability for assuring the solution is safe. For those solutions designed for use in direct patient care, they must undergo a similar rigorous evaluation as any other medicine intervention. We also believe that companies should take on liability where appropriate.

Principle No. 8: Design for Trustworthiness

Maintaining the trust of physicians and patients is critical for a successful future of AI/ML in health care. Companies must implement policies and procedures that ensure the above principles are appropriately addressed. Companies must strive to have the highest levels of safety, reliability and correctness in their AI/ML solutions. Companies should consider how they can maximize trust with physicians and patients throughout the entire product lifecycle. AI/ML will continue its rapid advancement, so companies must continually adopt the latest state-of-the-art best practices.

“When I talk with physicians, I advise them to talk to a practice that has recently adopted the technology they’re thinking of,” says Dr. Waldren. “I ask, ‘What did you have to do to make it work?’ and ‘How well does it integrate with your work system?’ From the developer side, the EMR vendor has to be a willing partner in this integration.”

Editor’s note: The American Academy of Family Physicians’ “Ethical Application of Artificial Intelligence in Family Medicine” can be accessed at www.aafp.org/ about/policies.html.

AI in the light of day

Several studies published this spring sprinkled some reality on the promise of artificial intelligence to simplify administrative duties in primary care practices.

Too suggestive

In a study conducted in 2023 at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, researchers found that large language models (i.e., deep-learning models trained on extensive textual data) might lead to unexpected clinical decision-making in physicians’ responses to patients’ portal messages that have been processed through an LLM tool.

It’s true that LLM assistance might reduce physician workload, improving consistency across physician responses and enhancing the informativeness and educational value of responses, the researchers concluded. What’s more, LLM drafts were generally acceptable and posed minimal risk of harm. Yet the researchers cautioned that physicians might lean too much on the LLM’s assessments instead of using LLM responses to facilitate the communication of their own assessments.

“The content of physician responses changed when using LLM assistance, suggesting an automation bias and anchoring, which could have a downstream effect on patient outcomes,” they said.

“LLMs might affect clinical decision-making in ways that need to be monitored and mitigated when used in a human and machine collaborative framework.”

Medical coding: Room for improvement

Researchers reported in NEJM AI that LLMs may be “highly error-prone” when mapping medical codes.

“LLMs have shown remarkable text processing and reasoning capabilities, suggesting that they could

automate key administrative tasks,” they wrote. “However, even the best LLMs extract fewer correct ICD10-CM codes and generate more incorrect codes from clinical text than smaller fine-tuned language models.” Without additional research, LLMs are not appropriate for use on medical coding tasks, they concluded.

The human touch

Researchers from the University of California San Diego School of Medicine sought to answer the question, “Does access to generative-artificial-intelligence–drafted replies correlate with decreased physician time spent on reading and replying to patient messages, as well as reply length?” (GenAI refers to technology that can create content – e.g., text, images, videos – by studying large quantities of training data.)

Electronic messaging in electronic health records is a major source of physician burnout, they noted in JAMA Network. “Prior studies found significant time spent answering messages and associated stress. Strategies to address this challenge include triaging messages by care teams, charging fees, and using templated responses. Published work suggested that generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) could potentially extend this toolset by drafting replies.

“While some physicians clearly perceived GenAI’s value, including reduced cognitive burden due to having a draft infused with empathy to start their reply, opportunities for enhancement lie in achieving greater personalization to align with physicians’ tone and better decisions on whether to recommend a visit,” the researchers wrote. “GenAI’s current performance suggests that human input is still essential.”

PAHPA is Essential to Disaster Preparedness

Â HIDA has long advocated for a broad definition of preparedness, one that encompasses both infectious disease, natural disasters, and the threat of terrorist attacks with weapons of mass destruction. With this in mind, HIDA has urged Congress to swiftly reauthorize the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Act (PAHPA).

PAHPA is the federal law that bolsters the nation’s capacity to mobilize resources and deploy effective countermeasures for public health security and all-hazards preparedness. The law needs to be reauthorized by Congress every five years. In July 2023, both the House and the Senate gave preliminary committee approval to a five-year reauthorization to PAHPA. In the intervening months, neither legislative body has taken further action, even after the underlying law expired in September 2023. Congress must act to reauthorize PAHPA by the end of this year.

As a fundamental part of our nation’s preparedness infrastructure, PAHPA creates the framework for public-private partnerships between federal agencies and the medical supply chain. HIDA supports these kinds of partnerships to bolster supply chain resiliency and maintain an open line of communication between private corporations and the public sector during emergencies.

PAHPA is about more than pandemics. Since the declaration of COVID-19 as a global pandemic and a public health emergency in March 2020, the Department of Health and Human Services used the authority granted by PAHPA to provide support to healthcare providers in the wake of numerous natural disasters.

Hurricanes: Following the landfall of Hurricane Laura in August 2020, ASPR deployed the National Disaster Medical System (NDMS) to provide temporary emergency medical services at Lake Charles Memorial Hospital and Christus Ochsner St. Patrick

Hospital in southwest Louisiana. After Hurricane Ian struck Florida in September 2022, NDMS providers treated a total of 3,802 Floridians. In one example, a team of medical professionals set up 10 tents in 36 hours to create a stand-alone medical site outside the Peace River North Port Rehabilitation Center in Sarasota County, Florida.

Wildfires: ASPR and NDMS supported healthcare providers in the wake of the Lahaina Wildfire in Hawaii (August 2023), the Calf Canyon & Hermits Peak Wildfires in New Mexico (April 2022), the Almeda Drive & Santiam Wildfires in Oregon (September 2020), and the Lightning Siege Wildfires in Northern California (August 2020).

