Third-party opinion and the practical experiences of physicians are a valuable source of information for journalists, while marketing blurb and branding are less well appreciated. “I don’t want to read the company name in every second sentence,” said Poeny Derom, editor of International Hospital Equipment and Supplies, talking to ProJour. Writers of articles within the industry would be better advised to focus on technology implementations rather than product features. Case studies, she said, are her favorite way of receiving information about the application of technology in real-life scenarios.

ProJour kicked off the year with an interview with Healthcare IT News editor Bernie Monegain, who shared the view that despite time-pressure and electronic communications, personal interviews are still the preferred source of information for high-quality editorials.

Perfect format to evaluate and compare

Frederique Depraetere, global communications manager at Agfa Healthcare, said that, in general, customers are always keen to see the impact of new healthcare solutions and how these will improve their daily work, and case studies play an integral part in their assessment of the different vendors.

”Showcasing past implementations, and the significant improvements that these have achieved, is paramount and, as a result, case studies provide the perfect format for healthcare providers to evaluate and compare, as well as see the impact of such implementations,” he said. On a global level, Agfa HealthCare produces around 80 new case studies per year.

Depraetere reckons that a good case study should be driven by the customer, not by the company. The future of case studies seems bright, he said. “There are far more opportunities in the publication of case studies than people are currently realizing.”

“The healthcare sector works by example; it’s natural, since our customers are dealing with the well-being of patients and that of the community at large. Proven solutions that meet the challenges of an ever evolving environment are worth their weight in gold.” Depraetere expects the healthcare press to take an increasingly active interest in case studies and to provide them in different formats - such as posting them on their websites, inserting them into their publications or printing “specials” based on case studies.

A new approach

Interviewing journalists on the quality aspects of corporate communications is a new concept and represents an unusual switch of roles. However, the first ProJour has already shown that editors are keen to get involved– after all, they also benefit from better quality information. Jack Beaudoin, editorial director at Healthcare IT News, told us that they “all loved the first version of ProJour.”

At HealthTech Wire we have therefore decided to expand the ProJour section – we have added the ProJour quality guidelines, allocated prominent space to the latest ProJour story and also installed a direct link to the ProJour library at www.healthtechwire.com/projour.