June 2008
Can medical shows still draw?
CME funding changes and a faltering economy threaten attendance at medical meetings — but organizers say they’ve weathered it all before.
By Patricia D. Sherman
Despite CME changes and rising costs, the personal experience of a medical convention is still an unmatchable attendance draw, and organizers are building on this strength. “Attendance at the Greater New York Dental Meeting (www.gnydm.com) has increased from 36,000 to 55,000 in the past five years,” says Robert Edwab, DDS, Executive Director. “It’s up because attendees want hands-on experience. If all they wanted was information, they could stay home and take a course online.”
Science and education drive attendance at medical meetings, says Eric Allen, Executive Vice President of the Healthcare Convention Exhibitors Association (HCEA, www.hcea.org), based in Atlanta. “Meetings are the best vehicle for health care professionals to get education and for companies to communicate with health care professionals.”
The synergy of scientific presentations, peer contact, continuing education, and the hands-on contact of the show floor can only occur at meetings. But overall, medical meetings have shown little attendance growth in the past decade
At 23.4 percent of all trade shows, medical and health care is the largest sector in the Center for Exhibition Industry Research Index (2008). CEIR data is based on attendance, number of exhibiting companies, net square footage, and total revenue. Since 2000, medical meetings have grown at a compound annual growth rate of 3.4 percent, slightly more than the 3.2 percent for the industry as a whole. Last year, attendance increased by 1.6 percent over 2006, but revenue declined by 1.7 percent.
International attendance up
Growth in international attendance at medical meetings has significantly outpaced U.S. attendance. An HCEA study (to be presented in June 2008 at the organization’s annual meeting) looked at the period from 2002 to 2006 and found that attendance at international medical meetings increased 22.9 percent. The study surveyed leading health care convention organizers and exhibitors and analyzed trend data to determine the impact of globalization.
The high quality of education, training, and science presented at medical events makes them magnets for international attendees, says Allen. International attendance at U.S. medical shows averages about 29 percent, while some shows exceed 50 percent.
Along with these increases are caveats, however. “There’s a five-year growth trend,” says Allen. “But that makes up for ground lost over the previous high in 1997. If you look at the entire decade, international attendance dipped to a low in 2003. The 2006 number really reflects a modest increase over 1997.”
Drawing international attendees is expensive and time-intensive, says Edwab. “We spend a lot of our budget on travel. We go to many international dental meetings. We print brochures in eight languages and keep in contact with the U.S. Department of Commerce and U.S. embassies all over the world.”
Federal rules also limit how exhibitors can market to international attendees. “Exhibitors have to be very careful,” says Allen. At U.S. shows they can’t market products not approved for use in the U.S. by the FDA — even if the product is used in the attendee’s country. It’s more difficult to follow up on international attendees, too.”
Education trends
In education, the trend is away from lectures to include a variety of experiential sessions, from role-playing workshops to dental theater settings at the GNYDM where attendees ask questions as experts demonstrate techniques on patients. “These new teaching modalities especially appeal to younger age groups,” says Edwab.
The six open discussion sessions at last year’s American Dietetic Association (ADA, www.eatright.org) meeting were so successful that 12 are scheduled this year. These sessions are built around a generaltopic of current professional interest, not a speaker, says Carla Lambert, ADA Director of Meeting Services. Volunteers who are experts in the topic facilitate the discussion. “Members can see what others are doing and share information. It generates a lot of peer learning,” says Lambert.
Attendees want personal interaction on the show floor, too. “They want to go into the booth and touch and feel the product. They want to try it before they will use it in the office. They don’t just want to read brochures,” says Edwab. “They want to see and hear comparisons, which can’t be covered in the education program,” says Debbie Smithey, CMP, CAE, Director Education Meetings and CME, American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP, www.acep.org).
Most organizations schedule unopposed exhibit floor time, but the ADA has found that allowing 30 minutes between each educational session prompts attendees to stop by a booth, and keeps floor traffic steady, says Lambert. The organization also builds exhibit traffic by scheduling special presentations on the floor, such as a demonstration theater and a cooking competition — some of which offer education credits.
Online CME credits
The growth of online continuing education hasn’t undercut attendance, as was feared earlier in the decade. “I don’t think we can say that one cannibalizes the other,” says Allen. That’s not how the Internet operates. They’re different experiences.”
“The availability of online CME hasn’t affected our attendance to any degree,” says Smithey. “Electronic education is a great method to enhance the learning experience but it doesn’t replace the experience of attending a conference and interacting with one’s colleagues.”