Floods: After flash floods struck Eastern Kentucky in July 2022, a public health emergency enabled ASPR to support EMS and first responders across 13 impacted counties.

Tornadoes: A mobile field hospital was set up at Sharkey-Issaquena Community Hospital in Rolling Fork, Mississippi following the declaration of a public health emergency in response to tornadoes that struck northern Mississippi in March 2023.

HIDA urges Congress to prioritize the reauthorization of PAHPA before the year’s end. By doing so, we can fortify our public health and medical response capabilities, ensuring that both natural and man-made emergencies are met with robust and coordinated efforts.

By Wyeth Ruthven, Director, Congressional & Public Relations

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The Race to Lower Acuity

Ambulatory surgery centers out in front as procedures keep migrating from acute care.

Â With few exceptions, the race of procedures to the lowest-acuity setting shows no signs of letting up. Statistics indicate the ambulatory surgery market is big and getting bigger. But reimbursement issues, legislation and shifting ownership patterns will no doubt shape the outcome.

“We anticipate a variety of increasing surgical procedures to shift to outpatient,” says Jason Grzyb, vice president, non-acute sales for Cardinal Health’s U.S. Medical Products and Distribution business. “As ASCs continue to be met with complexities like evolving regulatory compliance, new technology

advancements, supply chain management and more, we’re still seeing significant growth and expansion within the industry. ASCs are providing a convenient, cost-effective alternative for surgical procedures – while still delivering safe, quality care in a highly competitive market.”

According to Fortune Business Insights, the U.S. ambulatory surgical center market size was valued at $43.70 billion in 2022 and is projected to grow to $75.20 billion by 2030. In terms of ownership, the physician-owned segment accounted for the largest market share in 2022, while the corporate-owned segment was anticipated to record the highest compound annual growth rate (CAGR) during the forecast period of 2023-2030.

and innovation, for healthcare technology and safety company ECRI. That makes it a challenge to predict what procedures are most likely to shift to the outpatient setting in the next six or seven years. “However, following recent trends, I would expect a continued focus on growth in the cardiovascular segment. As this is limited in many states by regulatory and reimbursement barriers, a growth opportunity for diagnostic and interventional procedures remains as these restrictions are reduced and safe outcomes are established.

“Another area of expected growth would be where there is already a history of success,” he says. “I think we can look to orthopedics to be a leader there. Given the success of total knee

‘As more procedures move to outpatient settings, new technology may need to be incorporated to ensure there is adequate monitoring of the patient.’

Complex procedures, complex technology

Improvements in medical technology continue to facilitate the migration of medical and surgical procedures to outpatient settings. Cardiovascular and orthopedics are often cited as two specialties likely to see the greatest growth in the near future.

“Historically, there has not been a consistent and transparent process regarding the approval of procedures for reimbursement in the ambulatory surgical centers,” says Andy Poole, FACHE, MSHA, MSPT, associate director, strategy

and total hip arthroplasties, I would expect total shoulder replacements to be next. Additionally, as more spine cases are demonstrated to be safe in the outpatient setting, there are opportunities to add additional types of procedures.”

As more procedures move to outpatient settings, new technology may need to be incorporated to ensure there is adequate monitoring of the patient, depending on the type of procedure, says Poole. “For example, with spine cases, you may need additional neurophysiological monitoring capabilities. Additional technologies

that limit the risk of blood loss are also important to outpatient centers, so additional technology to aid in visualization may be useful. With all new technologies and instrumentation, there will need to be a continued investment in equipment to properly clean and sterilize to protect against infection risk.

“One of the challenges providers may face in this process is a longstanding struggle across all care settings – lack of adequately trained staff and physicians,” he continues. “It could be especially difficult to secure appropriate staffing levels of anesthesia providers. The other big challenge is reimbursement. It will need to make sense financially to add new procedures and support any new equipment, training, medication and other resources and infrastructure.”

‘The shift from inpatient to outpatient is already quite mature. Simply put, there are only so many more knee replacements we can shift out of the inpatient setting.’

“The shift from inpatient (IP) to outpatient (OP) is a story we’ve been seeing for the past 5 to 10 years and, while this trend will continue, it is already quite mature,” says David Levine, M.D., chief medical officer, Vizient. “Simply put, there are only so many more knee replacements we can shift out of the IP setting. That said, the Vizient Sg2 2023 Impact of Change forecast projects OP surgical volumes will grow 18% over the next ten years. Much of this growth will be organic – think increasing demand as the population continues to age and the emergence of noninvasive and

less resource-intensive procedures. Procedures we see with the highest move to OP include primary shoulder replacement, lumbar-thoracic fusion and knee replacements.” Pharmaceuticals will continue to enable medical management of select patient populations, which will increasingly shift case volumes to the outpatient setting over the next decade, according to Sg2. This will drive growth in outpatient infusion therapy for several service lines, including rheumatology, with a 48% growth rate; gastroenterology, 37%; endocrine, 23%; and dermatology, 18%.

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Site-neutral payment: An issue that could shape the future of ambulatory surgery

Should Medicare continue to pay more for services provided in hospital outpatient departments than it does for similar services performed at independent ambulatory surgery centers or even physicians offices? Hospitals say yes. Payers don’t agree. How this issue – called “site-neutral payment” – is resolved could shape the future of ambulatory surgery.

Here’s what insurers are saying.

Medicare patients are being overcharged for healthcare services, like routine office visits and lab work, at certain practices owned by hospitals labeled as hospital outpatient departments (HOPDs), said the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association in a February 2023 press release. “These services cost patients less when provided in a doctor’s office or another setting outside of the hospital. Hundreds of millions of dollars are spent on those services with little evidence of improvement in the quality of care.”

