Marketing Healthcare Technology | Elise Claudepierre, MBA VP Marketing, Intelliguard®

This transcript was generated automatically. Its accuracy may vary.

Elise : My name's Elise Claudepierre. I am the vice president of marketing with Intelliguard. I have a little over 15 years of experience in healthcare marketing and product management, and then nearly a decade of experience managing pharmacy and medication management solutions.

So, much more pertinent, I suppose, to your audience. I work for Intelliguard. We are dedicated to creating best in class hardware. Software and data intelligence solutions really designed to protect patients, hospitals, and clinicians. 

Mike Koelzer, Host: a lot about RFID. That's radio stuff, right? and in my head, I'm thinking that this is like, double O seven spy stuff to tell where every person is. Piece of medicine went something like that. Am I close to that? Is that what we're doing here?

Elise: you are close.You're close. Maybe back in the day it had a spy vibe to it, but it is becoming much more commonplace. So RFID or radio frequency identification is really the means to automatically track and trace information. Anything from, the point of inception to the point of use and going forward.

So if you think about anytime you go to a clothing store and there's a tag on a piece of apparel, that is an RFID tag. And typically it allows the manufacturer to track that product from the point of manufacture up to you, Mike, if you bought a pair of jeans, it's quite possible that manufacturer knows when and where you bought 

that piece of clothing. Historically, however, medication management hospitals have been behind the curve as it relates to adopting RFID and automation solutions for the tracking of medications and high value supplies and high value products. So in TeleGuard, we have been in the industry for a little over a decade and a half, really creating best in class hardware and software solutions designed to do just that.

Track and trace medications so that clinicians, hospitals have visibility into every medication, every point of use across the hospital supply chain. So not as all. I wish there was a spy vibe, but there is not.

Mike Koelzer, Host: This could help with, let's say pharmacy technicians or pharmacists stealing some vials and maybe we have to say it misplacing them In their backpack, but basically you can track that stuff.

I imagine that you're not tracking tablets. All right. You're tracking barcodes, not barcodes cause it's radio but you're not down to the tablet, I imagine. So you're not stopping somebody from opening up a bottle and taking a swig of some tablets.

Elise: So you're correct. We're not RFID enabling every individual tablet, if you think of something as small as a dose of ibuprofen, for example. Typically, RFID or the radio frequency identification technology is applied to syringes. and vials, potentially IV bags, those larger modalities, but at the individual vial level to allow for the track and trace of those medications down to that individual use.

That said, going with what you just mentioned, if somebody is accessing a vial of medication to get to that tablet, RFID also allows for the track and trace of what happened to that larger container that is storing 100 ibuprofen or 200 Tylenol, so you do have the visibility to the movement of that exterior container that you wouldn't necessarily have with just barcode or manual intervention.

But yes, you're right. That does happen. It definitely assists with the tracking of, as you mentioned, taking medications really referring to the diversion of medications, be it intentional or inadvertent.

Mike Koelzer, Host: And the RFID, is that like a scanner as you're walking through? I know it's not the same technology, but figuratively going through a metal detector at an airport. It's not like scanning the whole room all the time. there certain spots where it gets picked up by the next unit and then it knows it's making its way down the hallway or something like that?

Elise: Yeah, so there are two different types of RFID, so what you just referred to I'm walking out of a store with my pants in hand and maybe the alarm goes off alerting the store that I took pants without paying for them. That is active RFID, it's reading anything kind of within that range.

We focus on what's called passive RFID. So within our RFID enabled hardware solutions. There is RFID technology that allows for reading at the point of intended read or intended decision. So in our case, anytime a drawer is open and closed, there is the reading of the medication inside the drawer, which is called passive RFID.

But there are absolutely advancements in RFID within the healthcare space specifically to read RFID tags inside a whole room, so if you think about an or if you had everything in the operating room, RFID enabled, at any point in time you could know where everything from a vial of medication to a forcep to a large, very expensive implant to a screw for that implant, you could know where all of those items are at any given time.

If you had, RFID technology in that space.

Mike Koelzer, Host: at least from a marketing standpoint. I know there's sometimes where you can market something, let's say the other side is always the bad guy. So let's say with airport security, you're always going to make the person coming through there usually the bad guy.

You're going to stop terrorists and all this kind of stuff. The marketing of this as we've kind of alluded to, that It's either stealing or, you know, misplacing in your backpack, something like that. How do you walk that line? So if you're selling this to a hospital or something like that, how do you come across and say, we're going to stop all your employees from stealing this stuff.

You don't want to really come across and say that, but also you want to get that point across to them. That'sthat's part of it. So how do you tiptoe that line? In selling this to get the point across without actually throwing employees, or I guess it could be anybody under the bus.

Elise: Sure, absolutely. So, look, there are benefits to RFID that go well beyond the prevention of diversion, i. e. the theft of medication, but to answer your question Mike, if we think about the benefit of RFID just specifically as it relates to diversion and the prevention of diversion, it's not so much telling facilities that we're going to stop your really bad employees from stealing medication.

That's not the case at all. It's more, we want to help you identify where every single medication is at any given time to protect patients and to protect clinicians, specifically potentially those clinicians who are diverting the medication, if you have the visibility into what's being diverted, where it's moving, who is diverting it in real time, you can protect everyone.

Anything nefarious from getting to a patient or make sure that the right things do get to patients, because some of diversion is stealing medication for myself and then not giving the right thing to the patient, so you can really protect patients in that capacity, but then also, hopefully identify diversion sooner rather than later to protect the clinician as well.

But again I think diversion is one piece of the puzzle that RFID helps solve. There are many other components as it relates to charge capture, full control and visibility reduction in on hand inventory, ready access to medications at all times that I think we really tend to focus on.

Mike Koelzer, Host: the average company that reaches out to you for these products, is it a mixture of those? They're at The things we talked about, controlling them, inventory.

What do you think the main reason is when someone first reaches out to your company to look into the RFID stuff?

