Saving Lives, not $$

Image via WikipediaI once worked with a long-term care facility. It was an interesting experience as I had always respected doctors/nurses/healthcare providers for their expertise in ensuring my health, however, in this context, they never respected my expertise, and I saw flaws in 'the system'.

More times than I can count on my fingers, a nurse or doctor would bring a requisition to purchase a specific 'brand' of item. I would advise my buyers to question 'why'. In one instance, the facility was looking for AED s. In this case, the ward specified a brand and when my buyers couldn't get an answer as to 'why' this brand, I had to make the phonecall. The managing director responded angrily "you want people's lives on your hands just to save a couple of dollars!?" My response was "no, but are you saying this is the only brand that saves lives and the other brands on the market kill people?"

Once we got over ourselves, I was finally able to explain 'why' I needed to understand their requirements, and they were able to give specifics as to 'why' they specified the brand: because non-medical personnel needed to be able to use the equipment quickly, they wanted a large digital display, large colour-coded buttons, and voice instructions. Still it would not be a perfect process, given the end-users believed voice instructions, large digital display and colour-coded buttons would mean a lay person could perform CPR...all information they learned from a sales person/marketing brochure...HOWEVER, we now had something that gave us specific reasons for the product. We could do a competitive process, find out what was in the market that met the requirement for lay people to perform CPR if necessary.

Ultimately, the buyers learned the lesson to question specifications leading towards a single brand, regardless of the 'expertise' of the end-user.