In fact, in a cost analysis of six common outpatient procedures delivered to 133 million Blue Cross and Blue Shield members between 2017 and 2022, Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association reported:

` Mammograms cost 32% more in an HOPD than in a doctor’s office.

` Colonoscopy screenings cost 32% more in an HOPD than in an ASC and double the cost compared to those performed in a doctor’s office.

` Diagnostic colonoscopies cost 58% more in an HOPD than in an ASC and more than double the cost when performed in a doctor’s office.

` Cataract surgery costs 56% more in an HOPD than in an ASC.

` Ear tympanostomies cost 52% more in an HOPD than an ASC.

` Clinical visits cost 31% more in an HOPD setting than in a doctor’s office.

Implementing site-neutral payment policies can curb rising costs, making healthcare more affordable and accessible for everyone, the company concluded.

Even the legislative and regulatory branches of the federal government have questioned the wisdom of reimbursing hospital outpatient departments at higher rates than independent ambulatory surgery

centers. In its report to Congress in June 2023, the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC) – an independent legislative branch agency that provides the U.S. Congress with analysis and policy – said that because of payment rate differences across clinician offices, HOPDs, and ASCs, hospitals have an incentive to acquire physician practices and then bill for the same services under the Hospital Outpatient Prospective Payment System (OPPS).

Not surprisingly, the hospital industry opposes attempts to expand site-neutral payment policies, saying they could significantly impact the financial sustainability of hospitals and health systems.

“The cost of care delivered in hospitals and health systems takes into account the unique benefits that they provide to their communities,” said the American Hospital Association in a May 2023 fact sheet. “This includes the investments made to maintain standby capacity for natural and man-made disasters, public health emergencies and other unexpected traumatic events, as well as deliver 24/7 emergency care to all who come to the hospital, regardless of ability to pay or insurance status. Hospital facilities also must comply with a much more comprehensive scope of licensing, accreditation and other regulatory requirements compared to other sites of care.”

David Levine, M.D., chief medical officer for Vizient, agrees with the AHA. “So long as hospitals have different requirements than other care settings, it is critical that they receive appropriate reimbursement.”

Ambulatory surgery centers: Ownership trends

Ownership trends are shifting in the ambulatory surgery center market. While physicians continue to own some part or all of more than 90% of ambulatory surgery centers, per the Ambulatory Surgery Center Association, corporate ownership is growing, whether in the form of ASC management companies, health systems or joint ventures with private equity.

“That percentage has increased every year recently and I personally do not anticipate the trend reversing,” says Jeff Kremer, senior director of business development for Henry Schein Medical’s ASC Division. “The corporate groups provide business and financial expertise to allow the physician to focus solely on patient care, so these types of partnerships are appealing to a physician that wants to grow their market presence, revenue and profits.”

‘We’re continuing to see larger organizations acquire more physician-owned and regional surgery centers.’

Jason Grzyb, vice president, non-acute sales for Cardinal Health’s U.S. Medical Products and Distribution business, says, “Based on our customer and industry relationships, we’re continuing to see larger organizations acquire more physician-owned and regional surgery centers. As the ASC landscape experiences more consolidation, it’s likely the larger companies will invest in building new ASCs or expanding existing facilities, while integrating new technologies to further advance procedures and drive efficiencies across their operations.”

The corporate-owned segment is anticipated to record the highest compound annual growth rate (CAGR) during the forecast period of 2023-2030, according to Fortune Business Insights. Some of the biggest players are AMSURG, with roughly 250 surgery centers; United Surgical Partners International (part of Tenet Health), with about 480 ambulatory surgery centers and surgical hospitals; Surgery Partners, with more than 180 locations; SCA Health, with 320 surgical facilities; and HCA Healthcare, 124 surgery centers.

Hospitals and health systems remain strong players in the market.

“Many of our larger healthcare systems are building or planning new ASCs,” says Cindy Juhas, chief strategy officer, CME Corp. “I think that the medical technologies required will be significant. Most hospital systems are inclined to spend more money on equipment and technology, wanting their ASCs to reflect their brand.” Commercial insurers are another entrant into the market, she adds.

Private equity is making its presence felt as well.

“Transition toward the ambulatory surgery center market has long been a priority for private equity (PE), especially in the areas of orthopedics, plastics, gastrointestinal, etc.,” says David Levine, M.D., chief medical officer, Vizient. “PE will continue to look for new ways to drive procedures away from the acute care setting, and they have their sights set on cardiovascular as the next big service line to conquer.

“Similarly, large payers like UnitedHealth Group and Humana are working diligently to expand their provider footprints and care management capabilities to hold onto more of the premium dollar and decrease patient utilization of higher cost services,” he adds. “This is especially true for private equity, venture capital and payers as it relates to mergers and acquisitions.”

Bill Prentice, CEO of the Ambulatory Surgery Center Association, says that “while we are seeing an increase in the number of ASCs partnering with management companies, we are not seeing much change in the procedures they provide or the patient populations they serve when those partnerships are created. In addition, recent data shows that physicians continue to own some part or all of more than 90% of ASCs.”

What’s next? Physician offices?

How many surgical procedures will ultimately find their way into the physician’s office?

“We expect the cases that will move into the in-office procedural space will be those with a longer history of safe and effective outcomes,” says Poole. “Some of the greatest areas of risk include selecting a patient with an underlying issue, and the use of anesthesia/sedation.”

Says Dr. Levine, “In recent years, ophthalmology (e.g., cataract surgery, retinal repair) and gynecology procedures (e.g., LEEP procedures, hysteroscopies) are increasingly performed in the proceduralist office. We also see wound debridement, endovascular peripheral

procedures, endoscopic procedures, and low acuity orthopedic procedures like manipulation and fracture repair occur in the office setting.”

