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Q&A with IDN CEO John Kelly

by Brendon Nafziger, DOTmed News Associate Editor | April 11, 2013
From the April 2013 issue of HealthCare Business News magazine


DMBN: Last spring you released a market report on how the relationship between health care executives and suppliers is changing. How is it changing and why?
JK:
The survey found that more than 50 percent of health care executive felt that their level of collaboration with suppliers has increased in the last five years. That is very significant and supports the idea that forging new collaborations with other industry partners as a means of addressing financial constraints has grown increasingly attractive. There are many benefits to these collaborations including greater cost efficiencies, improved negotiations, streamlined purchasing and access to relevant data.

DMBN: You typically release a market research report around the time of your summits. What do you have planned this year?
JK:
This year we are collaborating with some of our industry partners to bring valuable research and content to the IDN Summit Source Book. We are excited to offer important industry research in a central location.

DMBN: What’s new at this spring’s show?
JK:
We are revamping the first day. We’re introducing a Lunch N Learn program for attendees to learn more about new ideas coming to market and providing a platform for the GPOs to educate the suppliers in attendance on their new initiatives. The GPO Informational Forums begin the conference programming for sup- pliers. We are also launching a new concept for the last morning, Idea Exchanges. These Idea Exchanges provide a free flow of ideas on a particular topic. We receive numerous suggestions to provide time where attendees can learn from each other and we believe this will meet that demand.

What are you most excited about this year?
JK:
Hearing the Event Keynote Speaker, Maj. (Ret.) Dan Rooney. He’ll share with us his life lessons that he calls, A Patriot’s Calling- Living Life between Fear and Faith, which is the title of his new book. Dan is a retired Air Force fighter pilot and current PGA golf professional who has started a non-profit devoted to assisting in the education of family members of disabled or killed-in-action military service members. We’re also hosting
Dan for a reception honoring his non-profit, Folds of Honor. A special thanks to DOTmed for assisting with that reception.

DMBN: Attendance fell at RSNA this year. As a show organizer, do you see long-term trends affecting attendance? What are they and how are you adapting to them?
JK:
We are very bullish on long-term trends for face-to-face meetings. When Michael Eisner was CEO at Disney and the Internet was just starting to become more available, the same question was posed to him concerning Disney Parks. He responded that there is just something magical about face-to-face interaction that the Internet cannot and will not duplicate. He even predicted that technology would enhance those park visits and not diminish them. History has certainly proven him correct and we see the same trends with these Summits. But let me throw out one caveat. The experience matters more today than ever before — we’re being judged with stricter measurements of success so we have to produce outstanding events or attendees will find other ways to meet.

DMBN: Last year’s show was also in Orlando. How many spring summits have you hosted there? What about the place draws IDN?
JK:
Back to Disney, Walt had a vision for Orlando and it has certainly come to pass. Overwhelmingly from attendee surveys, we see that people like Orlando. We just ride the trend. Attendees tell us where they want to go and we follow. If the spring attendees feel they want another city, we’ll listen and move the Spring Summit.

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