Elise: Yeah. That's an excellent question. So I would say it's starting to shift, as we morph and grow as a company, it's starting to shift, but historically as RFID became a little bit more common practice for medication management, folks are coming to us, talking to us, asking us about our kit and tray management solution, the product that sits in the pharmacy, which is our Mira prep station, and it enables the pharmacy team to RFID enable those medications, so placing the RFID tags on the medication, allowing the and TeleGuard ecosystem to track all of those medications down to the individual vial. That's the primary product that folks are coming to us for, or the primary question they're asking us.

As we grow and expand our suite of data products and RFID enabled products, that certainly morphs, but definitely now that we're seeing the conversation around RFID, particularly in the pharmacy space, expand and grow, we are hearing from those folks much more.

Mike Koelzer, Host: All right. So at least I'm trying to picture your product. I saw some stuff online. Now the RFID stuff we're talking about, I imagine that some kind of a sticker or something or other, and then what's your other product. Do you have like a, like a. You see like those toolboxes people have in garages with five doors.

I mean, what are your main products, your physical products that you're selling somebody?

Elise: Sure. So regarding the RFID tags, in tele guard, we are not in the RFID TAG business. We don't create and sell RFID tags. We are really passionate about being able to read all RFID tags. So if RFID tags are encoded following, and I'm not gonna get too nerdy on this, but follow what are called GS standards, which are really the global standards for the same standards. Anytime I scan a I know what that barcode is telling me. Those same standards exist for RFID. So, assuming a tag is enabled following those standards, we can read that tag. We really want to focus on, and do focus on, the technology that reads those RFID tags. 

Mike Koelzer, Host: So what are we talking about? Are they little stickers? 

Elise: So there's as it relates to RFID for medication management, we're really seeing two things in the industry today. The first are self adhered RFID tags. So definitely well more than stickers, we call them flag tags, but designed over the course of many years we actually worked with one of our tag vendor partners to design to make sure that RFID tag.

Sticks. Adhere. Reliably. There's so much technology built into that RFID chip so that if you drop the vial or otherwise, the tag remains like they're very high tag efficacy. So, but one of them is what you said, it's the self adhered RFID flag tags.

Mike Koelzer, Host: And are these the ones that have like, it almost looks like a huge computer chip. it's got like the silver maze on it, sort of. 

Elise: Yeah, they're small though. They look like if you look really closely it looks like it is a silver maze, but the tags have been designed. Now they're so high powered and so high functioning that they're very small profile because I'm sure you can imagine, you're putting that tag on some of the smallest medication vials.

You still have to be able to read that label. So, very small, designed specifically for the healthcare space and designed for what we spoke about earlier, that passive reading of RFID 

Elise: But we're also starting to see manufacturers RFID enable their medications. So both manufacturers and 503b compounders are applying RFID tags under the manufacturer's label, for example , or applying even those flag tags at the source of compounding.

And that really adds this whole other level of security, so in addition to the potential for diverting medication at the hospital, there's also a lot of risk in the healthcare supply chain, which we could also go on and on. Although I think we all know the term supply chain a lot more now.

Starting in 2020 than we maybe ever did before, but there's a lot of potential theft and counterfeit within that medication supply chain. So manufacturers applying those RFID tags at the source really improve that level of efficacy throughout the supply chain, but we can then also read those tags, 

so those medications enter the facility and we can read them automatically in our system.

Mike Koelzer, Host: Because I know there were pharmacy laws, like, what was it, a year ago or something now? And they had different deadlines and stuff, where DSCSA, I forget what the term was, but basically tracking everything. Were the RFID tags instrumental in that? I don't think now that I think about it, bottles don't have those on there.

I guess it goes by bar tag, but some of those maybe could be tracked that way, but certainly there's other ways to track things too, with QR and barcodes and things like that.

Elise: Yes, so DSCSA is probably the regulation you're speaking to, which is a requirement. It's a lengthy requirement, but ultimately manufacturers are supposed to be, and hospitals should be DSCSA compliant starting in November of this year. There's a lot of asterisks to what I just said but that's kind of the general statement.

Now DSCSA is really kind of, based around barcode scanning and barcode tracking because it is still the most known, most efficacious, most common way to track

And cheapest, right? because RFID just isn't widespread yet. But within all of those DSCSA laws, it is noted over and over again that while the requirement centers around barcode, utilizing RFID for track and trace through DSCSA really just enhances that, 

It's track and trace plus. So I can imagine, and I think that most Folks assume that the next DSCSA regulation five, ten years down the line, will require something more powerful like RFID. Something that is more autonomous than the manual human intervention scanning of a barcode.

Mike Koelzer, Host: All right. So at least thank you for that. Now that we talked about that, your company doesn't do that. So tell us then what is your product then? Or what are you then getting in places? Assuming it is a product.

Elise: Yep. So we have our hardware solution. Reads the RFID tags, so if we think about kind of at the core of the intelliguard Mira ecosystem is the Mira Prep solution, and that's where pharmacy technicians and pharmacists can utilize our solution to place those RFID tags, kind of take those stickers and place them on the individual vials of medication.

Mike Koelzer, Host: Cause you don't make them or sell them, but sometimes they still have to be applied.

Elise: You've got it. Absolutely. if a medication is not coming in 

RFID enabled. 

We work with our customers. Customers can purchase the tags through us. We just are not the brains behind the tags. Our engineers however, are the brains behind our system's ability to read those RFID tags.

And more importantly I always hear my colleagues say that RFID is this interesting science and magic concept that you are trying to read. So if a pharmacy technician is placing RFID tags on hundreds of vials, they are then placing those hundreds of vials into the MiraPrep station to read and identify those medications within our system, thus enabling them to identify those medications throughout their entire hospital.

The magic comes in, that the goal of the pharmacy technician in that one setting is to read every single RFID tag, inside our system and not read any of the tags that might be nearby outside of the system. That configuration and getting that correct takes considerable work, but it's something that we really pride ourselves on and we test our products rigorously.

