January 2011

Book It! Getting Meetings at HIMSS 2011

By Dane Vahey

The time is now. Journalists attending HIMSS 2011 are filling out their calendars, finalizing their schedules and starting to look at which vendor meetings will be worth their 30 minutes. How do you get your company or product on the docket of the influencers who can elevate you above the noise? Be bold, plan well, stay positive and follow these tips.

1)    Let Them Know You’re There: Get your pitches out now, even though the conference is nearly a month away (it runs from February 20-24). As the editorial team at Healthcare Informatics responded, “We are determining our schedule this week, evaluating all the meetings based on industry coverage and editor’s beats. We should know soon!” 

2)    Bring the Substance: Give reporters something 'meaty' to share, offer them a peek at upcoming news--anything business related, a brand new product that signals a company is going in a completely new direction, or strategic company news, such as partnerships with well-known companies can all catch a reporter’s attention.

3)    You Speak, They Listen: Are you presenting or speaking at a conference session? This is something you should certainly drop into the pitch. Speaking demonstrates a level of vendor legitimacy that adds credibility to your company.

4)    Bring Your Friends: Offer a variety of references to the media besides your own client, such as hospital customer, clinicians/healthcare providers or an analyst familiar with your company. Surprisingly enough, as much as media love to hear you talk about yourself, it almost always more effective if someone else is also singing your praises and discussing the top issues.

5)    Demo Time: Offer reporters a demo at the booth at HIMSS. If your product is not actually there and is still in the development or conceptual standpoint, show them the demo on the iPad, which is much more interesting than a PowerPoint presentation.

6)    Film Your Story: There are several outlets at HIMSS that shoot video for online coverage. Even better, shoot your own product video and offer to send the reporters a YouTube link to learn about your company. Media loves video content they can embed in an article, link to or Tweet about.

7)    Get Social: Lots of folks tweet during the show. You should also utilize Twitter to drum up buzz throughout HIMSS. Follow reporters who will be at show and you can even invite them to your booth with a well-timed tweet.

8)    Make More Time: Connect reporters with hospital customers via phone before or after the conference—most of them will have very busy schedules during the show.

HIMSS grows larger ever year, but so does the opportunity to get above the noise. By following these tips, you can make a positive impression on media, customers, partners, prospects and even potential investors. Here is a link to even more tips to increase your visibility at HIMSS, and if you need help with any part of your HIMSS planning, including video production, feel free to give Schwartz Communications a call at 781-684-0770.

Posted by Davida Dinerman on January 25, 2011 at 3:13 PM
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PRX Now Available on Alltop

We are thrilled that PRx has been accepted to Alltop, the “online magazine rack” of the web that features the headlines of the latest stories from the best sites and blogs on a variety of topics. Check out the PR and Healthcare sections for the latest PRx blog posts.

Posted by Lauren Arnold on January 24, 2011 at 12:48 PM
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Healthcare Stories People Are Talking About

As we discussed earlier this week, the big news this week was the FDA’s announcement of its changes to improve the 510(k) market approval process for medical devices. The industry continues to come out and support the changes but the consensus during the Advanced Medical Technology Association (AdvaMed) conference call held yesterday cautions its listeners that the impact of the plan will depend on how the changes are implemented and whether or not it will improve patient access to new technologies. We along with everyone else in the industry will be playing close attention to how everything plays out.

Additional news stories making headlines this week include:

•    An advisory committee to the FDA recommended unanimously that the FDA approve the first test — a brain scan — that can show the characteristics plaque of Alzheimer’s disease in the brain of a living person. However, this is conditional upon a training program be set up for physicians to properly read scans using the dye and that the company demonstrates that the images are being interpreted correctly. Avid Radiopharmaceuticals, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Eli Lilly, manufactures the dye. Typically, the FDA follows the advice of its panels. More than 5 million Americans suffer from Alzheimer’s disease and it is the second leading cause of death in the U.S. While there is currently no treatment that can slow or reverse the progression of the disease, knowing definitely if a person had it would be invaluable in enabling physicians to diagnose whether a patient’s memory problems are a result of Alzheimer’s disease or something else such as tiny strokes. This has huge implications for patients and their families, enabling them to best plan and understand what lies ahead.