The Annual National CME Insights and Behaviors survey, produced by CME provider Pri-Med (www.pri-med.com), revealed that, among physicians, the heaviest users of online CME (an average of 35 credit hours per year) also spend 38 hours in live meetings. That’s only slightly less than the average for all physicians.
CME funding changes
Medical show organizers say that profound changes in continuing medical education will soon have negative attendance impacts from two key areas:
+ Funding. “Pharmaceutical companies have paid attention to reports from the Senate Finance Committee and the Macy Foundation (see sidebar below) and have become more conservative with their funding,” says Holly Murray, CMP, Meeting Services Manager for Prime (www.primeinc.org), a provider of continuing education to the health care industry, based in Tamarack, FL. “Companies will be more selective in choosing CME providers to fund.”
To compensate for this reduced funding, organizers may have to make choices that affect attendance and revenue: They can raise fees or reduce the number of CME offerings, narrowing the range of potential attendees. “Ultimately, conference attendees will suffer costly increases if support and funding continue to decline, because registrants will have to make up the difference,” says Smithey.
+ Regulations. Updated accreditation criteria and tighter regulations are also changing the focus of continuing education, says Billie Dalrymple, Director of CME, Texas Medical Association (www.texmed.org). “The old focus was primarily on attendance. Education was built around the availability of big-name speakers who could attract audiences.” Now, CME offerings have to be based on documented needs and outcomes. The resulting offerings may be more useful, but they often lack audience-grabbing star appeal.
Cost sensitivity
Health care organizations are as cost sensitive as any show attendee, and attendance is flat, in part, because attending organizations are sending one person from a department rather than two or three, according to Linda Schwartz, Director of Marketing and Communication Services at SmithBucklin Corp. (www.smithbucklin.com). The Chicago-based company provides management and meeting services for 35 health care clients.
“Show organizers need to adjust their thinking about site selection,” says Schwartz. “One property might be cheaper, but it might not be best in the long run when potential attendees factor in travel costs and time out of the office. People don’t want to spend an entire day traveling. The destination must be easily accessible. We’re not seeing as many resort destinations. And attendees aren’t combining meetings with vacations as much as they used to. They’re more focused on education.” Destinations with lots of direct flights at times that will minimize travel time and overnight stays are more attractive to attendees now, she says.
While the numbers of attendees and exhibitors at medical shows are virtually flat, over the past 10 years, for meetings with more than 4,000 attendees, exhibit space is up 25 percent and the cost per square foot is up 20 percent, according to Eric Allen, Executive Vice President of the Healthcare Convention Exhibitors Association (HCEA, www.hcea.org). However, the actual number of exhibitors has declined 2 percent. “Organizers have been selling more space at higher prices to the same number of exhibitors,” he says.
Allen sees three factors contributing to this phenomenon: First, mergers in the medical industry have decreased the total number of exhibitors, but the new combined companies require as much, if not more, exhibit space. Second, because shows are an important source of revenue, associations are working harder to sell space. Third, exhibitors have more options. The vast and growing body of knowledge in the medical field has given rise to an explosion of group, sub-group, and sub-sub-group specialties, most with state chapters and local groups. All of these organizations are having meetings and shows. They offer exhibitors smaller, but highly targeted, audiences.
In 2006, the total income from accredited CME activities was $2.4 billion, more than 60 percent of which — about $1.45 billion — came from pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturers. This funding, much of which supports CME speakers and other activities at medical shows, is under intense scrutiny that is changing funding for meetings and shows.
A report issued by the U.S. Senate Finance Committee in April last year, following a nearly two-year investigation, criticized the funding of CME and other meeting activities by pharmaceutical companies, charging these companies “routinely use educational grants to build market share” at the expense of patient welfare. It also called oversight of CME accreditation lax and disorganized. The full report is available at www.finance.senate.gov.
In November 2007, the Josiah Macy, Jr. Foundation convened a conference to address funding-related meeting issues. The executive report, issued in January, concluded that funding from makers of pharmaceuticals and medical devices is distorting CME. “No amount of strengthening of the ‘firewall’ between commercial entities and the content and process of CME can eliminate the potential for bias,” the report states. Among other recommendations, the report called for the severing of ties between commercial funders and continuing medical education, thus reducing much financial support for meetings and shows. The executive summary is available at www.josiahmacyfoundation.org. The entire report of the conference will be published later this year.
Patricia D. Sherman is a Dallas-based freelance writer specializing in the hospitality industry. She was Senior Editor of The Meeting Professional magazine, taught business and professional writing classes at several Midwestern universities and managed a b-to-b communications and advertising firm.
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