Those GS1 standards really help that come into place. So that's our pharmacy solution. We also have our MiraCare station, which is an RFID enabled anesthesia workstation. typically located in every operating room or every procedural area. And that's where anesthesiologists and anesthesia providers utilize the Intelliguard RFID station to remove medications that they then will draw up into vials and administer to patients.

Mike Koelzer, Host: In the pharmacy, what are we talking size wise? Is it a toaster? Is this a countertop thing?

Elise: Definitely a countertop. I'm trying to think like a small microwave, I was trying to go with the toaster analogy and think of the equipment that would be similar Yeah. Countertop size We call them in our enclosures, but ultimately if you've ever seen a standard full hospital medication tray that would sit in an operating room.

Same width, same depth. So actually designed. For our clinicians to fit a standard hospital tray.

Mike Koelzer, Host: reminds me of the 20 questions.

Game, remember the 20 questions game and people are like, is it bigger than a bread basket? 

Elise: Right, right. is 

Mike Koelzer, Host: basket? 

Elise: yeah.

Mike Koelzer, Host: youngest son years ago, we were playing this. I don't know. He was like eight or something like that.

And I said, drew, is it bigger than a yellow school bus?

He thinks, and he says, I don't know, dad is our dock at the cottage, is that bigger than a yellow school bus? I said about the same size. And then my next question was, is it the dock at the cottage? And he says, yeah, you got it. So

Elise: Oh, that's so endearing. I

love that, right? Yeah. Yeah. I bet I'd gotten better at that

game. Yes. So Elise, now your history is medical. Some of the other ones like the BD ones, I imagine those you're talking to the doctor about patient satisfaction with the shots and the testing and things like that. This one is kind of one removed from the, not only the patient, but kind of one removed from medical.

Mike Koelzer, Host: It's more like you've got some medical things you're dealing with, but it's kind of, it's more like you could be tagging about anything, it's really that process versus the medicine side. Has that been a change for you you're not really talking about the patient I imagined as much, or were you not maybe before?

Elise: That's a very interesting question, and I'm glad you asked it. And it does seem like that, so, historically, when I first started my career in healthcare, I was managing surgical instruments, talking to surgeons Doing surgery to your point, but I've been in the medication management space for about eight years now I would actually argue that There is no role in the hospital Closer to the treatment of the patient than those individuals who manage medications your pharmacists your anesthesiologists They are responsible for Preparing life saving medication, ensuring that medication is at the facility, the biggest budget in the hospital is under pharmacy, 

for medication, and that's because it is going to be used in every procedure possible. So in TeleGuard, we actually recently shifted from a branding and marketing perspective, and the patient has always been at the core of what we do, but now more than ever, That is our number one focus and that is our North Star.

And I think, if I think about the pharmacists and anesthesiologists I work with on a daily basis and the heads of operation, the connection between medication and the patient is one to one, but it does kind of seem like that. It's like, oh, it's a device, you're far removed from the patient.

It doesn't operate on them, but it is the conduit to ensure that no expired medication gets to a patient, that the anesthesiologist has what they need in that critical moment to treat that patient. 

Mike Koelzer, Host: And every situation is a story. It's like, Hey, the pharmacist is with Mrs. Smith and opens her drawer up and realizes that something's missing. And now we need to track this down by her next dosing time and things like that. So it seems like there's almost a story behind all of that stuff as it touches human lives, I suppose.

Elise: There really is. I can give you an example. because of the power of RFID, so if I'm an anesthesiologist and I walk into my operating room and the device that is storing my medication is either a barcode based device or a non automated device, my medication is in the room inside Unless the facility is utilizing an RFID solution, an Intelliguard RFID solution, there is no guarantee that every medication they need is inside that station because it is requiring many manual counts along the way and many folks to have done, I don't want to say the right thing because everyone is trying to do the right thing, but under tons of pressure and tons of time.

Utilizing an RFID station, we have real time reads of everything in the station. So if the medication is low or missing, the pharmacy team is immediately alerted. They can bring that medication up to the OR. The anesthesia provider has what they need to treat the patient. I was with clinicians this weekend and one of them mentioned that I was speaking to the individual on a Wednesday and he indicated that over the weekend, he said, I had three emergency C sections this weekend, which is some of, one of the most common. occurring emergent procedure after hours. So these were nighttime procedures. Pharmacy was low on staff. And every time he walked into the operating room, the meds he needed were not there. That's not anybody's fault, nobody was intentionally not doing their job. That is because the systems that they were using were not designed to help him effectively treat his patients.

And that's a patient safety risk, you don't want to be the one or have your wife be the one on the table in that situation.

Mike Koelzer, Host: Amazon has some of these new stores and I think they just close one down, but basically you'd go in, and you'd pick a thing of beans off the shelf and they'd have these cameras looking in to see who's doing it.

And then, I don't know if there was something. To find out if it was you or they had weights on, I forget what the thing is, but basically you didn't have to check out at the end of the day. You just walked out of the store. Now, unfortunately, a lot of people are doing that anyways, for some of these places out West and so on.

We don't want to pick on the out West people, at least but you know, we might as well, as long as we're Midwest. But talking about that cart, I don't imagine this does that, but you can't take that cart and walk through a detector and find out that everything is on the cart.

Can you like, let's say it's a crash cart and you need 50 items. Can you walk through the scanner and it says all 50 items are there?

Elise: You could in theory. Yes, absolutely. If the medication is RFID enabled and you have an active RFID reader then yes, absolutely. And we also have a line of cabinet products which is kind of the holding ground in between the code cart solution and the anesthesia solution I spoke of, 

so, that's really that centralized storage location where you can see where your medications are, you can see what's there, you can see who opens and closes your drawer and removes what they might have needed to take. But to your point about something mobile, we're absolutely starting to see that more and more in the hospital space.

It's something that we're exploring as well as we do market and customer research. But that active scanning is absolutely a possibility and I think in some cases a reality on the supply side.