•    The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill (H.R. 2) “The Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act aimed at repealing all aspects of Affordable Health Care Act, also known as “Obamacare.” Our blog post from earlier this week opines on what this means for medical companies and citizens.
 

Posted by Lauren Arnold on January 21, 2011 at 4:13 PM
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FDA Announces Changes to 510K Process

The FDA announced on Wednesday its plan of action to improve the 510(k) market approval process for medical devices. Key takeaways include:

•    Streamlining the “de novo” review process for certain innovative, lower-risk medical devices,
•    Clarifying when clinical data should be submitted in a premarket submission, guidance that will increase the efficiency and transparency of the review process,
•    Establishing a new Center Science Council of senior FDA experts to assure timely and consistent science-based decision making.

Medical device manufacturers are likely relieved that the FDA did not yet address specific issues that have the potential to slow the approval process of new products. For this, the FDA is waiting for a decision by the Institute of Medicine on seven proposals, including creating a new category of devices that would require more data before approval. A decision is expected this summer.

The new guidelines are largely being well received by industry and the public at large. President Obama weighed in with an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal on the need for a government-wide review of federal agency rules to ensure that regulations protect our safety, health and environment while at the same time don’t have the potential to stifle job creation and make our economy less competitive. He cites the FDA’s new regulations as an example of helping us reach our goal.

The mobile health technology industry, in particular, has been pushing for the FDA to improve its regulatory processes and more clearly provide device makers with a better understanding of how it regulates connected health devices. Today’s MobiHealthNews newsletter quotes our client WellDoc Communications which develops mobile health technology to support chronic disease management on its support of President Obama’s executive order to advance public health while at the same time ensuring the safety and efficacy for patients.
In the world of PR, where news milestones are often few and far between for  many medical device companies, 510(k) market clearance can be a pivotal news angle for clients—one that can generate a slew of publicity with a thoughtful, well-executed PR strategy and campaign. We, along with our clients, will definitely keep our eyes peeled for the next round of news from the FDA. We will keep you updated on how the FDA’s plan is being received and what this means for medical device companies.

Posted by Lauren Arnold on January 20, 2011 at 4:15 PM
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What's the Deal with the Healthcare Repeal?

Last night, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill (H.R. 2) “The Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act aimed at repealing all aspects of Affordable Health Care Act, also known as “Obamacare.”  The House voted 245 to 189 with the majority of members voting along party lines.  

Republicans believe the repeal is necessary in order to prevent unsustainable, open-ended entitlement programs that could bankrupt the country and the states.  House Democrats argued “Obamacare” could save more money than expected, however the budget office does not take into account likely improvements in the delivery of medical services that could slow the growth in costs for individuals, businesses and the federal and state governments.  Regardless of which side of the argument you are on, a few things are true:

• Despite the repeal in the House, what will happen in the Senate is still unknown.  

• In the unlikely event that the Senate follows the House and passes the repeal, the President will veto the effort and the Affordable Health Care Act will remain on the books as law and its programs will be rolled out.  

However, this will not be the end of the repeal efforts on Capitol Hill.  House Republicans are planning to propose incremental changes to “Obamacare” following today’s vote.  This will provide a critical opportunity for businesses and organizations to weigh in on the debate.  While the House is considering these proposals, companies in the Healthcare arena will have a chance to engage in discussion around health care reform, and create positive change for their business.  

The November elections sent a clear message – voters are looking for politicians to cut spending and reduce the size of the federal deficit.  Republicans, looking to make good on their campaign promises, will undoubtedly look for savings in Medicare and Medicaid, the government’s largest mandatory funding expenditures, and cost will be central to the renewed healthcare debate.  Companies with a compelling story of improving quality of care, increasing efficiency, keeping more accurate records, and cutting cost will be welcomed in the coming weeks and months in Washington.

