Joachim Schäfer
Q&A with Joachim Schäfer, Managing Director, Messe Dusseldorf
October 31, 2016
HealthCare Business News interviewed Joachim Schäfer, the managing director of Messe Düsseldorf, to discover what attendees can expect at MEDICA 2016 in Dusseldorf, Germany, Nov. 14-17.
HCB News: Thinking back on last year’s event, what surprised you the most or stands out as particularly memorable?
JS: Last year, both MEDICA and COMPAMED, the supplier trade fair held concurrently with MEDICA, ran for the first time on weekdays, from Monday to Thursday. We were convinced that the market would welcome this concept. And indeed, it worked right from the start. The 19 exhibition halls were all very busy the whole time. The fact that both the MEDICA and COMPAMED events were held on normal working days meant that attendees were able to better plan their visits. Last year, that immediately had a beneficial effect on the well-attended trade fair forums and accompanying conferences. The many program highlights had large participation throughout the trade fairs. To this extent, 2015 marked an additional milestone in the history of the two shows.
HCB News: Aside from the usual opportunities to reconnect with colleagues and network with people in the industry, what will set this year’s MEDICA apart?
JS: MEDICA is, and will remain, the place where all topics relating to the full workflow of patient treatment are put into focus with an incomparable wealth of resources and internationality at a fixed point in time. All medical specialist fields benefit from this, and visitors have the opportunity to broaden their horizons. In this regard, the program of integrated forums and accompanying conferences addresses all the relevant current trends. More succinctly, MEDICA is the blockbuster among the events for the worldwide medical business.
HCB News: What should U.S. health care executives ask themselves when deciding if MEDICA is right for them?
JS: A trip to MEDICA is always worth it. A visit to the trade fairs in Düsseldorf is an absolute must if important investments are being planned for the near future. That is because the events offer a wealth of resources. The range, which is clearly structured according to topics and presented by almost 5,000 exhibitors from about 70 countries, is proof of this. Where else can such a versatile variety of products and internationality be found? The many top decision-makers who are now attending MEDICA are evidence of the event’s importance. Last year, 96 percent of the approximately 130,000 trade visitors attending the event had decision-making authority.
HCB News: From a top-level perspective, how has the show changed over the years and what direction is it moving in?
JS: MEDICA has continuously changed its program to suit market requirements. Many things are changing at present, which is something that is apparent from the structure of visitors that now travel to MEDICA. For decades, suppliers of technical medical equipment negotiated directly with physicians and directors at individual clinics. Today, however, investments are being made on the basis of cooperation in purchasing networks or large-scale hospital corporations operating through superior central instances.
Trading has also become very important as it particularly helps suppliers on the export market to establish market presences in certain countries comparatively easily. In the early days of MEDICA, the trade public consisted almost exclusively of physicians and health care professionals, but the above developments have meant that an increasing number of top decision-makers from non-medical fields, for instance, clinic management and specialist medical dealers, are now also attending the trade fair.
HCB News: The educational presentations have been gaining popularity. Can we expect that trend to continue this year?
JS: We have cooperated with our partners in industry and at medical specialist companies over the recent years to extensively reorganize the program of forums and conferences at MEDICA, and have made great efforts to internationalize them by staging all the highlights in English as well as German. We are not concerned here with the aspects of basic education that anybody can easily get on the Internet.
Rather, we are staging conferences and forums for sometimes very specific target groups that are presented by top speakers. For example, there is the Medica Medicine + Sports Conference for the special requirements in the field of sports medicine, the Medica Physio Conference for physiotherapists, DiMiMED as a topnotch conference for medical military and disaster response and the Medica Connected Healthcare Forum for mobile health innovations and all the important trends in networked medical care.
HCB News: For those of us who will be attending the show, do you have any advice to help us maximize the experience?
JS: The MEDICA online portal (www.medica-tradefair.com) makes it easy for everybody to prepare their trips to the trade fair and participate in one of the conferences. All the important service information for an efficient trip and smooth arrival and departure can, of course, be viewed online and on mobile applications. Even if the majority of visitors will be attending MEDICA for very specific purposes, I also recommend the element of surprise. If there is enough time, why not take a stroll through all the halls at MEDICA? Be it technical laboratory equipment or electronic systems, be it physiotherapy or health IT, there are many things to discover that will surprise and provide a refreshing view beyond the limits of familiar horizons.