Jeff Kremer, senior director of business development for Henry Schein Medical’s ASC Division, believes the shift from

surgery center to physician office “will likely mirror in some ways the transition of procedures from the hospital to the ASC. There are certain procedures, such as plastics, vascular and ophthalmology that are generally recognized as being safe, affordable, and convenient to be performed in-office.”

CME Corp. Chief Strategy Officer Cindy Juhas says, “I haven’t seen massive movement in that direction, but it makes sense that it will happen. Any procedure that does not require general anesthesia would probably be the ones to move, such as many kinds of plastic surgery, colonoscopy, carpal tunnel surgery, finger/thumb surgeries, among others.”

Made in America

Manufacturers discuss the benefits that domestic manufacturing creates for local communities and for the U.S. healthcare supply chain overall.

For this issue, Repertoire Magazine reached out to several members of the med/surg manufacturing community to get a better feel for how domestic manufacturing plays into their strategy, company culture, and how it benefits the industry and local communities they are based in.

Bionix: Enhancing Opportunities

Manufacturing products in the United States strengthens Bionix’s operations and sales by fostering strong relationships, ensuring quality, enhancing responsiveness, maintaining availability, complying with regulatory standards, and aligning with shared values, the company told Repertoire .

“This collectively contributes to Bionix’s competitiveness and ability to deliver superior medical devices to its customers.”

Bionix shared several insights related to its manufacturing strategy with Repertoire:

What are the benefits to your local economy and community?

Bionix has been a part of the Toledo economy for 40 years, generating tangible benefits for the local economy, community, and workforce. Through job creation, economic stimulus, community engagement, and support for local businesses, Bionix plays a

vital role in enhancing the quality of life and opportunities for individuals and families in the area.

How does this strategy benefit your customers and end-users?

Bionix’s strategy of manufacturing in the United States and maintaining strong relationships with domestic partners directly translates into tangible benefits for its customers and end-users, including consistent quality, clinical value, transparency, innovation, and

market leadership. These benefits ultimately contribute to improved patient care and outcomes.

How has the U.S. healthcare supply chain changed now that we’ve entered a post-pandemic market?

Post-pandemic, there is a need for greater sensitivity to a more global, comprehensive understanding of supply chain for both consumers and manufacturers.

During the pandemic, Bionix solidified our relationships with our U.S. manufacturing partners. That was the time we needed them most and they consistently came through for us.

Going forward, it is important to focus on risk mitigation and scenario planning, especially given the uncertainties that can arise. With U.S. manufacturing already established, we are in a good position to avoid any future potential disruption.

Baxter: Make Where You Sell and Buy Where You Make

Baxter has a global manufacturing footprint, and its U.S. presence is a critical part of the company’s integrated supply chain approach, with 18 manufacturing locations and approximately 11,000 employees at those sites across the country. Baxter’s strategy is to ‘make where you sell and buy where you make’ – an approach that drives customer satisfaction and overall efficiency.

As an example, Baxter’s Front Line Care division manufactures the majority of its products in the U.S. and includes its Skaneateles Falls, New York site, a state-ofthe-art LEED Gold-certified facility with co-located engineering, manufacturing, commercial and cross-functional resources. This co-location provides a unique opportunity for close collaboration across product development

project teams and facilitates the transition of design to manufacturing when preparing to launch a new product.

“Local manufacturing in the U.S. empowers us to serve our U.S. customers – we can monitor the pulse of our operations to refine production processes, productivity, and quality control,” a company representative told Repertoire . “As a company and a

Skaneateles Falls

workforce, we are focused on our mission of Saving and Sustaining Lives and elevating patient care. Getting the right products into clinician hands as they are needed is mission critical.”

What are the benefits to your local economy and community?

For Skaneateles Falls specifically, Baxter employs approximately 850 full-time colleagues and we are one of the leading employers in Onondaga County, New York. In addition to providing career opportunities in manufacturing, product development, sales, marketing, finance, and customer support, Baxter gives back to our communities in myriad and meaningful ways:

` Generous matching gift program: In addition to giving their time through volunteering, many employees choose to donate to causes that are important to them. The Baxter International Foundation’s Matching Gift Program recognizes employee contributions to charitable organizations by matching an employee’s donation of $25 or more, up to $5,000, to nonprofit, taxexempt U.S. organizations.

` Community engagement events: These take place throughout the year and include Earth Week cleanup days in partnership with several local organizations, supporting the annual American Heart Association Heart Walk in Syracuse, and various fundraising and support activities benefitting local organizations including the Food Bank of Central New York and Mary Nelson Youth Center.

How does this strategy benefit your customers and the end-users?

The high-quality products we have delivered for more than 90 years have built great customer loyalty, trust, and value both inside and outside the hospital. Talented teams in the U.S. are researching, developing, testing, and manufacturing products that help clinicians diagnose, monitor, and provide therapy to support patient health.

From your vantagepoint, how has the U.S. healthcare supply chain changed now that we’ve entered a post-pandemic market? How have you adapted to these changes?

COVID-19 made clear that the supply chain innovations we have implemented are essential to maintaining resiliency of our product supply. We have assessed every aspect of the

supply chain ecosystem, created a plan A, B and C should unfortunate disruptions occur, and reimagined seemingly small details. This continuous practice improves our ability to deliver lifesaving and life-sustaining products to our customers and the patients they serve. At the most basic level, visibility to where products are and when they will arrive is critical to customer satisfaction. To bring more transparency and efficiency in the transportation and logistics processes, we implemented a digital supply chain platform that improves the ability to plan, execute and adjust the physical movement of goods, while improving service. This gives us a real-time ‘Control Tower’ view of integrated data across many functions that allows us to reduce freight costs, improve lead time and increase efficiency and customer satisfaction.