Posted by Corey Lewandowski, director, Public Affairs at Schwartz

Posted by Neil Cutter on at 10:22 AM
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Healthcare Stories People Are Talking About

We’re launching a new feature on our blog today: Healthcare headlines people are talking about. It will be a regular recap of the biggest medical stories in the news with commentary from our practice leaders. Enjoy this first post in our new series:

•    Eli Lilly announced a partnership with Boehringer Ingelheim to develop and market new diabetes drugs. Diabetes affects an estimated 285 million adults worldwide and more than 24 million people in the U.S.

•    The FDA announced on January 13 that it would greatly restrict some of the nation’s most popular prescription painkillers that contain acetaminophen, like Percocet and Vicoden, saying these drugs put many patients at potential risk for severe liver injury. The problem arises when patients aren’t aware of their pill’s acetaminophen content and combine these drugs with over-the-counter acetaminophen painkillers like Tylenol. In 2009, an FDA advisory panel recommended a total ban on these pills, but the FDA today announced that the manufacturers of these drugs which combine narcotics with acetaminophen have 3 years to reformulate them or stop making them altogether. Under the new limit, the pills may combine no more than 325 milligrams of acetaminophen—less than half of the amount found in many of them now.

•    On January 12, the journal Nature published results of a study in rats demonstrating that stimulating the vagus nerve while simultaneously playing a variety of sound tones over an extended period of time helps stop tinnitus—a condition characterized by persistent ringing in the ears. There is currently no cure for tinnitus, which can occur as a result of hearing loss. Tinnitus affects nearly two million Americans and is a common problem among soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. The researchers plan to try the treatment next on tinnitus patients in Europe.

•    Matt Lauer on the Today Show recently interviewed a 12-year-old boy, Andrew, who suffers  from a rare and severe form of epilepsy, which caused him to have up to 20 seizures a day, any one of which could be fatal. According his Andrew’s mom, the family got a service dog, Alaya, to help take care of Andrew. Alaya can actually sense a seizure coming on. The service dog carries a magnet on her collar and when the boy is on the verge of a seizure, the dog licks his face and swipes the magnet over the vagus nerve stimulator in Andrew’s chest. This eases the severity of the seizure, and sometimes even stops it completely. Alaya has completely changed the family’s lives. Andrew can now go out and play, walk Alaya down the street and use the bathroom unaided. Unfortunately, the school district refused to allow Alaya to come to school with Andrew. 
 

After this segment aired, school officials reversed their stand on the service dog, and agreed to allow Andrew to bring Alaya to school on a 3-to-6-week trial basis. This truly demonstrates the power of PR—or more so, the Power of Matt Lauer.
 

Posted by Lauren Arnold on January 14, 2011 at 12:27 PM
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Catching up with iNTERFACEWARE on the "Road to HIMSS"

As part of our “Road to HIMSS” blog series, we are talking with Schwartz clients who will be attending the conference to get their thoughts on trends and what we can expect to see at their booths. (HIMSS will take place this year from February 20-24 in Orlando, Fla.)

We caught up with Art Harrison, vice president of marketing and communications at iNTERFACEWARE, to learn about his plans.

What are you looking forward to at HIMSS?

This year, we're looking forward to being part of the Interoperability Showcase. We've been exhibitors at HIMSS for many years now, but 2011 is the first time we'll be participating in the showcase. Along with that, we always look forward to showing off our latest product releases and speaking with so many of our existing customers. As a middleware software provider, iNTERFACEWARE often supports many of the other exhibitors with their integration needs, so HIMSS is always a great place for us to get together and talk about how things have been going and what the future is going to hold.

What are the hot topics for the conference?

We think Meaningful Use is once again going to dominate the conversations at HIMSS this year.  There has been a big push for EHR adoption, and with the final rule being released this last July. We anticipate fielding a lot of questions related to meeting Meaningful Use requirements.

What can we expect from you in terms of news?

You can expect to hear a lot about the latest release of our Iguana™ HL7 Interface Engine, as well as a special sneak-peek at our latest cutting-edge integration solution.

How has HIMSS helped you in terms of sales? Business development? PR?

