Supplier Strategies Track                            
 
Understanding and anticipating the evolving facility and equipment needs of hospitals and healthcare systems can be a huge challenge, and aligning your goals with those of your customer is critical. This track provided insight on how healthcare system decision makers identify key parameters that lead to a successful contracting experience.  Attendees learned how effective collaboration with healthcare administrators can open up new opportunities and lead to more effective negotiations for services and long-term business partnerships. This track targeted sales and marketing executives with relationship responsibility for healthcare systems and hospitals, as well as healthcare executives wanting to learn more about aligning their goals with suppliers.
 
1:00 pm – 2:15 pm                       Supplier Strategies Track: PANEL:  Understanding the Equipment Planner
 
                                                            Moderator:  Dennis Daar, Managing Partner, MSI
 
                                                            Panelists:  Gloria Cascarino, Senior Associate/Director of Medical Equipment Planning, Francis Cauffman
                                                                                 Karl Kilgore, Director, Healthcare Planning Specialties, CPI
                                                                                 Scott Vinson, President, Mitchell Planning
 
Listen to an audio recording of the session here.
                                                             
The medical equipment planner plays an important role during the design and construction phases of hospital renovation and expansion.  Equipment planners work with hospital administrators, architects, engineers, contractors, the project manager, and medical equipment distributors to plan, specify, purchase, and install the equipment for new construction, expansion of an existing facility or remodeling projects.  Whether the equipment is an everyday item or a large piece of imaging equipment, the equipment planner is involved.   Knowing the things that make equipment planners happy and the things that give them headaches are both important in building a maintaining relationships that solve problems and make things happen.
 
This session will discuss how equipment planners help the hospital to make equipment decisions and the specifics of their interaction with architects, engineers, contractors and distributors.  Learn what they look for when selecting the best equipment for their operational needs and what specifications are vital to the design process.  Gain insight into how to use their expertise, extensive product knowledge and experience in planning and implementing projects and how to best share your expertise as well.
 
Now that you know what you need from them, find out what they need from you!  During the design and construction process, the equipment planner acts as a central source of information and communication between distributors and purchasers.  They are the hub in the wheel that works to keep the project on schedule and to purchase and ensure delivery of the right equipment.  Find out what equipment planners need most from suppliers in order to make the process both efficient and profitable for all involved.   
 
Learning Objectives:
  1. Review the role of the equipment planner in healthcare equipment planning and purchasing.
  2. Recognize the challenges that hospitals and equipment planners face when procuring new equipment.
  3. Identify top considerations equipment planners take into account when assisting clients with new suppliers.
  4. Establish action plans to work with equipment planners in the most efficient manner.
 
2:30 pm – 3:45 pm                       Supplier Strategies Track: PANEL:  Best Practices for Collaboration between ACE Suppliers and Providers
 
                                                            Moderator:  Patrick Duke, Managing Director, Global Workplace Solutions, CBRE
                                                           
                                                           Panelists:   Jeffrey Homme, Senior Planner,  Shen Milsom Wilke, LLC
                                                                                 Lance Mendiola, Vice President, Facilities Management and Construction, CHRISTUS Health
                                                                                 Douglas Scholl, System Director, Facility Planning, Ohio Health
 
Listen to an audio recording of the session here.
                                                           
It comes as no surprise that there has been a significant amount of change in the architecture, design, construction and renovation of healthcare facilities in recent years.  State-of-the-art innovations in efficiency, patient care, and sustainability, to name a few, have resulted from new imaginings of clinical design and technological advances in treatment.  This panel brings together three healthcare executives from different perspectives to discuss what they are seeing in healthcare construction today.   
 
With differing perspectives, these experts from the architecture, capital equipment and engineering viewpoints answer the questions suppliers want to know.   They will outline what they believe are the latest trends and the greatest challenges in supplier-provider relationships.  They will also share best practices for collaboration in order to implement new methods to lower costs, accelerate the project timeline, provide high-quality building materials and ensure patient and stakeholder satisfaction. 
 
Learning Objectives:
  1. Define the architecture and design challenges facing hospitals and health systems today.
  2. Identify ways providers and suppliers can work together to develop strong partnerships.
  3. Describe the key drivers influencing construction, capital equipment and facilities decision makers.
  4. Compare collaboration methods designed to lower costs and move up completion dates.
 
4:00 pm – 5:15 pm                       Supplier Strategies Track:  A Market Analysis for ACE – What It Means for Suppliers Today and Tomorrow
 
                                                            Moderator: Josh Morita, Senior Director of Business Development, Healthcare Business Media
 
                                                            Presenter:  Kevin Haynes, Senior Consultant, FMI Corporation
 
View the PowerPoint presentation here.
Listen to an audio recording of the session here. 
 
Today’s changing healthcare landscape places a greater emphasis on improving the quality of patient care and reducing overall costs, particularly within hospitals. A number of regulatory and marketplace forces, such as hospital profitability, consolidation trends, shifting ownership patterns and changing federal reimbursement policies, create a significant need to identify additional ways to improve patient outcomes, drive quality, lower costs, and make the best possible use of existing and new facilities.  Not surprisingly, these factors will change the nature of healthcare architecture, construction and engineering in the future.
 
The session will help you become better prepared for what’s on the horizon.  Discussion will include the market outlook for spend within the areas of architecture, construction, capital equipment and engineering sectors of healthcare.  Learn how providers are facing the pressures that the current environment is placing on them and the changes that are resulting in the way they think, plan and spend.  Trends regarding the types of projects and equipment most likely to be funded, mergers and acquisitions, and more will help you prepare for the challenges that lie ahead. 
 
Learning Objectives:
  1. Identify the trends forcing change in healthcare construction.
  2. List the ways these factors are changing the way providers approach the buying process.
  3. Analyze the outlook for spend in the area of healthcare construction.
  4. Outline specific methods to position your organization as a trusted solutions provider.