CUSP – Elevator Pitch

by Cindy Leach

16 comments

1 Mark Reed { 11.29.09 at 8:59 pm }

great idea, great music look forward to seeing your proposal.

2 Ian Doktor { 11.30.09 at 6:43 pm }

Interesting proposal. Would you market this as a one off workshop or something along the lines of fulltime tech support?

3 Amy Frank { 11.30.09 at 7:31 pm }

Hi Cindy,
Would you be able to send me your pitch? You pitch is one of the 10 I have the pleasure of reviewing.

amyjon_frank@shaw.ca

Thanks,
Amy

4 Amy Frank { 11.30.09 at 8:21 pm }

Hi Cindy,
Great elevator pitch, and very relevant to both of our careers. 🙂 I am interested in finding out more. The text, music, and images are very effective. I wish I was better at putting these things together. Your pitch addresses an area of need. With the federal and provincial drive towards e-records, many health professionals are struggling with the changes, so to have a group that can facilitate technological implementation and provide support would provide great benefit. I can definitely see the provincial government supporting this pitch. Are you focusing on a specific area (i.e. clinics, hospitals, labs, etc.) and how would groups apply for support?

Great idea and video!

5 Cindy Leach { 12.01.09 at 6:17 pm }

Hi Ian

This is more of a long term group, we facilitate technical support, but are more about the training aspect. Helping the clinicians feel comfortable with new technologies and helping them learn how to efficiently integrate it into their current clinical practice for safer patient care.

Great questions Amy, right now our focus is more on the hospitals as that is where were are located right now (Toronto General, Toronto Western and Princess Margaret). What we would like to see is our group to expand to further hospitals inside our LHIN (Ontario has created Local Health Integration Networks to share costs within regions, our LHIN encompasses all of the major hospitals in the GTA), this would mean expanding to at least 5 other hospitals to start. Each hospital currently pays for their training specialists from within their HR budget for Organization and Employee development. Long story but it was a strategic decision to have the group in HR instead of the IT department in order to represent the staff needs.

6 Cindy Leach { 12.01.09 at 6:17 pm }

Amy, have also sent you an email with a file portal link to my full pitch, please let me know if you have any troubles downloading

7 Jay Dixon { 12.01.09 at 8:09 pm }

Hi Cindy. Nice pitch, quite interesting.
I think the music was a good touch. Also keeping the slides brief makes you want to wait the second to see what else you have to say. Thanks for sharing!

8 Sharon Hann { 12.02.09 at 7:23 am }

Good clean presentation, very professional looking. I find technobeats distracting if I have to read, so I am not fond of the music track. I would have preferred a voice over background instead. I like the idea of such individualized services but wonder about costs to the company and to the customer. This strikes me as the high end solution so might find a better market in the private system (US) than in the public system. Although this is likely the best way for employees to learn, it is often deemed too expensive by the higher ups. I would like to be in on a few sales calls before I invested as it would require a large investment. If it works though there is a long clear path of returns which is always appealing. 🙂 Sharon

9 Byron Kask { 12.02.09 at 7:19 pm }

Cindy,

Looking at your elevator, I like how you link technology and professional practice. I think that the individualized approach will allow you to expand beyond your initial geographical area, and will make you relevant when the same company/hospital needs training in new technology.

10 Cathy Jung { 12.03.09 at 5:46 pm }

Hi Cindy,

Your pitch seems to address an area of need. I found the slides easy to follow and laid out well. Your questions at the beginning of the elevator pitch quickly draw your attention and interest. The idea of e-Health records sounds like something that is definitely somewhere in our near future, so I am sure there is a market for CUSP out there.

Cathy

11 Amy Frank { 12.03.09 at 9:02 pm }

Cindy,

Great pitch! This is so relevant to my work. We should have teamed up and developed a project that could work for both of our provinces. I definitely understand the need for e-records training and support. Your facts are excellent and really capture the need for your project. As well, the proposed savings is very attractive. Great presentations. It is very easy to follow and professional.

Here is my review:

•CEO Credibility and Management Team – Specifics regarding the team, such as CEO or Management, are not discussed. However, this project comes from the University Health Network, a reputable supplier of e-record training materials. I know Cindy’s experience is extensive.

•Business Model – You have conducted very thorough research and provided an excellent proposal for how to overcome a major challenge in the adoption of e-records. This service would not only benefit those using the e-records as a part of work, but it would have incredible pay-offs for tax payers (reduced costs in health care and increased accountability and safety in care).

•Competitive Products – Local schools and institutes often offer basic computer training. How would this service be offered to sites? Who would pick up the bill for the service? Who decides the service and requirements for students?

