By Robert J. Kerwin

Last week IAMERS Founding Member Ed Sloan was honored with the IAMERS President’s Award at the 32nd Annual IAMERS Meeting in Nashville, Tennessee. The meeting was, as usual, content-rich but the highlight was a special ceremony honoring industry giant Ed Sloan. Surrounded on the dais by several of his longtime friends, Ed received an award from IAMERS President Diana Upton in recognition of his many years of service to the industry.

“Ed has created many successful businesses on his own, including ReMedPar and several others. What distinguishes Ed in addition to his great business accomplishments is his unwavering support of many former employees and others who ventured out on their own," said Upton. "Ed’s generosity also extended across the pond as Ed assisted businesses in the U.K. and Europe”.

Flanked by Chad Fowlkes of Trust Medical, Kelley Nelson of Axial Imaging and Philip Jacobus, owner of DOTmed.com and publisher of HealthCare Business News, Sloan listened on as each offered personal and often humorous anecdotes about Ed’s great care and generosity.

Both Kelley and Chad mentioned that Ed, notwithstanding his many successes, always took time to support them including going as far as to visit them in the hospital when a family member was ill or children were born. Jacobus recalled that Ed’s concerns also always included making sure the customer was happy. Recalling one example of Ed’s efforts, Phil mentioned that “Ed flew all night to be there in the morning to make sure a problem was resolved to the hospital’s satisfaction.” As Phil noted, “that was just the way Ed was.”

At the May 1 IAMERS Educational session, Ed offered keynote remarks with typical humility, wisdom and grace. In his reflections on Leadership, Ed stressed the importance of looking out for everyone in the organization. He once asked his team who the most important person was on a challenging equipment sale. While some offered the person who had followed through on the sales lead and others cited the technicians who ensured the equipment met original equipment specifications, Ed highlighted the team members who actually made sure the medical equipment was shipped on time and in good condition.

Using powerful examples from the life of legendary Tennessee lady Vols Coach, Pat Summitt who Ed knew and admired, Ed stressed the importance that everyone in an organization mattered. Coach Summitt having served 38 years as head coach of the Vols with 1,098 wins, was not above personally serving weekend breakfast to her team and making sure everyone’s cup of coffee was filled. IAMERS president, Diana Upton noted afterwards, “Even in his remarks, Ed was thoughtful and humble in acknowledging others and... of course, humorous.”

Ed’s keynote was followed by a strong presentation by Block Imaging executive vice president, Mitch Foldi on best practices for parts reliability. Noting that many claim to have DOA rates of 2% or less, a company’s focus should always be on quality and that quality focus is really how to achieve low rates.

IAMERS followed with a group discussion on contracts, indemnity and hold harmless agreements, and the now common practice of incorporating additional contract terms by reference to URL hypertext links. Everyone was encouraged to read their contracts carefully for the occasional “gotcha” clauses and re-look at their contracts, especially in light of the new executive order on tariffs. It is possible with the potential for price changes and delays in delivery that contracting parties build contracts' terms to take account of the changing realities of the current marketplace.

David Aguiar of Cyclic Materials spoke on "New Options for Recycling", noting the recent export restrictions on rare earth elements by China. David told those in attendance about the opportunities for recovering rare earth elements from the magnets in MR scanners. David also acknowledged the potential for those interested in recycling to receive a little remuneration for recycling efforts.

Geoff Hunt, the Crothall vice president of Imaging Services, Jimmy Kallam, president of East Coast Medical and Julie Mardikian, an auditor with Quality 13485, engaged in a lively moderated discussion concerning "Trends and Challenges of Vendor Management".

The panel reviewed the process of credentialing new vendors and assessing third party risks. The takeaways included the need to ensure that a newly purchased device will work within the existing hospital enterprise architecture. Julie Mardikian reviewed the regulatory and Joint Commission landscape. The panel also discussed the need for those coming onto a hospital site to meet the requirements to provide the results of blood and TB tests.

As always, IAMERS concluded by conducting a program on the current State of Play. Among the topics presented were tariffs under the new executive order, changes in U.S. healthcare leadership with the recent appointments in HHS, FDA and CMS and the continuing challenges of cybersecurity preparedness.

“The Annual Meeting presentations from the Best Practices Committee to the Educational Program were robust," Medinnova Systems CEO Hiren Desai noted. "It had a little something for everyone and the takeaways were excellent."

About the author: Robert J. Kerwin is the general counsel for IAMERS.