B. Braun: Ensuring Reliable Supply of LifeSaving Medical Products

B. Braun has invested more than $1.2 billion in new and upgraded manufacturing facilities in the United States. The company said it is making these investments to help meet increasing patient needs and ensure the reliable supply of life-saving medical products to patients across the country by the creation of shorter and more localized supply chains.

The majority of these investments are in new and enhanced IV therapy manufacturing facilities to help ensure a reliable and consistent supply of

vital IV fluids needed to hydrate patients, administer drugs, and replace lost blood volume. In recent years, the U.S. market has experienced destructive weather events, severe influenza seasons, and a global pandemic, each contributing to major nationwide shortages of these products.

B. Braun’s investments in IV therapy include a new state-ofthe-art manufacturing facility in Daytona Beach, Florida, and significant modernizations to existing facilities in Irvine, California, and Allentown, Pennsylvania.

“We are proud to be manufacturing in the U.S. for the U.S.,” the company told Repertoire .

What are the benefits of domestic manufacturing to your local economy and community?

Investing in new and upgraded manufacturing in the U.S. represents a commitment to the communities where our employees live and work. It also brings high-tech manufacturing to the areas where we invest. We have incorporated the latest Industry 4.0 technologies into our plants to transform

Allentown

the way pharmaceuticals are manufactured. These are truly the plants of the future.

How does this strategy benefit your customers and the end-users?

By manufacturing in the U.S. for the U.S., we are further streamlining the supply chain, while at the same time facilitating increased standardization to environmentally preferred products. Providers and their patients are exposed to less chemicals of concern when the IV bags they use are not made with toxic chemicals such as DEHP.

From your vantagepoint, how has the U.S. healthcare supply chain changed now that we’ve entered a post-pandemic market? How have you adapted to these changes?

The post-pandemic supply chain places even greater demands on the transparency and redundancy of our manufacturing capabilities,

both locally and globally. Here at our B. Braun U.S. manufacturing sites in Pennsylvania, Florida, Texas and California, we work hard each day to produce and deliver the safest, highest quality medical devices and pharmaceuticals, through our distributor partners, to those providers and patients who are counting on us. We are constantly looking to improve our

supply chain efficiencies, knowing that our med/surg distributors and drug wholesalers have high expectations of their local B. Braun sales representatives. The post-pandemic market demands that we have the redundancy in our manufacturing in order to effectively supply, each and every day, the providers in all of our key markets across the continuum of care.

Daytona Irvine

DETECTO: Long-Lasting Stability

Manufacturing products in the U.S. is much more than a strategy for DETECTO, said Jonathan Sabo, Vice-President of Marketing & Customer Support. “It’s baked into the very ethos of who we are as a company.

“From the beginning, DETECTO has always been a true vertically-integrated manufacturer of medical products and our founder believed that if we could

make it here at our factory in Webb City, Missouri then we would,” Sabo continued. “From the strain gauges in the load cells of our electronic scales to our printed circuit board production to the metal fabrication and final assembly, the DETECTO factory is alive with USA-made manufacturing ingenuity and hard work every day.”

Sabo said this benefits DETECTO in many ways; primarily,

that they can control their own destiny when it comes to supply chain, since they control a large percent of it internally. “This especially became critical during COVID when we controlled a larger piece of the pie in our parts and production cycle than many others and could react quicker and more nimbly in helping our medical customers.”

Sabo spoke more about the benefits of domestic manufacturing with Repertoire :

What are the benefits to your local economy and community? The benefits of being USA-made has many advantages to our local community here at DETECTO. The company has a positive impact on southwest Missouri in that we employ well-paying, long-lasting jobs that are stable and allow our employees to work with customers on a global stage. The manufacturing industry is fairly stable compared to many other sectors, and especially scale manufacturing itself doesn’t have the crashing highs and lows of other industries that are significantly impacted by outside economic influences.

The need never ends for medical scales, mobile storage carts, waste receptacles, and stadiometers that we manufacture, so that provides permanent, healthy jobs for our local economy. But the advantage isn’t only for our employees and community, DETECTO benefits as well from

the honest, hard-working Midwestern work ethic seen in our staff every day who truly care about making quality products and putting in a hard day’s work.

How does this strategy benefit your customers and the end-users?

We’ve found that customers do definitely appreciate USA-made goods and are willing to pay a slight premium for them, inside the U.S. especially, but also overseas. Many of our international distributors in the Middle East, Latin America, and southeast Asia have sought us out due to our factory being in Webb City, Missouri that is ISO quality controlled and VCAP certified. They know we control a large percent of our supply chain and production process internally, so that allows us to monitor production quality and ensure the best product for our customers, so our distributors aren’t constantly chasing return issues.

From your vantagepoint, how has the U.S. healthcare supply chain changed now that we’ve entered a post-pandemic market? How have you adapted to these changes?

Speed and consolidation are the two biggest areas we’ve seen shifting in the post-pandemic world. We have changed our production planning and business model in recent years to better help our customers by having more finished goods on our warehouse shelves, so that we can quick-ship next day. This has become an expectation in the Amazon era we live in now that when an order is placed it will ship out right away, whether it is one of our medical scales, carts, waste receptacles, or stadiometers. We’ve reacted to this market need by shifting our model to

build up more inventory boxed and setting on warehouse shelves than ever before in the history of our company. We’ve also seen a consolidation in the healthcare industry with many of our

smaller distributors being bought up by larger players, so our distributor list size has decreased in recent years with less dealers, and more emphasis geared towards the bigger organizations.