•Market Readiness – Canada is definitely working towards e-records. Canada Health Infoway was created to encourage these efforts. The new federal initiative is to have all of Canada converted to e-records by 2015. Physician and manager buy-in remains a challenge. We also have this issue in Alberta. Physicians seem to have “modified” requirements for training in e-records. However, it is really essential that everyone be required to complete training and prove competency.

•Technical Innovation – There really isn’t any technology suggested here and computer support and training is not a new concept. Which type of e-learning techniques do you propose?

•Exit Strategy – The obvious success include increased computer competency, physician buy-in, and greater adoption of e-records throughout the region. I am not clear on an exit strategy for this service, or a timeline of evaluation.

•Overall Investment Status – This is definitely an easy project to support. Although, I believe that computer competency can be achieved from developed continuing education courses, I also think that there are a number of factors supporting in-house training. Many of the computer applications and processes require very specific knowledge and clinical understanding. I also believe that this type of service is transferable and a similar model can be applied in other regions and provinces. The benefits are obvious for health and economics.

Thanks,
Amy

12 Cindy Leach { 12.04.09 at 10:18 am }

Thanks very much Amy for the evaluation, you’re right, we should have teamed up and integrated a product/service offering! I appreciate your insites, especially the one about cost, I had it on my list of items to address and then completely forgot about it :o( For UHN, the Organization and Employee Development department within HR picks up the cost of the CUSP team. We are technically HR employees at UHN. Different hospitals could fund this type of program in different ways and it’s completely scaleable. We have 2 training specialists dedicated to TGH because of its size, number of nursing units and therefore number of staff. The PMH site only has 1 specialist as that hospital is smaller and also because they are not using the electronic medication order entry and documentation tool. They are unique and due to various regulations in regards to cancer treatment they are regulated to use the Ontario Cancer Society’s OPIS (oncology patient information system). We have to chat more about what each of our hospitals are doing, I find it fascinating to hear how other areas are approaching the same problems.

13 Bev { 12.04.09 at 2:26 pm }

Hi Cindy; You’ve produced a very professional looking pitch. I fully appreciate your project idea. Not everyone in the world is interested in technology- just because we are. If we want people to use it we have to make it easy for them to do that. Your program will provide the support that the users need in order to fully utilize the technology which is obviously needed. This same type of support needs to be provided for many teachers as well. Just a few questions-
The answer to this may have been in your pitch – Does the CUSPies provide just-in-time support or does help have to be scheduled or both?
I am amazed by some of your statistics- You said 98,000 people die every year due to poor communication- Is that a Canadian stat. or US or where? that’s a lot!

My cousin-in-law Brenda Laurie-Shaw was the previous director of Nursing Infomatics at several hospitals in Toronto- I wonder if she had anything to do with this program.

Good job Cindy.

14 Liz Hood { 12.05.09 at 12:35 pm }

Cindy—I enjoyed your pitch. Your target audience of the medical community was a refreshing change. I found your presentation to be well-organized and the overview was particularly helpful. You clearly defined the need in the marketplace and summarized concisely the services offered through the venture. The explanation of benefits to the customer was quite clear and comprehensive. The testimonials were a great addition. I particularly like the chart showing the effects of the program. My only suggestion is that perhaps an objective rather than a self assessment would be a more reliable measure of the effectiveness. I would recommend funding for your venture.

15 Bev { 12.05.09 at 3:49 pm }

Hi Cindy- Your venture is one of the ones I have picked to explore further.
– You have a well defined target market- and a large one. Although at the moment you are focused on hosptals, your product can meet the needs of a huge variety health care workers from home-care nurses to optometrists.
– Your offerings, in my mind, a critical component of e-medical records. Having worked with teachers who are really struggling to integrate technology in a meaningful way- I realize how important this type of service is if medical personnel are going use the technology in the way it is intended.
-Your buyers are at the moment are the hospital administrators. The fact that these buyers are also the same ones who purchased the technology shows that they have a strong commitment to making sure that the technology is well used.
– This product has a huge global market- Because it appears to be fairly flexible- training can be adapted to suit individual needs CUSP can also be adapted to the needs of the global market.
-The competition for this type of service would be general training programs offered by different institutions. It would be very difficult for these institutions to provide the personalized – just-in-time- in context training that CUSP provides. Even if a medical facility opted for outside training, I suspect they would soon opt for a CUSP style program.

I would be very interested in funding this venture- although I would like to have more financial information before I signed on the dotted line.

16 Cindy Leach { 12.05.09 at 8:42 pm }

Hi Bev,
Small world, Brenda, and I both work(ed) for UHN and our offices are located at TGH. Brenda was the director for Nursing Informatics which did infact (and still does) work very closely with our group on many projects. :o) In fact we just finished implementing together a new tool called the ED Nursing Transfer Note to electronically capture all of the necessary info in the electronic chart for a pt transferring from Emerg to an IP unit. We’re actually going to be publishing a paper on this one :o)

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