Cook colleagues with a history of collaboration look forward to the future

When we first announced the transformation of Cook’s company structure, we talked about how the new Vascular and MedSurg divisions would help us better meet our customers’ needs and share best practices among our teams. After hearing this news, Lauren Manolopoulos, Jaclyn Cotton, and Tim Nagus—corporate account managers (CAMs) for Surgery, Critical Care, and Reproductive Health, respectively—couldn’t help but smile. The three of them already knew just how valuable taking a more collaborative approach could be.

For those who don’t know, CAMs work as part of the Healthcare Business Solutions team, and serve as liaisons between the clinical and business sides of our company. They assist with things like supply chain, pricing, contract monitoring, value analysis, and helping facilitate meetings for district managers (DMs).

Since CAMs sometimes cover large geographical areas and spend most of their time traveling or working from home, it can be easy for them to feel isolated—especially in the smaller specialties like Surgery, Critical Care, and Reproductive Health. That’s why, as Tim put it, “It’s important to make yourself available and open the lines of communication. So much information isn’t shared formally… Don’t be afraid to ask questions and introduce yourself to others.”

Growing together

Lauren and Jaclyn had no problem introducing themselves to each other when they both started as DMs at Cook around the same time ten years ago. With Lauren based in Chicago and Jaclyn based in St. Louis, they found they had a common call point in Peoria, Illinois, at the Peoria Surgical Group. Here, they found it helpful to start holding collaborative meetings with this group of doctors. It was also in these early years that they first got to know Tim, another DM based in St. Louis, and their support network began to naturally take shape.

When Lauren, Jaclyn, and Tim all became CAMs several years later, they then faced a different set of challenges. New to their CAM roles, they were eager to work together to figure out how to best help their teams. What they learned was that by sharing ideas and strategies, they could draw on their combined experience to create new tools to simplify their work and find the best solutions to shared challenges.

Taking the next step

In September of 2015, the group decided to start holding more formalized CAM collaboration meetings, both in person and over the phone. This led to more formal implementation of best practices among their specialties, such as the adoption of Surgery’s customized account pricing agreement by both Critical Care and Reproductive Health. By establishing pricing agreements that use the same format and language, they have created more consistency and a greater level of comfort for their customers. This consistency can sometimes help one specialty get a contract signed if a customer knows their organization is already using the same agreement with another Cook specialty.

The group has also started to align the training of their district managers. For instance, the Business of Healthcare training program was originally developed by Jaclyn’s team to help Critical Care DMs learn how to navigate the supply chain. But after the program’s success in Critical Care, Lauren then adapted it for Surgery, and Tim is currently preparing to roll it out in Reproductive Health this October.

Building toward the future

Working together, the Surgery, Critical Care, and Reproductive Health teams have been able to provide a more streamlined approach to their customers. By leveraging different skill sets and working smarter, they’ve been able to make the most of their time and resources. As Lauren said, “The goal is to spend more time in front of the customer.”

On a personal level, Lauren, Jaclyn, and Tim have more in common than just pricing agreements and supply chain training—all three are also first-time parents with toddlers at home. Having become friends as well as colleagues over the years, they now find themselves helping each other through the ups and downs of parenthood.

With all of the great things that have come out of the collaboration between their CAM teams, the group believes that Cook’s structure transformation should make this type of collaboration even easier going forward. By reorganizing our business into the Vascular and MedSurg divisions, Cook is building a stronger, more efficient company for our employees, our customers, and the patients we serve.

For more resources and updates on Cook’s structure transformation, visit https://transformation.cookmedical.com.

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What’s your collaboration story? How do you work across different teams to share ideas and best practices?