Midmark Corporation: A Higher Degree of Quality

Midmark Corporation (formerly the Cummings Machine Company) was founded in 1915 in Minster, Ohio, as a manufacturer of concrete mixers using the patents owned by the company’s president at the time, EC Cummings. Fast forward 109 years, Midmark now has seven manufacturing locations within the United States.

Manufacturing in the United States has several advantages for Midmark and its customers including supply chain benefits, higher quality and access to jobs for employees in the local communities, said Tracy Timmerman, Senior Marketing Manager, Midmark Corporation.

“By manufacturing products in the United States, there is a

higher degree of quality control and response times are faster if issues occur,” said Timmerman.

“By manufacturing products in the United States, we’re also saving time in the production process as products don’t have to travel as far to reach distributors which means they can reach customers quicker. Ultimately, this shortens lead times and provides stability our customers deserve, especially after the last few years post pandemic.”

Timmerman discussed several items related to domestic manufacturing with Repertoire:

What are the benefits to the local economy and community?

Midmark is passionate about manufacturing products in the United States as it creates more jobs for Americans, and we take pride in supporting the economy, our local communities, and our country. It’s invaluable to be able to help Americans financially which, in turn, stimulates the economy.

How does this strategy benefit your customers and the end-users?

It’s important to our customers that Midmark manufacture in the United States, therefore, we strive to meet that need. This provides additional transparency and accountability to our customers, and they know they can count on us to be responsive and authentic.

From your vantagepoint, how has the U.S. healthcare supply chain changed now that we’ve entered a post-pandemic market? How have you adapted to these changes? The pandemic disrupted the supply chain in an unprecedented way, and weaknesses were exposed across the global supply chain. The environment is still stabilizing, but supply chains need to be more flexible, agile and resilient than ever before.

Midmark adapted to the changing environment to best serve our customers. Increasing inventory of critical components, forecasting further out and dual sourcing are just a few considerations to boost supply-chain resiliency. I don’t believe the work stops there though – we must stay vigilant. Since change is constant, its crucial to analyze the dynamic economy and customer needs to incorporate agility into manufacturing processes.

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GROWTH STRATEGIES SUMMIT

Discover the secrets and multiplier effect of building sales through effective collaboration with distributor partners.

KNOW YOUR MARKETS

Hear from providers and other experts on market-specific trends and opportunities

“There is no better way to meet current and potential business partners than HIDA events. It is rare to have so many decision-makers all in one place which makes HIDA an incredible investment of time and

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Strengthen business connections. At Streamlining, you have exclusive opportunities to collaborate and build productive partnerships.

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Get the attention of highly engaged executives, expand your network, and promote your brand.

Strategize for the coming year.

Whether you’re looking to identify growth opportunities or customer trends, you’ll get actionable strategies from education sessions.

World Class Education Built for Distributors and Manufacturers

Introducing the NEW Growth Strategies Summit—delivering all the knowledge and insights you need to expand your business in 2025 and beyond.

Track 1

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Hear from provider leaders and experts on marketing strategies, trends and forecasts for 2025.

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Discover the secrets of building sales through distributors.

DISTRIBUTORS SUMMIT

Interact with peers and profitability experts from local, regional, and specialty healthcare distributors (for independent distributors only).

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Find out what distributor executive teams are planning for 2025 and beyond (for manufacturers only)

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Connect with 50+ Manufacturers and Service Providers on the Expo Floor

Networking Lunch: 11:45am–2:00pm CT

Happy Hour: 5:00–6:30pm CT

Find new vendors, explore products, and connect with current partners.

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Connect with 75+ Distributors, GPOs and IDNs on the Show Floor

September 12 | 10:30am–12:30pm CT

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• E xecutive Business Exchange: Pre-scheduled 20-minute meetings with manufacturers: our algorithm arranges up to 12 back-to-back sessions based on mutual interests.

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Tuesday, September 10 | 5:30 - 7:30pm CT

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Wednesday, September 11 | 7:00 - 8:00am CT

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Wednesday, September 11 | 11:45am - 2:00pm CT

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Honoring the Pledge

AdventHealth’s supply chain is fully engaged in the health system’s emissions goals by 2030 and 2050

By Daniel Beaird

Â Supply chain leaders play a critical role in reducing the carbon footprint of hospitals and health systems. To that end, Altamonte Springs, Florida-based AdventHealth, and its supply chain team in particular, has been on a journey to discover how it can lessen its environmental impact. It estimates that its supply chain activity accounts for up to 40% of its emissions footprint, while another 40% is estimated to be tied into its investment portfolio.

In October 2022, AdventHealth signed the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Health Sector Climate Pledge – a commitment to reduce its Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions by 50% by 2030 and to get to net zero by 2050. Scope 1 emissions include direct greenhouse gas emissions from sources that an organization owns or controls directly, while Scope 2 emissions include indirect purchased energy that comes from the energy an organization purchases and uses.

Five potential levers for AdventHealth to achieve its 2030 emissions reduction goal, based on financial and operational considerations, include:

` On-site renewable energy generation.

` Virtual power purchase agreements (VPPAs).

` Energy efficiency improvements.

` Grid greening.

` Utility Partnerships (community solar programs)

In particular, AdventHealth sees on-site renewable energy

generation and power purchase agreements serving as significant contributors to reducing their Scope 1 and 2 emissions.

Reducing Scope 3 emissions with suppliers

Meanwhile, supply chain leaders enter the critical work with Scope 3 emissions, which are other indirect emissions. These emissions come from upstream and downstream operations, including supplies, purchased services, investments and business travel.

