Print Matters delved into the health care, financial, government, education and retail markets to find out how you can grow your business in these segments. Each market presents unique opportunities, benefits and challenges.

In the first of this 5-part series, you will find out how you can grab a share in the rapidly growing health care segment.

Integrated Document Solutions® Inc. (IDS), a distributorship headquartered in Dallas, offers a variety of products to hospitals, physicians, nursing homes, clinics and assisted living facilities. These include continuous and unit set lab forms, flow sheets, labels, letterhead, envelopes, checks, tax forms, patient ID wrist bands, commercial printing, marketing material and more. Customers also use Inte/c, the company's e-commerce system, to order, control and review their inventory, which IDS maintains.

The health care industry is among the fastest growing and most profitable business segments today, says Will Deford, vice president of operations of IDS' SE Division, based in Chattanooga, Tenn. Here are some opportunities:

1. Hospitals and clinics need your expertise. Customers in the medical market, especially hospitals, are increasingly relying on the skills of trained document consultants-an area where IDS has made great gains, Deford says. "Larger companies aren't willing to commit the time required to handle the ever-changing demands of hospitals, which are increasingly feeling disgruntled with the services being offered by the majors," he says.

2. Cut sheets, electronic records are in. Many hospitals are moving away from traditional continuous and unit set forms and demanding cut sheets because of the proliferation of high-speed, low-cost printing devices and the need to have documents that can be scanned for medical records departments, Deford says. Another push is toward electronic records with encryption and password protection. The changes in the laws regarding patient record confidentiality are pushing the health care industry to protect information from unwanted access, creating a demand for secure electronic records.

3. GPOs are a blessing in disguise. Although Group Purchasing Organizations (GPOs) continue to convince many hospitals and health care institutions that their overall purchasing costs are lower and controlled, Deford says there are trends that indicate otherwise. "If a larger printing company merges with another large company, it needs to make up for the good will cost of the purchase, good will being the amount the larger firm pays over the fair market value of the large company," he says. As a result, the company's non-revenue generating areas such as customer support are the first to be affected. "In the markets IDS serves, we have seen local customer service and support virtually disappear," Deford says. "From our perspective, the GPOs have not only not hurt us, they have actually provided us opportunities not previously available. It's our opinion that opportunities presented because of the lower customer service and support from the GPOs, our e-commerce packages and strategic partnering with key manufacturers have presented us with a bright future."

4. Physicians need to promote themselves. "Physicians don't have time to focus on their marketing needs. IDS steps as an ad agency, sales consultant and printer," Deford says. Physicians are promoting themselves through broadcast advertising and billboards, and IDS has seen some growth beyond traditional letterhead and business cards. "Several of our hospitals and physicians are producing product and care pamphlets to be distributed in their facilities and sent to their customers by direct mail," Deford says. A more recent growth area is newsletters directed at a targeted audience. IDS produces and mails tens of thousands of newsletters aimed at existing patients and prospects. Because of the growing number of elective procedures and walk-in appointment centers, IDS also has seen a substantial growth in self-promotional brochures and mailings.

5. Small clinics are big targets. Don't underestimate smaller clinics, which can become great allies for a distributor trying to gain a foothold in a larger organization. "These facilities [small clinics and large medical facilities] communicate with each other almost daily," Deford says. "If you can provide a track record of service to a smaller clinic, it's a good test of what can be done for the large organizations in your area."

6. Technology creates opportunities. With the introduction of high-speed, high-quality and low-price digital printing, almost every hospital or large medical facility has an on-site copy center that's increasingly fulfilling its cut sheet requirements, Deford says. But IDS has successfully tackled this. For the past three years, the distributorship has offered online services that allow its customers access to artwork for printing. IDS posts downloadable PDF files on each customer's web site. Customers can transfer the files to in-house printing facilities and print as many copies as they need.

"The success of this program depends on how you present it to the customer," Deford says. The first step is to convince the customer to allow your company to be the single source of the files. "The health care and medical industries are notorious for making changes to forms and documents," he says. IDS includes latest revisions in the forms and charges a nominal one-time fee to set up the PDF file and make changes to the forms.

The second strategy is that IDS gets involved with customers to determine the quantity and conditions in which forms should be printed at their facilities. "This requires trust by your customer and knowledge of the true cost to produce a document using internal machines and labor," Deford says.

7. Focus on the big picture. Technology will continue to exert pressure on traditional products, and IDS keeps track of all solutions that already or will soon affect the industry. One such product is the digitized form that can be accessed through PDAs and other electronic devices and filled in by the user. IDS sells these forms to the manufacturing sector, and is now presenting them to several health care and medical customers, Deford says.