Mike Koelzer, Host: I don't know why I brought up Amazon because that's actually the opposite of what I was thinking. I was really thinking about it, someday they'll say that you'll take a grocery cart. And it doesn't use the cameras and stuff that Amazon does. You just take a grocery cart and walk through the thing and it rings everything up.

That's kind of what I'm thinking of with this. 

Elise: Yeah, because they're 

all RFID enabled, yeah, or something enabled. So yes, I was referring to what I think you and I were aligned with. I was definitely referring to the hospital space RFID or automatically tracking auto tracking. But certainly on the camera side, you could do that as well.

 Some more nooks and crannies, although I do know some folks have been exploring that as well, quite frankly, is what other technology is out there. I think the great news about myself and my colleagues, not just meaning people at Intelligar, but folks in the medication management and the healthcare technology spaces in general, is I think most of us are aligned in our goals to create products that make clinicians jobs easier and make patients lives better and really help to protect patients. 

And so exploring things beyond just RFID and seeing what's next, I think there are many of us out there who are saying okay, where else can we go, we've got this mastered. We're improving lives. We're making things better here. Where do 

Will we go next? 

Mike Koelzer, Host: Now, Elise, I don't think this does this, but you guys are then not part of the safety part where like the nurse picks up the vial and they're scanning it to make sure the doctor wrote the right thing and you're giving the right strength of the injection and all that. That's a separate beast, I imagine, 

you're not involved in making sure that something comes out of the drawer. That's where kind of your product ends in a way you're not the next step of them scanning in against the patient's wrist code, and then making sure it's the right drug, the doctor ordered. That's all the different beast I imagine.

Is that right?

Elise: so, yes and no. On the nurse side, and that, if you think about the nurse activity and that clinician, he or she, they are definitely removing medication from, typically, a dispensing cabinet, a BD fixus or an omni cell dispensing cabinet, based on the physician's orders. separate from what we do today and very much based in barcode scanning and barcode technology.

In the operating room for those clinicians and hospitals that are utilizing Intelliguard RFID products, while we do not, update and document on the patient's electronic health record. That is still the responsibility of the clinician. We do have a number of things in place from a safety perspective.

So when the clinician logs in, they can see if there are any allergies associated with that patient, so they have a feel for, okay, patient X is allergic to medication Y. I need to be cautious with what I removed based on that patient's potential allergies. We also have a narcotic waste witness system.

So for, writing down what the clinician took making sure that all of that controlled substance and narcotic waste is officially and accurately documented. Our system does enable that, so I know Exactly what was removed and what was dispensed, by who and when, with no question about it.

And all of that documentation can take place automatically inside Intelliguard.

Mike Koelzer, Host: At least tell me about your company, 

 the company starts from scratch and when? 

Elise: So, the company actually was founded by another company.

 a company known as Safety Syringes was acquired by Becton Dickinson a number of years ago. Intelliguard was started as a kind of a brainchild of many of the folks who were working with Safety Syringes at that time and many of the very talented engineers who were there. So, Intelliguard, we've been around for almost two decades .

Started with the RFID enabled supply cabinets and focusing on vendor managed inventory, moved into the medication management space for pharmacy about a little over 10 years ago, and then just 5 years ago introduced our RFID enabled anesthesia station, the one that we've mostly been dialoguing on.

That was what we saw the greatest need. 

 Prior to working with Intelligard, I was in a product development role actually with BD PIXIS and I spent a year and a half talking to anesthesia providers and pharmacy providers.

So I was on the product development side here at Intelligarde. My team leads product management, product marketing. We also do corporate and brand marketing. So I think at Intelligarde and honestly, anywhere else I've worked on the marketing side, we really tend to be at the center of the company, 

we're working with, not to say, everybody comes to us by any means , but we are highly cross functional on any given day I'm working with engineering, operations. Strategy, business development, product management. We have two large trade shows coming up that my team is responsible for, and we also are rolling out a handful of new products and partnerships.

And my team is responsible for training the sales people. Our sales team has also grown considerably as of February of this year, we had essentially a brand new sales force, in three different regions across the company. So we're really out in the marketing side, responsible for training those folks and enabling them, they're highly talented. They don't need me to tell them how to sell 

at all. They know what they're doing. They're very skilled in that. It's our team's job to make sure they have The right information they need, the clear, precise messaging that we're giving them the tools that they need, and the pathway to get to customers.

Mike Koelzer, Host: And then physically all day, are you on the computer a lot? Are you in meetings? What are you actually doing during the day?

Maybe it's just being home all day on the computer. What does your physical day look like?

Elise: yeah, good question. So I would say I travel about 30 percent of the time. So last week I was at a conference, actually the Anesthesia Patient Safety Foundation conference. My favorite part of my job is getting to connect with customers and clinicians and learning. So I had the pleasure of attending that conference and learning in a number of focus groups and work groups.

Next week I'm traveling with one of our partners. Talented sales reps to meet with a customer. But then otherwise, I do have a lot of meetings and strategy sessions and otherwise. Really right now we're coming to the end of this calendar year. So we are in full, planning mode for FY25 strategy planning and whatnot.

But for me on the marketing side, I try to get with customers as much as possible . And I would say I'm in front of a customer of some sort, probably about 30 percent of the

time. 

Mike Koelzer, Host: Your team, are you talking, there's two of you huddling down or there are 10 of you. How many people are like, you're right hand people?

Elise: Yeah. So my main team directly reporting to me, there are six

individuals leading 

product marketing, corporate marketing, event planning marketing communications.

of those different things and then salesperson training as well.

Mike Koelzer, Host: Now your marketing. I can picture two things. One is like, you're just staring down this machine and thinking how you're going to market that, but then you also have a whole other side of doing the marketing.

Like one is more of a brand positioning and one is actually Thinking of how do you bring that brand position to the market? And then how and then actually doing it, like setting up where you guys are going to go and that kind of stuff.

Are you spending time on a little bit of all that? I imagine the first part of that, once it's done, it's kind of. Like you said, the research and stuff for B and D you did once you research and once it's done, it doesn't stop, but that's a big chunk of it. And then there's the other stuff. So where does that fit in that spectrum?