Marisa Farabaugh is senior vice president and chief supply chain officer for AdventHealth and says the health system has been working with its suppliers to collect data measuring Scope 3 emissions to help understand their decarbonization initiatives.

Many suppliers are early in their decarbonization journeys. To help its suppliers along, AdventHealth will soon be requesting information in its RFPs and through other discussions to make clear to suppliers that it is focused on sustainability.

“When we talk about this with our supplier community, we truly hear the gamut. Some suppliers are already on this journey and have been abating their carbon footprint for many years,” Farabaugh said. She says those suppliers are working on more sophisticated solutions at the manufacturing level and even at the supplier community level.

“They’ve got the education and the understanding, and they’ve moved upstream to abate their carbon footprint,” she added. “But there are other suppliers that don’t always understand environmental sustainability and how to unpack their own carbon footprint.”

Farabaugh thinks the provider community needs to highlight the importance of this to its suppliers.

“As health systems, we need to come together and show this is important to us,” Farabaugh explained. “If we are all uniting around the work, it will drive the supplier community who are not already on this journey.” But education is still needed on the provider side, too.

“The provider community –and in particular the chief supply chain officers or supply chain leaders – are beginning to understand their role in this,” she said. “There are still gaps in education for the provider leadership in understanding how much of their carbon footprint is tied to the supply chain.”

It’s a complex undertaking given the number of items a provider like AdventHealth purchases and the number of suppliers that support their needs. So, AdventHealth is launching a platform to help complete its annual carbon footprint work and to help complete hybrid accounting in the supply chain space, giving ‘credit’ and acknowledging the suppliers that are progressing in their decarbonization efforts.

“We’re in our third year now of calculating our carbon footprint across the organization. Early on, we learned the data was showing us that supply chain accounts for up to 40% of our overall footprint. That’s a lot of emissions attributed to the supply chain. So, when we think about addressing Scope 3 emissions, it’s imperative that we have our trading partners and other provider supply chain leaders at the table,” Farabaugh said.

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Signing the HHS Health Sector Climate Pledge

When AdventHealth signed the HHS Health Sector Pledge, it tasked Farabaugh and Rob Roy, senior vice president and chief investment officer for AdventHealth, to co-lead the space and help create a plan and roadmap for the health system to tackle its Scope 1, Scope 2 and Scope 3 emissions.

Over 130 organizations have joined the HHS Health Sector Climate Pledge, which was launched on Earth Day 2022, demonstrating a commitment to lowering greenhouse gas emissions and building more climate resistant infrastructure. HHS publicly recognized AdventHealth for installing more than 1,800 solar panels on its parking garage. AdventHealth is also actively

under construction for a solar project on their corporate campus that will be one of the largest solar projects on a business campus within the state of Florida. This project is 3 MW, is expected to generate 30% of clean energy for the campus and provide 62 EV stations on their campus.

The HHS Health Sector Climate Pledge is still open and health sector groups are encouraged to sign on. Pledge signers commit to:

` Reducing organizational emissions by 50% by 2030 (from baseline no earlier than 2008) and achieve net zero by 2050, publicly accounting for progress on this goal every year.

` Designating an executive-level lead for their work on reducing emissions within six months of

signing the pledge and conducting an inventory of Scope 3 emissions by the end of 2024.

` Developing and releasing a climate resilience plan for continuous operations within six months of signing the pledge, anticipating the needs of groups in their community that experience disproportionate risk of climate-related harm.

“I’ve learned a lot,” Farabaugh said. “It was a space that I had passion in, but not a lot of technical expertise. It’s been a fun journey to learn so much with a key group of people internally and externally who have helped educate us. I am deeply grateful for the partnership with Rob Roy and Kate Reid on this work and all the contributions of our lean environmental

sustainability core team. We are blessed to have our CFO, Paul Rathbun, and our CEO, Terry Shaw, both highly interested and committed to the work.”

Two Texas farms and AdventHealth’s roadmap

Putting together the full roadmap for AdventHealth’s 2030 and 2050 goals is Farabaugh and Roy’s responsibility.

“Our first focus was on our 2030 goals. We have a plan to reduce our Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions by 50% by 2030 as our primary focus. Last December, we executed two virtual power purchase agreements (VPPAs), one of which is a wind farm in Texas that’s producing clean energy via wind, and another is a solar farm to be built in Texas that will produce clean energy via solar,” Farabaugh explained.

Through those VPPAs with key strategic partners, AdventHealth will offtake renewable energy credits for its electricity needs. With the size of these agreements, this will position AdventHealth to be 100% on renewable electricity by 2026.

“The HHS pledge calls us to a 50% reduction in Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions by 2030 and with just moving to the two VPPAs that we’ve executed on, we’re actually exceeding that 50% goal by four years earlier – in 2026 – than the target time period,” she said. “We’re conducting a facility condition assessment right now of major plant equipment across our more than 50 hospitals within nine states to understand the life of the equipment and to better understand the energy usage of this equipment.”

AdventHealth’s current assessment, target setting, planning and communication activities mark the beginning of its environmental sustainability work. They will become part of an iterative process that will evolve as standards and technologies continue to change.

“We’re highly tied into the journey,” Farabaugh said. “We have a great team to help think through the process, communicate it out, and help to drive this monumental change that ultimately will drive toward our mission of helping our communities feel whole.”

