ARTA membership invoices were sent in December and nearly half the membership has already paid their dues!    

    Your support enables ARTA to continue to fulfill its mission to create greater awareness and appreciation for reusable textiles.

    If you've misplaced or not received your dues invoice, just send Nancy Jenkins an email at

The operating room (OR) is the epicenter of today's hospital. A recent study by the McKesson Group estimates that the OR generates 42% of a hospital's revenue and  leads in medical supply usage for the entire hospital. The OR also generates huge volumes of waste, as much as 20 to 30% of a hospital's total waste volume.
    In an effort to help hospitals define a set of OR best practices that can help reduce environmental impact, reduce cost, increase efficiency, and improve worker or patient safety, Practice Greenhealth (PGH) has developed the Greening the OR Initiative.
    PGH has found hospitals eager to participate in the Greening the OR Initiative. 

To date, more than

85 member hospitals have endorsed the initiative. Participating hospitals are required to complete a survey about their current practices and successes relative to Greening the OR.

Greening the OR Webinars

PGH has introduced a 2011 webinar series on Greening the OR.

  ARTA has been asked to present a Feb. 17 webinar on, "Reusable Surgical Textiles: Save Money and Reduce OR Waste Up to 30 Percent!" 
    For its webinar, ARTA has pulled together a panel of experts to share a case study conducted at Fairview Hospital, University of Minnesota, in Minneapolis. Included on our panel is Lynn Thelen, RN and OR nurse at Fairview who spearheaded the conversion to reusables, Barb Fordyce of HSCL, the laundry provider, as well as the researchers who pulled the data together, Catherine Zimmer and A.J. Van Den Berghe. President Steve Tinker will moderate the session.
 

   
 

 This case study and its results were shared at ARTA's Green Summit last July, along with a life cycle analysis of surgical gowns. Members can download a copy of the presentation at www.arta1.com.
    The PGH webinars are designed to familiarize member hospitals with Green OR best practices and generate a conversation about barriers to implementation and shared strategies for overcoming barriers.

   Webinars are included in PGH member benefits. Nonmembers can access webinars by purchasing individual webinars for $150 each.

    For more information on Practice Greenhealth and its Greening the OR Initiative:  www.practicegreenhealth.org.

One of the top 10 read articles on sales and marketing in 2010 was by Consultant Charles H. Green. The following is an excerpt of the article. The complete article can be viewed at Entrepreneur.com

"If you think you lost your last sale on price, you're probably wrong. If you think you'll win your next sale by lowering your price, you're probably wrong. And even if your customer told you that you lost the last deal on price, and hinted that you could win the next sale on price, you'll probably still be wrong if you think it's about price.

     The simple truth is price is overrated. . . . Let me explain how and why that's true, and what it means for you.
 

Why Price Is Overrated
If you grew up in a western economy, you've been bombarded with consumer messages about price your entire life. As you got older and more educated, you heard economists talk about supply, demand and price.

    If you're in a B2B business, or even a complex B2C business, price is what your customer talks about. You hear your competitors are undercutting you; you won't get this new account unless you drop prices, and you have to address cost-cutting pressures. The talk is all about price.The behavior, however, is not.

 Customers Don't Walk the Price Talk
In many of my training sessions, I ask attendees to envision their most recent competitive loss and tell me how often the customer said they lost on price. The answers range from 25 percent to 60 percent.

I then ask them to envision their most recent competitive win and tell me how often they won on price. The answers range from 0 percent to 10 percent -- and it's usually 0.

    Think about what that means. It means that what customers tell you they do is not what they really do. It's not that they're lying; they don't intend to mislead. No, what's going on is about the relationship -- or the absence of a relationship......"

 For the complete article: Entrepreneur.com
 

Charles H. Green is the founder of Trusted Advisor Associates, a West Orange, N.J.- based consultancy, a speaker and executive educator on the role of trust in professional services. He is the author of Trust-Based Selling, and co-author of The Trusted Advisor

  

 

The International Association for Healthcare Textile Management (IAHTM) has announced  that its Spring Education Conference will be held in Montreal, April 12-13. The focus this year will be on production and productivity.
    IAHTM has also announced its officers and board of trustees for 2011.

 

 

IAHTM Officers:  

-- President John Sealey, London Hospital Linen Services,
London, ON;  

-- Vice President Ed McCauley, United Hospital Services, Indianapolis, IN.;  

-- Treasurer Rocco Romeo, Ottawa Regional

Hospital Linen Service, Inc., Ottawa, ON;  

-- Education Director Deborah Lark, Portland Hospital Service Corp., Portland, OR;  

-- Past President Chas. P. Olin, Virginia Hospital Laundry, Richmond, VA.

 

Canadian Trustees:  

-- Stephen Marois, Alberta Health Services, Red Deer, AB;  

-- Renault Marier, Baunderie Centrale de Montreal, Inc., Montreal, QC;  

-- Paul Siegel, Kingston Regional Hospital

Laundry, Inc., Kingston, ON.

 

U.S. Trustees:

-- Bill Carey, Spacecoast Hospital Services, Rockledge, FL;  

-- Mark Smoyer, Shared Hospital Services, Portsmouth, VA; and 

-- Myles Noel, Comtex, Columbus, OH.

 

Executive Director: Nancy Jenkins, Shawnee Mission, KS.

    

   IAHTM is a non-profit organization formed to promote the education of independent healthcare textile managers. It is the largest central laundry association in North America, with members processing an estimated 700 million pounds of textiles each year. For more information: www.iahtm.com.