Where are you more focused? If not in all three.

Elise: yeah So it really is a pretty even swath across all of them really depending upon the time of year, the largest pharmacy trade show is coming up in December. So we're much more focused on corporate marketing at this point in time and kind of that brand marketing, but leading up to this point, so making sure we're doing the right thing strategically. We recently went through a pretty comprehensive rebrand. And that was both to set the foundation for the Intelligarde brand, but also to set the trajectory internally for how we want to talk about and talk to our customers every day, how we want to show up for our customers every day.

So we've been. Spending considerable time as of late on that piece of the puzzle. But to get to that, to do that correctly, it was really kind of, I think the third element that you mentioned, which is the customer research and market research and hearing from our customers, the best brands are built based on what the market tells you.

And the best marketing is done based on, you know, you want to hear from your customers and then give them something that they didn't expect, that. Delights them, that's what old marketing says. So it really is a combination, but it kind of ebbs and flows depending upon the time of year. But doing that research to set the foundation for building all of those brand components, those talking points that you mentioned, that full, really strong positioning on a corporate and a product basis, and then having the pleasure seeing that all come to fruition in these larger scale events where we get to kind of start again, and hear from customers again and develop not just the brand and positioning roadmap, but the product roadmap and the innovation roadmap as well.

Mike Koelzer, Host: All right, so, Elise, talking about terms I see on your uh, LinkedIn that, you got your BS, I imagine, then years later you went for your MBA, but I'm seeing cum laude on there, I graduated. Thank you, laude. All right. So that's a segue into whether you took a pretty decent break between college in the early two thousands. And then your MBA recently . What was your impetus to go back?

Elise: Yeah, so I also, I like how you said that. when you mentioned that, I was like, it is a little cheesy that I still have that on my

LinkedIn profile, but,

Mike Koelzer, Host: I couldn't put it on

Elise: I earned it. Yeah.

 I always knew I wanted to go get my MBA.

I, Love to learn and I know I mentioned that but it's not just like tongue in cheek for purposes of this podcast I really enjoy learning But I wanted to wait till I was at a point in my career where I was looking to maybe make a little bit of a shift But where I also had learned enough to add A different type of value to both the MBA program, my colleagues, and myself as well.

So it was very much intentional. I always knew I would go back to get my degree, but wanted to be at a place where I was like, okay, I'm ready to show up a little bit different. I have this knowledge by no means was it amazing and strong, but it was enough, I'd been in the workforce for about eight years.

At the time I had started my career moved me from finance to marketing to healthcare marketing. Then I was in a healthcare sales role because side note, I do think some of the best marketers, if you have sold or carried a bag, you're just even stronger at marketing and I was ready to get back into product development.

So it wasn't a massive career shift, but enough that it was the right time to kind of get back into that education space. 

Mike Koelzer, Host: Well, you know what this thing is called life. There's so few edges to it in terms of everything kind of mushes together, the days turn into weeks and the office looks the same every day you go to. And Frankly, that's part of the reason I love the podcast.

Cause it's just a weekly March. It's kind of a goal, things like that. Different. There is something to it at school : it's weekly. It's quarterly. There's exams you can wash your hands off after a class you look back Maybe I could have done this or that but it's done, there's no regrets about that kind of thing. My MBA story is basically I'm in a family business.

My grandpa and dad had passed and no other siblings are in it. That wouldn't have worked out well. It's a benevolent dictatorship and I'm the 

benevolent dictator now. But at the time my dad was still in it. And this is when the PBMs were breathing heavily down. It was the early nineties, but they were still breathing kind of heavy down our necks even back then.

So I thought I better do something more than this. I better get a degree. so I started my MBA. No, I didn't start it. I had to get a couple classes before I could even apply or get into whatever. One of them was accounting So I signed up for this summer accounting class. It was a full semester of accounting in three weeks.

It was Monday, Wednesday, Monday, Wednesday, Monday, Wednesday. And Tuesday night, you'd be doing a whole week of homework because every class counted as a week.

Elise: Wow. Yeah. That's a lot.

Mike Koelzer, Host: So that was the first semester. And then we had a little break and then the second semester was coming up. So the 4th of July was Monday, no class because it was already over. The first semester was already done.

Then of course that week you get the whole week off.

It's the 4th of July. It's the middle of summer. Classes are always Monday, Wednesday, that kind of thing. So I will go there next Monday. And this teacher it's like one minute after six. He's like writing on the board, all this stuff. And I asked his gal next to me, I'm like, what's going on?

Because I'm still thinking the first day of school, you should put like a thing on your head, like Donald Doc and people have to guess if you're 

Lincoln or all those games and stuff. I'm like, where are the

cheesy 

Elise: cheesy icebreaker.

Mike Koelzer, Host: like, where are the cheesy games for this? And she said, Well, that was Wednesday.

Class started Wednesday. it never dawned on me that we didn't have the full week off. that the semester would start again on Wednesday, the 6th of July. 

So I sat there and I just got sweat beating down on me.

Elise: yeah, I 

feel like is there going to be a 

quiz? 

Mike Koelzer, Host: already a week behind because I missed four hours.

That's a whole week. 

And I closed my binder. I got up and I walked out. And that was the last I thought about college.

Elise: Okay.

Mike Koelzer, Host: So that was the answer for 

Elise: Yeah, that was the end. Okay. 

Well, that's okay though. At least in your MBA, was there something in it that was too heavy that you're like, I'm never going to use this.

Mike Koelzer, Host: Were too heavy in this subject, or was it pretty well Balanced out as, business administration. Did it give what it was supposed to give? Or was it too heavy somewhere? And you're like, I don't like this part of it.