IDN News

Banner MD Anderson’s 3D mobile mammography unit unveiled to the public Phoenix, Arizona-based Banner MD Anderson Cancer Center recently celebrated the unveiling of The BIG Pink Bus, a mobile mammography unit hitting valley streets that will offer 3D mammogram screenings to thousands, particularly those in outlying areas. The bus is life-changing for women who might want or need a mammogram, but don’t have the ability to get to an imaging site themselves, the most convenient option to stay on top of their breast cancer screenings, the IDN said in a release.

“Scheduling a yearly mammogram screening is one of the easiest and most effective tools for treating breast cancer,” said Dr. Vilert Loving, chief of breast imaging and co-director of the Comprehensive Breast Cancer Program at Banner MD Anderson Cancer Center. “The mobile mammography unit will bring Banner MD Anderson’s comprehensive breast program and its breast cancer experts right to people’s doorstep. We are so proud to make healthcare easier for the Phoenix metropolitan population.”

Funded by donors to the Banner Health Foundation including the Arizona Diamondbacks Foundation, Bashas’ Family of Stores, Copper State Bolt & Nut Co., and the Board of Visitors Care Card program, The BIG Pink Bus will offer the same 3D mammography technology available at Banner MD Anderson’s brick-and-mortar facilities. The

The amount Intermountain is now charging for outpatient rehab services, compared to the hospital-based system.

3D mammogram images – the gold standard in early breast cancer detection – will be interpreted by Banner MD Anderson’s team of specialist breast imaging radiologists. Additionally, patients will have ready access to Banner MD Anderson Cancer Center’s comprehensive breast cancer program if further testing or treatment are needed.

Mayo Clinic and Mercy reach first major milestone in data collaboration

Mayo Clinic and Mercy are making a significant advancement in their global, first-of-its-kind 10-year collaboration agreement signed in the summer of 2022. As founding members of Mayo Clinic Platform_Connect, the two organizations will now be working together to analyze de-identified patient data as they search for new ways to diagnose, treat and prevent disease, providing better outcomes and lower costs of care.

Mayo Clinic Platform_Connect is a distributed data network that provides secure access to deidentified clinical data. Previously, Mercy and Mayo Clinic could use Connect to analyze data from their own organizations, but as of today, each organization can safely and securely analyze de-identified patient data from either health system.

This significantly larger data set allows researchers and innovators to better identify risk factors, predict illnesses and provide earlier treatment with the potential to positively impact millions of patients’ lives.

Intermountain Health restructures outpatient rehab services in Utah hospitals

Intermountain Health is restructuring its hospitalbased outpatient rehabilitation services in Utah and is moving to a clinic model that will result in lower costs and allow for more virtual telehealth visits for patients.

This shift comes as Intermountain Health continues to expand its value-based care model. With the change, Intermountain is now charging about 30 percent less for outpatient rehab services, compared to the hospital-based system, the IDN said in a release. These services include physical, occupational, and speech therapy to help patients recovering from injury, managing pain, or following surgery.

Dave Edwards on Finding Your “Why”

Â Purpose can be an elusive thing. Like a bad riddle, purpose is something that we are all imbued with, yet not everyone truly realizes their full potential. Everyone has a reason for doing what they do – whether it’s for work, our hobbies, or even just getting out of bed in the morning. It can be the thing that pushes you to go the extra mile.

In a recent episode of The Cure...With Scotty and Sully, hosts Scott Adams and Brian Sullivan sat down with Dave Edwards, National Vice President, Business Development for Premier, to discuss the importance of finding your “why.”

Edwards’ path into the healthcare industry was paved by the values instilled in him from a young age. Growing up in a household where healthcare was the dinner table conversation every night, he learned the importance of dedicating one’s time and talent to make a meaningful impact.

The importance of finding your “why”

While the idea of “finding your why” is not a new one, this was instilled in Edwards at a young age by his parents, who said, “Your responsibility, if you’re born in the United States and born into an opportunity that almost no one in the history of the world has had, is to leverage what God’s given you to make an impact somewhere.”

As for Edwards’ “why”, he cites his family as his reason for working in healthcare, because he understands the limitations of the industry at large. Part of his charge in making healthcare better for future generations is seeing the limitations of the industry and knowing that his children and grandchildren are going to inherit it.

Edwards said, “As you get older, you see the full perspective of healthcare from entirely new eyes. In the same way when you go into a hospital as a patient versus someone who’s selling into it, you start to realize how different it is. I’m seeing how my products are used, and I’m seeing the errors, mistakes, and other things that are frustrating to work with.”

In an effort to ensure that his children and grandchildren can inherit the best that the healthcare system has to offer, Edwards is using his position at

Premier to make a better impact on the industry. “Because Premier sits in the middle, the aperture opens, allowing us to see more clearly. Our job today is to listen to and understand the needs of the healthcare executives running the biggest systems in the country.”

Discovering your purpose may take time and it might not look like what you expected, but it’s important to your development as an individual and a professional in an industry that desperately needs people with purpose. When your purpose is discovered and defined, you can begin to leverage that passion for progress – creating a better world for everyone else in the process.

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Choosing Cabinetry that Brings Value

Cabinetry design can determine the value and benefi t it brings to the clinical environment. Medical-grade cabinetry can have a signifi cant impact on effi ciency, safety and the healthcare experience. While lower cost alternatives may seem like a good option, there can be additional associated costs. Involving us earlier in the project can take the pressure off you and help ensure the cabinetry your customers choose provides lasting value while minimizing additional expenses. See why lower cost isn’t always best at: midmark.com/clinicalcabinetry

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Baxter has more than 100 years of innovation, 268,000 customers nationwide, and 100 conﬁgurable Welch Allyn products.

The numbers tell our story. With a broad portfolio spanning patient monitoring, diagnostic cardiology, vision screening, and physical exam tools there are always inspiring opportunities to discuss with customers.

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