IMSH 2019 International Meeting on Simulation in Healthcare

The latest iteration of this event, the 19th, took place in San Antonio in late January.

As the show closed, the organizers announced that membershiphad increased to 4,200 globally and the current event was the largest on recordwith 3,146 registered delegates plus 948 exhibit staff. The latter wouldrepresent 130 companies with a total of 225 booths.

Medical Training Magazine exhibited for the 8thtime with Editors Judith Riess and Marty Kauchak, plus Business Manager HollyFoster and Publisher Andy Smith who also attended the Corporate Council, IMSH’sindustry advisory group.

The numbers are one thing but the event this year was surprisinglybusy, at least on the expo floor, which is a marked change from previous events.

The organizers had certainly taken industry suggestions toincrease delegate time in the Hall on board and these were very welcome, butthere was also a feeling of optimism amongst both delegates and industry that hasbeen muted or absent at past events that may have contributed to the rise  on floor activity. Some industry veterans wentso far as to suggest that the sector is at the tipping point.

Our teams’ perspective is that we may be at the start of the tipping point or, as Churchill would have said, we may be at ‘the end of the beginning’. There are several reasons why that may be the case and one or two that may be causing smoke to be blown in our direction. Please see last week’s newsletter comment. 

In the blowing smoke category we were reminded by one of thelocal CO’s, that we were in Military Town USA and there was no doubt thatexhibitors with a defense medical interest were far busier than usual and nodoubt gained far more ‘bang for their buck’ this year. Defense attendance mayhave been slightly higher than previous years, but it did not seem overwhelminglyso, perhaps there was indeed a real increase on normal attendance.

Certainly, the membership figures which have been stalled at3,500 for some years have jumped. Do we see a real increase in hospitalemployees in that new total, rather than the previous academic sectordominance? If so, then perhaps hard business reality has begun to impact earlyadopting hospitals and will begin to impact the market and demand forinteroperable equipment and common standards, and one of fewer bespoke systemsmight prevail.

A consensus from the expo floor was that once the currentround of mergers and acquisitions has taken the poorest performing hospitalsunder the wings of bigger and stronger partners what then? There are severalexamples of poor performers being acquired by ‘stellar’ brands only to see thepoor performance continue or even get poorer, transferring all that negativityto the acquirer.

It should be time for hospitals to understand that theirperformance is only as good as the individual and team performance is of theirstaff, not just their MD’s. As the t-shirt has it, ‘regular beatings willcontinue until morale improves’ simply doesn’t work. What does work isinvesting in the training and well-being of staff, which both improvesperformance and aids retention.

Both are huge cost factors that surely are taxing hospitalleadership.

Do we really have to wait until the money runs out due togovernment intervention before common sense prevails?

A final word on IMSH. San Antonio benefitted from the largemilitary medical establishment that added more potential for exhibitors tospend useful time in the area. Orlando is similarly blessed with defense andother major medical activity, plus a huge simulation base and reasonablepricing. A strong case could be made for a central, reasonably priced city asthe base for IMSH, which is also, by definition, more easily accessible for allattendees.

Next year we return to the other edge of the country, SanDiego.