Elise: I think the only class or classes that felt daunting or draining were I had a law class and the law professor was just, she might have been kind of similar to the professor you were describing there. You know, again, it was an MBA program. And so I feel like you do kind of expect, and for the most part, I got a very different level of interaction with my professors and my students than you did in undergrad, 

what you just described felt a little like, I'm not a freshman in undergrad, and so I felt like this particular professor was very much treating us all. Like there was a quiz every day, 

which again, like when you would show up to make sure you did your reading, just that kind of stuff that you feel 

like. I would say this subject wise, no I loved everything and was happy to learn all of

the things. 

That was the only one and which was unfortunate because I actually was really, I recall being very excited to learn business law and just law in general. I find it very intriguing.

It's not something I'm super knowledgeable about. So, and so it's just unfortunate, to your excellent point, one professor or one interaction can really kind of dull your. Enjoyment. But now in this career, you can learn all the time, so you don't have to just have an MBA for that.

Mike Koelzer, Host: Pharmacy, a lot of my colleagues, you'll see like, you know, like Eight things after their name, I'm not talking just eight 

letters.

 I'm talking like eight, four letter things. It's like 32 letters after their name. And a lot of it's just like, well, are you doing that?

I suppose they're doing it. Sometimes that stops you from doing it. I 

I don't know. 

Elise: fair.

fair point, if you're just certificating and learning all the time are you progressing on the doing 

Mike Koelzer, Host: those, 

Elise: point. 

Mike Koelzer, Host: those people,

Elise: Yeah,

Mike Koelzer, Host: at least. All right. So let's say that somebody. Let's say the MBA is there for you, but you don't get to put it after your name when you're done. Would it have been worth it just to learn or would you have said, ah, screw it, I'm gonna get this on YouTube and by reading books, how much of it and that's not a, that's not something to be ashamed of, 'cause I tell you what, if I got some degrees, I would do it. So I could have it at the end of my name. The learning might have come separately. Would you have done it still if you couldn't put it at the end of your name? Was it

Elise: A hundred percent. Yes, for 

me personally, 

just because I like it. And I actually thought about that to your point, because you do hear different things as it relates to an MBA, and many folks will say, unless you're going, and Pepperdine was a very good school, but unless you're going to go to like, I don't know, I'll just say, use Harvard as an

example, Because it's a school everybody knows.

you need to be really excited to do it and you need to want to do it for you. And then of course the network as well. Yes, it was something that I absolutely would have done. Going in person made sense for me. I didn't go full time. I was still working for it, so it was a part time MBA.

I evaluated all of that. I thought through all of that to save a little bit of money, save some time. So, yeah. Going online or not doing it at all, to your excellent point. I definitely would have still made the same choice, but I can certainly understand it for other folks. It's not for them.

It's not for everybody. no regrets at all. Worth it.

Mike Koelzer, Host: If that was out of the question, what would you have picked next? Let's MBA wasn't available to you. 

Elise: Yeah, that's a great question. The other thing that I was exploring was some sort of business law degree just cause I felt like it would be very relevant and I found it very interesting. You're talking like a graduate degree of some sort, not an MBA,

something else.

Yep. Yeah, that is what I had.

I had considered a sort of graduate degree or business law. I don't know. Let's go to improv school. I'm not sure. Like, at the time I lived in LA, lots of

options. 

Mike Koelzer, Host: at that time. Yeah, because 

Elise: Yes. Yeah.

Yes, it is. 

Mike Koelzer, Host: If I would have done something, I probably would have gotten a law degree. Just because I really hate lawyers. I mean, there's no pharmacist jokes. That proves it, Hey, did you hear about this MBA that walked into a bar?

There's none of that stuff. It's always lawyers. People hate lawyers. I hate lawyers. 

Elise: Yeah. There's no marketer jokes. Yeah. 

Mike Koelzer, Host: It's not always their fault because most lawyers there's winners and losers. When you have pharmacists and marketers, it's not like. Half you have to lose every day, but there's winners and losers in law. 

And I would have gotten one just to like, stick it to some of the lawyers that think they're one up on you because 

Elise: Yeah. Yeah.

Mike Koelzer, Host: I don't know.

Elise: Well, hey, no time like the present. So

yeah. My wife says that once a while, you want to go to law school. give

You have a new project.

Mike Koelzer, Host: yeah, new project. Get 

me out of the house. 

During COVID. it was during COVID, but it wasn't because of COVID. I happen to be home more during COVID, just career wise at the pharmacy and things like that.

 And some days she'd be like,are you going out today or whatever? And I'm like, no, why? I'm like, I'm in my office. You can see back there. I'm like in my office.

I got all my doors closed. I'm like, I'm like, what's it to you? What do 

Do you care? I'm just sitting here.

She's like, it just matters, so I've got this presence that seeped out underneath the doors and she could just tell I was home all day.

Elise: she's just like hovering 

Mike Koelzer, Host: You should be an attorney. You should be an attorney. All right. Elise, you brought this up. Now going to load this up and then I'm going to hit you with the question afterwards.

So you brought it up about anesthesiologists and let's say any medical profession could use a hand, there are certain things they can be doing better. And let's Take the stuff off of their hands. The administration stuff and whatever you would call keeping the tools and that in order.

Now, once you do that, you're not afraid of that. All of these jobs would just go away. Like anesthesiology is going to be so easy. If your product helps them out that they're all going to be out of a job, it's like, no you're helping them. People aren't cured yet. Things like that. Now, AI, love AI. 

This podcast stuff has just helped immensely. It's not like everybody else is starting a podcast because of it. And I think of marketing or I think of pharmacy, maybe they're a little bit hesitant to get into AI and it's like, all right. If AI came out yesterday and then today, everybody lived to be a hundred heart disease cured and cancer cured.

And it's like, yeah, maybe be afraid of it. That's not going to happen. That's going to help you out and you can raise it up to another level. How's it affecting your marketing and your stuff? Are you using it a ton? Do you like it? Are you afraid of it at all? What is your thought on AI?

And I'm talking, more of the large language models, not, not deep computer stuff.

