Reps and other Cook employees go the extra mile

At Cook, patient well-being comes first. Our employees have demonstrated on countless occasions that they are willing to go the extra mile to uphold this value. Here are a few examples.

Cross SBU teamwork

Adam Haggard, district manager for Peripheral Intervention in northern Indiana, witnessed one of these occasions. In November 2015, Adam was out of his territory at the VIVA tradeshow when he received a text message from Nancy Eksten (Interventional Radiology). At this point she had exhausted all of her options trying to locate a 12 Fr x 45 cm Flexor® sheath for a case in Lafayette at Indiana University Health Arnett. The sheath was on backorder and the case was scheduled for 2:00 pm that day. It couldn’t be rescheduled due to the need for anesthesia. Nancy was waiting for a call back from corporate and in the mean time, Adam and his Indiana team checked with their accounts to no avail. Around noon, Adam received a call from Jenell Stout (Peripheral Intervention). She had located two of the sheaths and wanted to know if Chris Kilander (Peripheral Intervention) could drive them to Lafayette. He had two hours to get to IU Health Arnett, which is located almost exactly two hours away from Bloomington, but he made it in time.

“I believe people should be recognized for their hard work, dedication, and in this case going above and way beyond the scope of their daily jobs. So in that respect, I want to thank and recognize Nancy, Jenell, and Chris for their dedication to our customers and the patients they serve,” Adam said.

Coincidence and dedication

In April, Howard Slone, district manager for Critical Care in southern California, received a call from surgery technician in Irvine. He needed a Barone Jejunostomy Catheter Set, which was on backorder. Luckily, Howard had three of them and drove to meet the surgery technician. The Barone is a Critical Care product, but the adaptor it uses is an Interventional Radiology product. Both of these products are required for use. However, when Howard dropped off the Barones, the technician said he didn’t need the adaptors. So Howard hung onto them. This was on a Thursday.

The following Monday, Howard received a frantic call from a nurse educator in Irvine, who said they needed an adapter for a Barone that had been in a patient since the previous Wednesday. The patient was unable to be fed without the adaptor. Luckily, Howard had the three adaptors unused from the other case, so he dropped everything and drove an hour and 45 minutes in evening rush hour traffic to deliver the adaptor.

“I checked in a couple of days later and the patient was doing great,” Howard said. “I did it for the patient.”

Cross-territory teamwork

In January 2016 a group of employees from Cook Canada Aortic Intervention worked together to help a patient in need of an Alpha™ Thoracic graft. Clinical specialist Mariko Deziel (Canada Aortic Intervention) was in Edmonton, Alberta, supporting a case on a Friday. An urgent trauma case was added for an 18-year-old female who had sustained several injuries, including a transected spinal cord and an aortic arch tear due to a pedestrian accident. The aorta was 15 millimeters and required an 18 millimeter Alpha Thoracic graft.

District manager Mike Remo (Aortic Intervention) helped source the graft from another location. Clinical specialist Natasha Sarsthi (Aortic Intervention) obtained the graft from Vancouver and worked with Steve Sutter to get the graft from Vancouver to Edmonton. The case was scheduled for Saturday afternoon, and Mariko stayed to assist with the procedure.

Doing what it takes

In June, a group of employees, including operations liaison Ryan Opheim, hand carried a product through the production process in order to meet an urgent patient need in Denmark.

As operations liaison, Ryan bridges the gap between sales and operations globally. When an urgent need arises, Ryan puts out the message that the product needs to be hand carried through the production process. He estimated that it happens a couple times a month. In this particular situation, a patient in Denmark was in need of a sheath that was on backorder. The sheath is produced by Cook Inc., but is required to load a AAA device manufactured in Denmark. The manufacturing process for sheaths involves a lot of back and forth between Cook Bloomington and Cook Ellettsville, so the product being hand carried saved a lot of time.

“Even though I would consider us a high-volume company, we know how to treat individual patient needs separately. We have the flexibility to do so, and there are multiple situations that I have come across where people will carry something out of their department to the next department and put it in their personal vehicle and drive it over,” Ryan said. “Everybody is willing to bend over backwards and do what it takes.”

Putting the customer first

Kirk Lindblom, a rep for Peripheral Intervention, has gone above and beyond to promote One Cook and help out his fellow district managers in other clinical divisions. Emily Watkins, Critical Care district manager for northern California, has experienced this first hand.

“Kirk has connected me with contacts at a few different accounts in the past. After he makes the connection, he always follows up to make sure that the customer and I connected and sees if he can further assist,” Emily said.

Most recently, Kirk discovered a Spectrum® PICC opportunity while discussing his products at Marin General. It came to his attention that they have an issue with infection rates, so he got in contact with the appropriate person and found that the customer needed information for a product review meeting as soon as possible. Even though it is not his product, Kirk put together a thorough email to the customer with links to Spectrum clinical evidence. He looped in Jarred Olson, a clinical specialist for venous access in the Interventional Radiology division, and Emily. As a result, they were able to set up a meeting with the customer to discuss the opportunity.

“He is an excellent rep who is always willing to help and put forth the extra effort to ensure the customer, and more important, the patients, have what they need from Cook. I really appreciate his dedication to teamwork and I know that reps in other SBUs feel the same,” Emily said.

With Cook, going the extra mile for patients, customers, and coworkers is an everyday occurrence. Do you have a story to share? Send it to blogeditor@cookmedical.com.