by
Sean Ruck, Contributing Editor | March 10, 2016
From the March 2016 issue of HealthCare Business News magazine
Health Connect Partners celebrates a decade of creating conferences this year. HealthCare Business News spoke with one of HCP’s founders to get a history lesson and find out what’s on tap for the remainder of 2016 and beyond.
HCB News: HCP has been around for years now. How well-recognized is the brand today?
DM: We started with our first conference in the fall of 2006. We are celebrating our 10th year of business this year. Our first conference was our Supply & Pharmacy Conference where we hosted both hospital supply chain executives as well as hospital pharmacy executives. At that time, we only had two employees in the company, co-founder and president, Nelson Hendry, as well as myself. We knew we had an opportunity to put something together that was unique and would add tremendous value to both hospitals and the vendors that sold to the hospitals, but we also knew we did not have the manpower at that time to tackle both of these markets.
So, we elected to focus our energy on the pharmacy market. Since we have been in the pharmacy market for 10 years now, I would say that our brand is well-known in the hospital pharmacy market in the U.S. We serve four other markets: hospital O.R. and surgical; hospital radiology and imaging; hospital information technology; and hospital supply chain. We are fairly well-recognized in those markets as well, but we have not been involved in those markets as long as pharmacy, so we are still working hard to get out and see everyone and build those important relationships.
HCB News: What plans, if any, do you have to grow that recognition?
DM: We come from the old school where getting out and meeting people and building relationships is the most important aspect of business. Our plans are to continue to go to trade shows and build our brand one customer at a time. We also go visit our customers at their hospitals and businesses. We feel that we are the most helpful to the attendees when we know them personally and have a relationship with them so that we can communicate about what is needed to solve problems and help make connections in our industry.
HCB News: With hospitals feeling the budget crunch more and more, do you feel that has impacted attendance? If so, in what ways?
DM: High-quality education is critical for hospital department managers. In many of the markets we serve, their accrediting agencies still require the majority of their continuing education hours to be live. We have an educational advisory board made up of 10 to 12 top health system executives from each of the five markets. These executives get together by teleconference about six months prior to each conference to discuss relevant topics and help select the best speakers in the country for those topics/educational sessions. By focusing on quality education, we bring terrific value to the hospital attendees and they continue to come back and support our conferences.