HIMSS is the most important trade show for us every year. We often plan releases and promotions around HIMSS, and it's been invaluable to us in terms of creating market awareness and generating qualified leads. It's a fantastic venue for us to meet prospects as well as connect with existing customers.

Visit iNTERFACEWARE at booth #3621.

Here are some tips to increase your visibility at HIMSS. And feel free to give Schwartz Communications a call at 781-684-0770 or send an email to healthcareit@schwartzcomm.com if you need help with any part of your HIMSS planning or during the event.

Posted by Davida Dinerman on January 12, 2011 at 8:51 AM
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Tracking Healthcare IT Trends on the Road to HIMSS '11

The New Year brings us less than two months away from the start of HIMSS 2011. While several Schwartz clients and healthcare IT companies exhibiting at the show are finalizing booth details, we’ve been busy tracking general trends and themes that are being discussed within the healthcare IT (HCIT) blogosphere.

This has been an important exercise as we advise our clients to tie news announcements planned for HIMSS to industry trends in order to maximize media coverage. So, we called in the experts – the Schwartz Communication Research Group. The research team tracked key words on 10 blog sites for the past two weeks, including Neil Versel’s Healthcare IT Blog, John Halamka’s Life as a Healthcare CIO and The Wall Street Journal’s Health Blog, to help determine the hot trends going into 2011 and in advance of HIMSS. 

The larger the word on the diagram above, the greater the prevalence on the blogs.

A few interesting trends come out of this word cloud, which is in the shape of Florida, the site of HIMSS 2011. The terms “hospital” and “providers” are relatively close in size. Naturally, messaging around HCIT products and services on blogs is heavily targeted to these audiences. This isn’t surprising as 2011 could be the year we see significant HCIT adoption in provider offices and hospitals. PwC stated in its top health industry issues of 2011 report that “HIT and consulting vendors are expected to see a 10% to 20% hike in revenues, according to industry analysts.” 

Though “providers” is prevalent, “payers” is absent from the cloud and “insurance” is small. Perhaps since vendors know HIMSS is more provider-specific, those companies that target payers are taking different approaches to outreach. 

While “use” is large, “meaningful” is tiny – somewhere above West Palm Beach. Since criteria for Meaningful Use continues to be determined, it’s possible that IT vendors are focusing product messaging on the value that their technology delivers in general, and haven’t yet outlined specific ways that technology will help providers demonstrate meaningful use. 

Along the panhandle, we see “data,” “patient” and “clinical.” Many healthcare information technologies offer providers a way to store, manage and access patient clinical data to enable them to make better-informed care decisions. But we don’t see “HIE” (health information exchange) on the cloud. One may assume the industry is focused on widespread adoption of HCIT for clinical decision support and ongoing care management before HIE becomes mainstream, which is still a work-in-progress. 

A picture is worth a thousand words, or at least as many as will fit into a word cloud. Although we could extrapolate only so much from this word cloud, we hope it serves as a starting point as you plan HIMSS announcements. 

Stay tuned for next week’s post, when we will create a cloud based on the HIMSS website content. 

If you would like advice on how to maximize visibility at the show and make the most of your investment, download our HIMSS Tip Sheet or give Schwartz Communications a call at 781-684-0770. And feel free to stop by our booth 3319 at the show. We look forward to seeing you.

Posted by Mercedes Carrasco on January 5, 2011 at 8:58 AM
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2010 Legislative Wrap-up

By Corey R. Lewandowski, Director, Public Affairs

Following the elections of November 2, 2010 many people believed that it would be Republicans in, Democrats out, see you in 2011.  However, the recent lame-duck Congress been extremely productive, in terms of legislation passed. The lame-duck session has managed to pass: an $850 billion tax relief and unemployment insurance extension, repeal Don’t Ask Don’t Tell (DADT), the Defense Authorization bill, a continuing resolution to keep funding the federal government, the START treaty, the food-safety bill, and the 9/11 Healthcare bill.  There has been a lot of media focused on each bill, but because they have all been passed in the last two months many people are still unsure of what’s actually included in these bills. Below is an overview:

Posted by Neil Cutter on January 3, 2011 at 4:07 PM
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