The Value Behind Healthcare Networking

Technology is in a constant state of change, especially with new innovations in healthcare happening every day. But it’s not always easy to know what’s out there, or to get your product to market. In today’s connected world, it has become more important than ever to have a community that you can chat with, learn from, and bounce ideas off of. Networking is in.

But how do networking events in healthcare bring value to the industry?

On the latest episode of I Don’t Care with Host Kevin Stevenson, guest Hays Waldrop, Founder and President of the Institute of Healthcare Executives and Suppliers, discusses the foundation of IHES and the importance of networking in the healthcare field.

Waldrop’s ‘Aha!’ moment came when he was working with a start-up in healthcare that had a product catered towards those with learning disabilities. While the doctors and healthcare professionals loved the product, so too, did schools. So when he saw the superintendents and leaders of school districts gathered to network and chat about different products, he had a realization: why wasn’t this happening in healthcare?

So, over the course of 20 years, Waldrop networked to form a conglomerate of healthcare professionals. “We’ve got a CEO group, I’ve got a supply-chain group, and also a pharmacy group, and so we come together and it’s a live-event business and we connect providers and suppliers in this environment.”

The two also discussed…

• The different events IHES holds and how it creates a positive learning environment
• What type of sessions and networking events there are and who attends
• What the criteria are for adding in newer suppliers and start-ups

“You know, if you’re just the same old ‘me too’ commodity, that’s not real attractive necessarily, they’re necessary and yeah we clearly have those…but it’s always cool when you have a new technology, something different that the executives perhaps have not seen before or maybe they’re doing it just differently…,” said Waldrop.

Hays Waldrop has over 25 years of experience in the healthcare industry, having first started working in Territory Sales for Biomet, an orthopedic implant company. After working with a few start-ups around the dot com boom, Waldrop formed IHES, a group of three networking and learning platforms for healthcare executives and suppliers. He is a graduate of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.