Elise: Sure. Yes. Yeah. Great. Que So I'll kind of address that in two parts. First, thinking on the clinician side, and some of the fear that maybe exists there. And then more specifically pointing to what we do on a daily basis. So on the clinician side, you're spot on, aI is. Going to continue to be used to enable folks to do their job better, to take some of the mundane out of the day to day and also, that decision support for the clinician, 

clinicians are already being, whether it's an anesthesiologist, a pharmacist, a pharmacy tech, they're all already being asked to do more with less, staff shortages are a real thing in all of those professions. So, That's where AI can come in and improve a challenge that already exists, 

If you think about even medication shortages on the pharmacy side, AI can be utilized to help hospitals manage against shortages and to help the entire supply chain manage medication shortages, so I think you're exactly right. There's this fear that AI is going to take my job and whatnot. I don't think any of us want a computer.

Giving us medication tomorrow or operating on us tomorrow. We want those tools to enable our clinicians to serve us 

better, And I think that's what we're going to

Mike Koelzer, Host: And to that point, it's not like we're all just at the top of our game, we're not doing more, everything's going great, and if someone came and helped us out, we'd be out of a job. No, everybody's working way above where they should be.

This might just bring them down to normal so they're not having stress heart attacks and stuff like that.

Elise: Yeah. Or running the risk because they're doing, if a normal clinician should be doing three things at once,

they're doing five things at once. That's when errors occur and that's when patient safety risks rear their head. And that's where AI can come in. But, to get to kind of, I think the second part of your question, it is being overused, 

in a marketing perspective. I went to my colleagues and I joke, we were at a healthcare information technology conference in like the March timeframe and everywhere you looked, it was gen AI, gen AI, gen AI. 

Mike Koelzer, Host: It was screaming from their marketing materials. 

Elise: Yes. I think AI is almost to the point. It's still new, but it's getting to the point where now if you're delivering a software or a data intelligence solution, it's kind of innate, you know what I mean? and unless you're telling the market how you're using AI in a way that's,

That's, I think our job as marketers is yes, we can use it to influence what we do and to make, like, I go to chat GPT regularly to make my job faster, use AI to search faster than I would have in other capacities. I think we're all doing that in a good way. Now, I think it's our duty. And. We will do our customers a better service if we tell them and help them understand how this technology is, how we are using it to make your job easier versus just like, Hey, did you know we have AI?

So I think there's a fine line there. So

Mike Koelzer, Host: What is your thought, Elise, on the whole marketing system to let's say healthcare marketing. We know that direct to consumer ads are getting a bad rap and, certainly magazine ads have changed socials, maybe getting saturated.

What's your whole thought on getting into the heads of. Your customers. And I know the quick answer as well, build a better mousetrap kind of thing, but what do you think in terms of a marketing shift if you had to come up with a new product, Today.

How's that feeling for you?

Elise: Yeah. The short answer is we all have to be more creative in what we do. but in a way that is, appropriate for our customers and the end users, I think you kind of alluded to the fact that now there are tighter regulations around what, medication companies can do, 

and there are just more regulations and what potentially my colleagues can and cannot say to the clinicians or the end users. I am very much a student of the business, and grew up in it. I think all of those. are there for the right reason, and they are there to protect the patient, and to keep all of us from incorrectly influencing the providers, and misleading folks about what medications and products can do.

They make it more challenging to go to market. But most of them from a messaging perspective, I think very, very appropriate, I can't speak necessarily to the clinical trials and whatnot, but on the marketing side, on the messaging side, I think all very appropriate. So to answer your question, what will we do differently, or how will we look at launching a new product?

It really is, I do think things are changing, it's about showing up where our customers are, big trade shows are absolutely still a thing, but They're not the only thing, in addition to the market being saturated, the trade show space is saturated, the focus group space is saturated.

So being really studious about where we need to show up and who we need to be in front of, I think will be really critical for that. What comes before that is that segmentation piece, so having the best understanding of our market, the best understanding of our customer base. And really getting into where they want to be and where they want to hear from us, I think will be critical.

And that's a lot of words on paper, but that's really complicated to do in a B2B space, b2C you're putting ads everywhere and we're still doing that, we still have plenty of paid media and earned media that we're taking advantage of. But, I think the sales are really going to happen where our customers want us to be.

But I do think it's a blend, and it's trying different mediums. Here we are on a podcast and three, four years ago we might have all said is that where people are buying? Is that how they're getting their information? And now, You know better than me, this is how many people get their information.

And so I think it's adding that level of creativity and taking advantage of those other mediums and testing them out makes sense. So I think this is a perfect example of figuring out where our customers are and where they want to hear from us.

Mike Koelzer, Host: Are there some things that need to go away that have hung on? What are some things that are maybe, they're just not good anymore. You're still seeing tales of it. I'm just going to throw one out, I have no idea if this is good or bad, know, a full page magazine ad and people magazine or something like that.

What are some things that are Passé? You know, we're just kind of going to go away.

Elise: Yeah, great question. And if I had to predict, I think folks spending time and money in society might lessen quite a bit or it can't be the only thing. And again, I'm speaking to B2B more than B2C, but there was definitely a period of time that even on that B2B side, we were investing in, Various social platforms and various social modalities that has just become so diluted and I don't want to say contentious, but in many ways, yes, so I suspect we will see less of that We still do a good bit of advertising on linkedin.

It's more earned than paid. 

Mike Koelzer, Host: Earned meaning You earn the eyes from good content. 

Elise: correct, yeah, we didn't necessarily buy the space. It is we posted something and then it was reposted and re tagged here, same with if we pay for something to go into a publication and then it's picked up over and over again, that can be

earned media. So, We definitely are still doing that, but I think we've started to shift away from that a little bit more to do again, kind of like I was saying, show up where our customers are, and that is on us to do the research to figure out where they are and figure out if they are on LinkedIn or if they are in these other forums or in these other niche groups and

Whatnot, uncover that.

But if I had to predict what was going to go away, particularly on the B2B side, and honestly, potentially even on the B2C side, I think the social push is just becoming. A different beast that, I don't know, we'll see. 

What do you think? 

Mike Koelzer, Host: I think socials noisy, I guess

Elise: a good way to put it.

