From the September 2015 issue of HealthCare Business News magazine


HCBN: In past years there have been roughly 400 U.S. companies exhibiting their products. Will that number be roughly the same this year?
JS: This year it’s basically the same. We have the dilemma, the challenge, of making room for all the participants. As you know, the event is in a sold-out mode and we are truly hard-pressed by the various entities, out of various countries that drive export sales for these countries, to accommodate their ever-growing need and requirements for their grouping.

Our dilemma is figuring out who to give space to. Oftentimes these are groupings, and by the time the government entity books the space, we don’t know what companies will be there. We want the finest, most innovative products to be accommodated in that space.
HCBN: What does it take for an event of this magnitude to come together?
JS: I think our mission has to be, aside from having the theater stage full of wonderful technology, to make sure the newest up-and-coming technology gets some exposure, to allow for the various media and press organizations to pick up on it.

As an organizer we put on some 50 shows in a year at our facility. Maybe one or two handfuls have the international reach of a MEDICA, and the size, and we have specialized in putting things like this together with a network of 67 representative offices and nine subsidiaries across the globe, that bring international flavor and dimension not only for exhibitors but also attendees — 130,000 attendees from 66 nations.

It’s the effort of many, and a true expertise, and having done it over decades at this facility that we own and operate — that makes it partly easy because we are landlord and organizer, so we can do things that an organizer that is not the owner cannot readily do.

HCBN: What makes MEDICA different one year to the next?
JS: I think there are several aspects that bear on this. One is, how the world is changing with respect to health and health care delivery and disease. Aside from technological progress, we try to pick up on the digitization of the health care industry, and everything gets smaller and more precise.

I come from IT, and what fascinates me is the element of IT in health care. The topic of big data, and the Web doctor seeing you now and the Web and the Internet and social media people will diagnose what you need or don’t need.

Back to HCB News

September 2015 Magazine

Read more stories from the September 2015 issue

More Voices