Med Mart targeting non-Nashville companies

Local health care sector's job is to buy, not sell

Email | Print By Erin Lawley

12-01-2009 11:55 AM — In recruiting the 600 to 1,000 companies it wants to take exhibit space at the proposed Nashville Medical Trade Center, Dallas-based Market Center Management Co. is largely looking outside of Nashville, the state, and the United States.

Bill Winsor, president and CEO of Market Center, said on a conference call Monday afternoon that the company is talking to “some” companies with operations here, “but our target group are for those companies, largely international companies or those not represented here today.”

David Osborn, senior advisor for Market Center, said that’s because many of Nashville’s health care companies are in the hospital management and other health care services industries – think hospital chains, surgery center companies, nursing home and assisted-living businesses. They’ll likely be among the NMTC’s buyers, Osborn said.

Jeff Balser, vice chancellor for health affairs at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, said at the NMTC’s announcement Monday that the trade center could help ease the currently expensive and “chaotic” procurement process for providers like Vanderbilt.

Balser gave the example of Vanderbilt’s recently opened critical care tower, which has 102 beds. To compare the functionality of two different types of bed, Vanderbilt sent people to cities in Massachusetts and Indiana. All told, buying those 102 beds was a $3.6 million decision, he said.

“And that was just for the beds,” Balser said, noting that there are many other buying decisions that were included in the creation of the tower.

Larry Kloess, CEO of HCA’s local TriStar Health System, told NashvillePost.com that his 18-hospital and 10-surgery center system spends about $125 million annually in capital for a combination of equipment, technology and facilities.

“Anything that might help make these purchasing decisions easier and more cost-effective, I would be very much in favor of,” Kloess said.

Chuck Elcan, co-founder of Nashville-based China Healthcare Corp., said he could see his company, visiting the NMTC in the future.

“If we need something in our hospital, or if there’s new technology, I could very well see us going there and watching a demonstration, getting a better understanding of it before we stepped off and made a purchase,” Elcan said.

The trade center’s exhibitor group, or those selling their wares, will be comprised largely of manufacturers of medical devices, equipment and other goods, of which there are relatively few in Nashville.

However, Osborn noted that there are some local companies, particularly those in the information technology sector, which the NMTC will “absolutely go after as tenants with showrooms.”

Tom Stephenson, president and CEO of Nashville’s Healthcare Management Systems, said his company could “potentially have an interest in it,” depending on the makeup of exhibitors, attendants and cost structure.

Currently, the health care technology company attends about 10 trade shows a year, Stephenson said, as one of the ways it gets its name out to the market and gathers prospects.

“I just don’t know enough (about the medical trade center) to speculate on what we would or wouldn’t do,” he said. “But it seems like it would draw a lot of interest from the health care community to Nashville and give a lot of companies some good opportunities to at least have their product and name out there."