HCB News: Thinking back on last year’s event, what surprised you the most or stands out as particularly memorable?
JS: Last year, both MEDICA and COMPAMED, the supplier trade fair held concurrently with MEDICA, ran for the first time on weekdays, from Monday to Thursday. We were convinced that the market would welcome this concept. And indeed, it worked right from the start. The 19 exhibition halls were all very busy the whole time. The fact that both the MEDICA and COMPAMED events were held on normal working days meant that attendees were able to better plan their visits. Last year, that immediately had a beneficial effect on the well-attended trade fair forums and accompanying conferences. The many program highlights had large participation throughout the trade fairs. To this extent, 2015 marked an additional milestone in the history of the two shows.
HCB News: Aside from the usual opportunities to reconnect with colleagues and network with people in the industry, what will set this year’s MEDICA apart?
JS: MEDICA is, and will remain, the place where all topics relating to the full workflow of patient treatment are put into focus with an incomparable wealth of resources and internationality at a fixed point in time. All medical specialist fields benefit from this, and visitors have the opportunity to broaden their horizons. In this regard, the program of integrated forums and accompanying conferences addresses all the relevant current trends. More succinctly, MEDICA is the blockbuster among the events for the worldwide medical business.
HCB News: What should U.S. health care executives ask themselves when deciding if MEDICA is right for them?
JS: A trip to MEDICA is always worth it. A visit to the trade fairs in Düsseldorf is an absolute must if important investments are being planned for the near future. That is because the events offer a wealth of resources. The range, which is clearly structured according to topics and presented by almost 5,000 exhibitors from about 70 countries, is proof of this. Where else can such a versatile variety of products and internationality be found? The many top decision-makers who are now attending MEDICA are evidence of the event’s importance. Last year, 96 percent of the approximately 130,000 trade visitors attending the event had decision-making authority.
HCB News: From a top-level perspective, how has the show changed over the years and what direction is it moving in?
JS: MEDICA has continuously changed its program to suit market requirements. Many things are changing at present, which is something that is apparent from the structure of visitors that now travel to MEDICA. For decades, suppliers of technical medical equipment negotiated directly with physicians and directors at individual clinics. Today, however, investments are being made on the basis of cooperation in purchasing networks or large-scale hospital corporations operating through superior central instances.
Trading has also become very important as it particularly helps suppliers on the export market to establish market presences in certain countries comparatively easily. In the early days of MEDICA, the trade public consisted almost exclusively of physicians and health care professionals, but the above developments have meant that an increasing number of top decision-makers from non-medical fields, for instance, clinic management and specialist medical dealers, are now also attending the trade fair.
HCB News: The educational presentations have been gaining popularity. Can we expect that trend to continue this year?
JS: We have cooperated with our partners in industry and at medical specialist companies over the recent years to extensively reorganize the program of forums and conferences at MEDICA, and have made great efforts to internationalize them by staging all the highlights in English as well as German. We are not concerned here with the aspects of basic education that anybody can easily get on the Internet.
Rather, we are staging conferences and forums for sometimes very specific target groups that are presented by top speakers. For example, there is the Medica Medicine + Sports Conference for the special requirements in the field of sports medicine, the Medica Physio Conference for physiotherapists, DiMiMED as a topnotch conference for medical military and disaster response and the Medica Connected Healthcare Forum for mobile health innovations and all the important trends in networked medical care.
HCB News: For those of us who will be attending the show, do you have any advice to help us maximize the experience?
JS: The MEDICA online portal (www.medica-tradefair.com) makes it easy for everybody to prepare their trips to the trade fair and participate in one of the conferences. All the important service information for an efficient trip and smooth arrival and departure can, of course, be viewed online and on mobile applications. Even if the majority of visitors will be attending MEDICA for very specific purposes, I also recommend the element of surprise. If there is enough time, why not take a stroll through all the halls at MEDICA? Be it technical laboratory equipment or electronic systems, be it physiotherapy or health IT, there are many things to discover that will surprise and provide a refreshing view beyond the limits of familiar horizons.