Mr. Scheuer, please explain once again your thinking behind ProJour.

ProJour facilitates the know-how exchange among opinion leaders in the HealthTech industry to support the effective provision of quality information from industry and government sources. We hope that this will result in better news stories, articles, and case studies about the technologies that can make such a great difference in our lives.

Why the need for a quality initiative at this point in time?

The breakthroughs in technology related to diagnosis and treatment - and the complexity of these technologies - have resulted in a massive demand for information. Today, we must spread the word about the benefits of technologies not only to patients, but to government officials, hospital managers, and physicians. After all, it’s they who need to understand these benefits first.

In addition to facilitating exchange, ProJour also provides a set of guidelines…

Yes. These recommendations are based on journalistic principles and should help advance quality and professionalism. All of us need to be aware that we operate in a very sensitive field, and HealthTech products come with high hopes and expectations for healing and quality of life. Therefore, the information we provide must be accurate, and we should avoid sensationalizing news and reports that have not yet been proven so not to raise unfounded hopes – or fears.

Can you give an example on how ProJour has affected your own work?

One of the key topics in healthcare is patient safety, and technology can help raise safety standards. We’ve decided to use only general examples, ones that don’t identify an actual case, when it comes to explaining the benefits of a technology for patient safety – after all, the aim is to sell a technology. No matter how noble the cause, an actual accident, medical error, or adverse event should never be used for public relations purposes. Journalists however, are in a different position. Their responsibility lies with the public and its right to know the truth, so they can and should cover a story in much more detail and from a different angle.

Looking back at twenty editions of ProJour, what did you find surprising?

The positive perception of ProJour came as a truly pleasant surprise, and it seems that the HealthTech industry is taking the concept of raising the quality of the information it releases very seriously. However, the question of how we can best deliver this information remains to be answered. We did a ProJour with a CIO from a large hospital group and found that he doesn’t subscribe to a single publication! How can we ensure that the industry’s information reaches him? I think there is still a lot of potential for publications to grow their readership, and the key to it is quality journalism and a differential take on the subject.

What can readers expect from the second season’s ProJour?

We will widen our radius of topics and activities. In the first season, we involved journalists at trade media and news services, but we are expanding into the general media; we are talking to editors from daily newspapers, business magazines, and IT publications. This will also help bring the news on HealthTech Wire to the attention of a broader audience.  New interactive elements will foster the exchange among all parties involved in informing about the application of technologies in healthcare. (NW/YG)