PreventiveMedicine We kept digging to learn how the health-care law will affect medical trade shows in the near future. I
got a phone call in late January from an industry contact who has asked to remain anonymous.
(Actually, he wants to be cited as “Deep Quote.”) While at the Healthcare Convention&Exhibitors Association’s (HCEA) Healthcare Convention
Marketing Summit, whichwas held at theGay- lordNational Hotel&Convention Center, DeepQuote attended a roundtable discussionon compliance issues atmedical conventions. Hewas calling me, somewhat excitedly, from
the hallway outside that session.Hehad just stumbled on a potentially prickly issue for health- care exhibitions—onethat medical trade-show organizers didn’t seem to have in their sights.He suggested that Convene follow up on it. “It” had to dowith health-care exhibitors’
imminent expectation that convention organizers provide themwith each attendee’sNPI (National Provider Identifier) number—aunique 10-digit numeral assigned to health-care providers by the U.S.Department ofHealth&Human Services. This supplier expectationwas in response to
Multidimensional Disaster
Our hearts go out to those in Japan who are struggling to rebuild their lives following the earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear crisis. For updates on travel to Japan, visit www.japantravelinfo.com/news. Meet- ings-industry professionals can donate to the American Red Cross relief effort via www.pcma.org. And you can follow our updatesat http://pcmaconvene .blogspot.com.
6 pcmaconvene April 2011
the newhealth-care law,which goes into effect in January 2012. According toDeepQuote, the pharmaceutical company representatives at theHCEAsession didn’t knowof onemedical meeting plannerwhowas collecting this information fromdelegates. I askedConvene SeniorEditorHunter Slaton
to investigate.Hunter called at least a half-dozen resources—peoplewho are in the know about medical conventions.They’d never heard of this newcompliance hurdle, and several of themsaid theywere sure itwasmuch ado about nothing. “It doesn’t appear to be a story,” Hunter told
me. But because Deep Quote had seemed so cer- tain that he’d clued us in on a looming issue, I urged Hunter to keep at it.Hefinally landed on one medical meeting plannerwhocould speak knowledgably about the subject,wholed him to another. Hunter’s article, “The Health-CareLaw andYou” (p. 40), sheds light on provisions of the new law that could have implications for medical trade shows. It’s the kind of story we’re proud to bring you in Convene. Sometimes you don’tknowwhat you need to
know; and as journalists,welive to report on eye- opening issues. Sometimes you just need toknow howto get better at something that you already do.Andsometimes you—andthe rest of us in the meetings industry—needto shake things up. We’ve got you covered in those last two
instanceswith two newfeatures: “Tipster” gives you an expert’s tricks of the trade that you can apply on the job, and “Unconventional” offers a different viewof theway thatwe do business. On p. 22 of this issue, inauguralTipsterTraci Brown, author ofMasteringMagicalPersuasion, has advice for negotiating over the phone,while Dan Pink, author ofDrive: The SurprisingTruth AboutWhatMotivatesUs, provides anUncon- ventional take on incentivemeetings.
NEARING THE FINISH LINE: Here’s a high ranking we’re not proud of: Meetings come in second only to the construction industry as a generator of waste. There’s clearly no time like the pres- ent to move us fur- ther down that list, yet the APEX/ASTM Environmentally Sustainable Meeting Standards have been painfully slow to come online to help. In “Going for Green,” our CMP Series story for this issue (p. 59), Senior Editor Barbara Palmer explains the holdup, and maps out what planners can expect — and easily put into practice — once the standards come out.