Top 10 Healthcare Integrators of 2015

These innovative, market-leading firms offer advice on how to stay at the forefront of this intricate vertical.>

CI Staff

We recently did an article about an integration project inside the hospital room of the future. It was a think tank-funded prototype of what a hospital room will look like in 2020, including anticipated technologies, and the project leveraged expertise from a renowned architect.

It is hard to picture that type of financial, time and resource commitment to creating a prototype of, for instance, the sports bar of the future, the hotel lobby of the future or even the conference room of the future. The effort speaks to the importance of the
health care market.

Integrators that provide solutions for hospitals, medical offices and other health care facilities provide mission-critical solutions for doctors, nurses and patients. It’s not a market for every integration firm. Processes need to be air tight. Engineering has to be extremely forward thinking.

Quality assurance (QA), it goes without saying, needs to be best in class. It’s not that solutions in other markets don’t matter. Solving any integration clients’ challenges is obviously the core of what this industry does.

It’s that solving health care-centric challenges, or any mission critical task including law enforcement, government or any critical communication, matter a bit more. Health care integration firms boast an enormous responsibility — to be great.

Our 10 CI Industry Leaders in the health care market dedicate significant portions of their businesses to health care. Even AVI-SPL, which generated only 6 percent of its $500+ million revenue in 2014 from the health care market, has a robust and dedicated division that’s focused on the unique market.

Technology Side of the Business

There are few markets — or clients — that rely as much on making sure their technology is cutting edge as that of health care. After all, their patients depend on hospitals and other facilities offering the best treatment and service available. That, of course, raises the bar for integration firms that serve this demanding market. One challenge for these 10 marketing-leading health care integrators is simply to keep pace with quickly evolving solutions.

“In 2015 the greatest demand we see in health care is the desire for new technology. Having a strong internal expertise as well as strategic partnerships for research and development keep Beacon primed for success,” says Brad Walsh, CEO of Beacon Communications. “We are consistently having conversations on the future of technology in our industry. We sit down with our clients regularly sharing information to assist in making sound investment decisions.”

AVI-SPL calls it “the pace of change” and says keeping up with it is “the greatest challenge for any technology service business,” according to senior VP of unified communications and collaboration Joe Laezza.

Level 3 Audio Visual agrees that the health care market “is in need of ever more complex systems that are easier to use and or easier to administrate in a simulated scenario,” says CEO Brad Peterson. He sees an “ever-increasing need” for mannequin technologies, modalities and more.

For firms that are up to the task, the growing health care market offers upside. One big opportunity for expansion and growth for Compview, says marketing coordinator Tami Zeidlhack, is the expansion of its health care segment.

Business Side of the Technology

A common thread between successful health care market integrators is that, in order to handle the complex decision-making processes and project schedules, they have in-depth business strategies.

“I believe a blended approach of planning, marketing, and training investment in our employees combined [with] a focused client service support have led to our success,” says John Green, VP of sales and marketing for Advanced AV. “Starting with strategic planning of which specific clients we should pursue by matching up our employee experience and strengths to meet those client needs. Evaluate opportunities and placing an emphasis on the proper match of projects the Advanced AV teams can appropriately provide value to the client.”

Green adds that Advanced AV’s engineering and project management teams are flexible in approach to blend within client teams for effective project partnerships. “Single-mindedness on maintaining a robust service supportive relationship with our client and services team allows us to stay part of technology teams and future projects.”

At iVideo Technologies, president Timothy Czyzak says it relies on “using analytics in all aspects of our business to perform analysis on past, present and future business items.” He says the team is focused on “estimating labor, job costing, pipeline activities, expense management,” analyzing it all and using the information to improve management.

QA is a big focus for Vistacom, according to marketing communications coordinator Destiny Heimbecker. She says, as an integral part of the firm’s design-build-manage process, it “incorporates a comprehensive quality assurance program, which is based on AQAV, a non-profit organization that is dedicated to improving the operational art of designing and [integration].

Download the complete report: Meet the 2015 CI Industry Leaders.

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