Mike Koelzer, Host: I guess any medium anytime you get the content creators reaching the levels of consumers, I mean like back in the day on Facebook or something, our company, we'd be one creator and there'd be hundreds of people just waiting to soak it up.

Well now it's basically. A hundred to a hundred. I mean, everybody's putting stuff out social networks every once in a while, a new one pops up where it just, needs content and there's millions of viewers, just not enough content, 

But then of course, eventually the content catches up.

Mike Koelzer, Host: , so certainly social is getting saturated or at least what we know now, but something else will pop up eventually.

I mean, pretty soon, I'm in the old fart world. Facebook people, and you're going to be in the old fart, Instagram people,

you know, 

Elise: I'm already there. 

Mike Koelzer, Host: they're going to be like, at least you use Instagram, and then pretty soon, 

tick tock is good.

I call it tick tack to get my kids thinking I'm out there, but that's going to be an old time thing pretty soon. So it keeps changing.

Elise: You're right. And there will be another TikTok or whatnot. but it will be the pace with which they become diluted is 

probably going to be much faster. 

But there's something we're not thinking of. I feel like there's so much with VR and that's going to be a tool for marketing in the very near future.

I was at the zoo yesterday with my daughter and they had. There were chairs for 20 people to sit and do VR tours of the zoo. I was like, aren't I here to walk around? But it was the strangest thing. So anyhow, I think there's going to be other ways that we will be marketing and figuring out what else, you mentioned earlier, you're pivoting to a different rebrand or a different direction of your product.

Mike Koelzer, Host: What and why?

Elise: So, we launched kind of the new look and feel and the next iteration of Intelligarde back in July. And it really is all around we embarked upon it with one goal in mind, which was to better serve our customers. And that's kind of, it sounds really lofty for a rebrand, but it's definitely been much more than just new colors and a new font, it was really aligning. everything that we do at Intelliguard every single day around patient safety and harmonizing that with enabling hospitals to kind of, as we say, take the smart path to medication management. So I think rebrands can sometimes be looked at as just an art project, if you will. 

And I will, Say that the art has been very pretty but for Intelliguard, it was part of this growth, 

Our comuard really all focused around patient safety, so very pertinent to our topic today.

Mike Koelzer, Host: rebranding and stuff, and sometimes it's like a company rebrands and you're like, wait a minute. I didn't even know you rebranded the last time. Give me some time to catch up. I mean, maybe all the marketing people are bored, but give us some time to

catch up. So with that said, I think it is good for the company . Does that energize you? Or is there something at a loftier level? 

Elise: So, definitely the rebrand has been energizing internally, to your point, to see all of our associates understand and align to that north star of patient safety and incorporating that into every decision we make from roadmap, decision, a new product innovation, the color of the logo, 

It just makes those decisions easier. But in terms of what I've done that is rewarding here, specifically, it really is bringing those meaningful products to market that genuinely. make the lives of patients and clinicians better. So I mentioned that our Intelliguard anesthesia station was launched about five years ago.

I had thpany size has doubled. We've expanded our office presence, and a piece of that was aligning our look and feel and our positioning with this new generation of Intellge pleasure of working with our first customer, which was the center of excellence out in San Diego. The hospital's Rady Children's Hospital. So it's a children's hospital, that most precious patients and they adopted our technology as the first site to go live with our RFID enabled anesthesia station.

And then everything kind of came full circle for me when three and a half years later, after we went live and I had spent weeks and months of my life at Rady launching this product my daughter, who at the time was five months old, had to go to Rady Children's Hospital for surgery. And never would I have thought that I would be there on the other side as a patient holding my teeny little baby who was going to go in for a complex surgery.

But knowing that, Our technology was in the operating room and knowing that no expired medication was going to be administered to her. Knowing that the anesthesiologist would have what they needed, when they needed, should something change, should something go awry. Just knowing that it was adding that level of protection to her.

Care made me feel really good and safe about my daughter, but really proud and really kind of putting meaning to those words, so, that has been very rewarding to also know that we can do that for patients every single day.

Mike Koelzer, Host: What a great example of how your stuff does touch that. And sometimes we forget as pharmacists, we're part of that too,

Elise: yeah. I felt so confident in the pharmacy team as well. And I think something that I have seen, which has been amazing and unexpected, is introducing this technology that manages medications in such an easy to use fashion and seamless way in the operating room. Our customers utilize the technology.

Another amazing result has been this creation of harmony between pharmacy and anesthesia where. Sometimes it can be a little contentious, if anesthesia doesn't have what they need. Pharmacy, they might get frustrated if anesthesia isn't documenting appropriately, pharmacy might get frustrated, 

It's a cyclical experience. And what we have seen in every single one of our customers when we go live is this amazing creation of harmony between pharmacy and anesthesia, which sounds silly, but really, again, I think harmony and lowered tension also creates good results for patients. You have a calm OR, you have a calm and happy anesthesiologist, it's all of these things that I think we might take for granted, but we've seen as a result as well,

Mike Koelzer, Host: Well, it's kind of like we talked about AI. It's like. That all adds to it. AI takes some of that pressure off. The unity of the professions takes it off. Maybe some food takes it off, all that kind of stuff takes that 

pressure off a little bit. 

Elise: yeah. Well, golly, Elise, thanks for joining us. That was fun. I've got a confession to 

You've been listening to the Business of Pharmacy podcast with me, your host, Mike Kelser. Please subscribe for all future episodes.

Mike Koelzer, Host: make some of the listeners know it, but I'm really just a marketer at heart. I'm not a medical

guy. I'm not a medical guy. That's just a vehicle to do this kind of thing. So don't tell anyone. 

Elise: Yeah. 

Mike Koelzer, Host: fascinating stuff. Thanks for joining us. I know you're busy and have a lot to do. So I appreciate your time and pleasure to meet you. Pleasure talking to you.

Elise: Yeah. Thank you, Mike. This was wonderful. And I look forward to hopefully keeping in touch and chatting more in the