MediPurpose® Blog

Hi, welcome to my blog. This is the first of what should be many more blogs that discuss a range of topics relating to advanced wound care products, which I have marketed and sold for many years.

As Director of Wound Care at MediPurpose®, I’m tasked with providing healthcare providers and medical product distributors access to quality advanced wound care products at highly competitive prices—which is precisely what we aim to do with our recently launched MediPlus™ advanced wound care product line. Critical to the process is establishing the appropriate balance between price, performance, and last but not least, quality.

Developing the process to achieve that balance requires first defining the customer requirements and quality goal. Procedures and specifications required to evaluate the processes necessary to achieve those goals must then be established. Strict adherence to those processes—from initial contact through market research, vendor certification, regulatory compliance, clinical support and ultimately product release—is essential.

As a “master distributor” of medical products, MediPurpose’s goal is to share our knowledge of these processes with others seeking to either develop or source quality medical technologies. So, with all of this rhetoric about “quality,” a brief discussion about what that means is in order.

What Does “Quality” Mean?

Medical product or not, how is “quality” defined by experts?

• Defined by Juran, “quality is fitness for use.”

• Defined by Crosby, “quality means conformance to requirements.”

• According to Deming, “quality is predictability.”

• The American Society for Quality (ASQ) states that “quality denotes an excellence in goods and services, especially to the degree they conform to requirements and satisfy customers."

• Per the ISO 8402 (International Organization for Standardization, 1986),  “quality is the totality of features and characteristics of a product or service that have a bearing on its ability to satisfy stated or implied needs.”

Definitions of “quality” are many and varied, but when sourcing OEM medical products, it all comes down to one definitive goal: A quality product or service is one that meets the needs and expectations of customers.

MediPurpose has used this definition as a straw man in establishing the process used to source and supply the MediPlus advanced wound care product portfolio. The end result is a comprehensive line of quality advanced wound care products that meet the demanding requirements of a sophisticated customer base at a competitive yet socially responsible price point.

Other key factors to be included in a successful sourcing process are associated with validating the design process used to establish labeling claims. Use of subject matter experts to analyze data, evaluate desired performance characteristics and compliance to manufacturing standards are critical steps in the process.

How do you define “quality”—in general, and as it specifically applies to your medical products? Do you agree or disagree with the experts’ definitions that I cited or MediPurpose’s definition for its medical products?

Tags: Untagged Read More

Last month, we unveiled the logo for our new advanced wound care product line, MediPlus™.

In the news release that I wrote, I mentioned a link to an “official list of print and Web equivalents” for the new logo. If you visit the page, you’ll see the official colors for all of our logos, including the corporate logo for MediPurpose® and the brand logos for SurgiLance® safety lancets and babyLance® infant heel incision devices.

Somebody that saw that page recently asked me about the differences between RGB, CMYK, Hex and Pantone. You might have never heard of some or all of these terms, but they are worth understanding, especially if you are responsible for your medical device company’s marketing and branding.

Along with your own print and online documents, encouraging color consistency from everybody at your medical device company is a key technique to ensuring consistency with your brand awareness.

When talking about "color" in regards to printers or online displays, there are several ways to ensure consistency, especially since the "red" you see on your screen might not exactly what's on mine—or what you might expect to come out of a printer. These are called “color systems” or “color models.” Among the most common are RGB, CMYK, Hex and Pantone.

What is Pantone CMS?

The Pantone® CMS (color matching system) is a standardized list of virtually every color imaginable. It's what professional printers often use to keep things consistent.

For instance, if I had a printer print our logo on a business card, I would tell them to make the red part of the logo "Pantone 206c." That helps differentiate from other shades or red, such as the red that is used by The University of Georgia.

What are RGB and CMYK?

Most devices that create color images—televisions, inkjet printers, etc.—typically use red, green and blue to create the image; this color model is known as RGB (for Red, Green and Blue). Colors are identified by specific combinations of RGB (on a scale of 0–255) are used.

There’s another similar color model called CMYK (for Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and blacK), which is a more sophisticated "four-color process" that is often used by professional printers. Similar to RGB, colors are identified by specific combinations of CMYK (with percentages of 0–100 percent).

What is “Hex” Color?

Websites that use HTML (HyperText Markup Language, which is the predominant coding language for Web pages) have their own system of color standardization, which is known as "hexadecimal," or just "hex," because it uses a combination of six letters and numbers to identify specific colors and shades. Colors are identified by specific combinations of letters A–G and numbers 0–9.

So, What Color is “MediPurpose® Red”?

Depending on the color system or model, there are several ways to identify the red in our logo:

• Pantone: Pantone 206
• RGB: R (211) | G (5) | B (71) •
• CMYK: C (1%) | M (94%) | Y (45%) | K (1%) •
• Hex: #D30547

See It For Yourself!

One of the easiest ways to experiment with color models is to open a Microsoft Word document. Write some sample text and select it; then use the "color" sliders to choose a palette (e.g., RGB, CMYK). The above image is what the RGB sliders look like in Word for Mac; the selected color is "babyLance® green."

Once you have a color selected in a particular color model, you can see its equivalent in another model by selecting another palette.

There are many converters available online, e.g., RGB to HEX, or CMYK to RGB; one is the Pantone Color Cross Reference. Design software such as Adobe Photoshop also includes palettes that can be used with the eyedropper tool to pinpoint your medical device company’s colors.

After you’ve identified your company’s colors, it’s best to draft a “style guide” that should in your company’s internal communication governance, as well as a public resource for distributors and other clients.

Tags: Untagged Read More

So here’s an interesting situation with which you might have experienced or even be currently experiencing. Say that you manage a sales representative that is a consistent top performer…but unfortunately is also disrespectful to others in your office and disliked by virtually everybody at the company. This rep knows that he or she is an asset to the company—and possibly thinks of him or herself as irreplaceable.

This is precisely the type of paradox that was recently shared by member of a LinkedIn Group to which I belong. It was a compelling question, and I thought I’d share my response with you because it’s certainly an issue that challenges sales managers at medical device companies, as well as businesses in virtually every industry.

I wrote:

“Most behaviors are learned and reinforced through a system of rewards. Unfortunately, the bad behavior ‘reward’ most typically plays out with the manager not doing anything ‘for the good reward of his/her bottom line.’

The unintended consequence of doing nothing is reinforcement of that bad behavior in that person—coupled with the company-wide reinforcement that bad behavior will be tolerated at the company. As noted earlier by another discussion participant, that is a seriously destructive cancer within a team.

Now the world of HR must also be addressed. If the ‘bad apple’ has always been rewarded for his/her bad behavior with good reviews, someone has to start the process to ensure that all are treated equally.

I would immediately and definitively address the problematic performer with observations that very specific examples with dates, times, etc. If that ‘history’ has not been built, it would need to done quickly. In no uncertain terms, the understanding and acknowledgement that such actions are not acceptable must be relayed in writing.

I might also suggest involving HR in a thought process if that ‘problematic performer’ is high profile. A little FYI and CYA are never a bad mix!

My experience has been that most good HR department managers often wonder ‘Why didn't somebody do something with that person earlier?’ and are very supportive when these types of matters are brought to their attention.

After the process and documentation has begun, how it plays out will and should always be determined by the actions of the employee against the fair and equal expectations of the organization.

The result will hopefully be a good message for the rest of the

Tags: Medical Product Sales Read More