Inspiration in the waiting room

3 August 2007: NZ Herald, The Business, Success Profile by reporter, Christine Nikiel: Gabriella Larkin knows all too well the tedium of a doctor's waiting room. Diagnosed with breast cancer in 1995, she made regular doctors visits for five years before being given the all-clear. But staring at old posters and last year's magazines sparked an idea for a business that was just waiting to happen.

"Everyone [in the waiting rooms] was looking desperately bored, and I thought, 'what if thoses images and messages that are in print form were in moving images on the TV? We've got the hardware but not the relevant content'"

So Larkin, a former theatre performer who also worked in film and television production, set about making the relevant content herself. Four years on, her company MedTV, produces a health and wellbeing TV 'channel' for hospitals, health clinics, and some workplaces, funded by 'advertisers' - generally agencies with a health service message.

MedTV sends out the material on video cassettes or DVDs, but subscribers can also upload it via the internet and screen it in their waiting rooms, following a customised schedule controlled from MedTV's North Shore office.

So far, MedTV's monthly supply of a ten-hour looped programme screens in 40 waiting rooms around the country. Gore Health signed up to MedTV three years ago and chief executive Ralph La Salle says feedback from patients has been positive. The digital service, which Gore Health is the first to adopt, will allow the hospital to tailor its programmes to certain audiences, he says.

"If we know a paediatrician is coming on a certain day we can call MedTV and request some child-orientated programmes at reasonably short notice."

The Problem Gambling Foundation is considering signing up for MedTV to produce its second promotion, says foundation director, Dr Kawshi Da Silva.

Da Silva, who is also chairman of the Asian Health Foundation, says health and wellbeing information is not always easily accessible for the country's Asian population and MedTV's programmes can capture a wide audience.

"Often people come to the doctor with another person, a family member, or a friend. And even if the programme isn't relevant to them alone, they might watch it because it's relevant to a friend."

The shift to a digital platform also measures exactly when a particular programme played and on how many screens, so advertisers can see where their money is going.

The editorial features are based on the Ministry of Health's strategy document, which includes objectives such as reducing violence in the home, at school and the community, reducing the impact and incidence of cancer, and improving nutrition. The editorials also coincide with awareness and appeal weeks. Needless to say, junk food and soft drinks do not feature, and there are no promotions for prescription drugs, something Larkin says doctors were adamant about.

Larkin is fairly fizzing about the future. Her three-to-five-year business plan includes hitting an annual turnover of $2 million. It's a far cry from MedTV's frustrating beginnings: when Larkin pitched her idea to the Ministry of Health public health directorate in 2001, it took a year of evaluations and meetings before the Ministry pronounced the venture "a worthwhile pursuit", but not one it would fund.

She used her own savings instead and approached a film and television contact proposing a business partnership. The contact, who prefers not to be named, agreed to invest and become the company's main financial backer.

MedTV's next step is to roll out touchscreen kiosks, which offer follow-up information to complement the editorials. The idea of using touchscreen technology for health education was developed for the national [cervical and breast cancer] screening unit by Sally Hughes and Peter Rotgans, both now MedTV directors.

The two technologies are a perfect fit, says Larkin. MedTV's presentations could only go into so much detail before the content potentially crossed some viewer's comfort boundaries. The touchscreen allows people to access more information on their own. Also, people generally need to be prompted to use touchscreens, so the editorial segments suggest viewers use the kiosks for more information.

Based on Ministry of Health figures, Larkin calculates the 40 screens running, plus and extra 25 which are in various stages of installation will attract 230,000 viewers a month. In these days of mass advertising, you'd have expected the idea, which in marketing speak has a 'captive audience', to have popped up earlier. She's heard of several attempts over the past two decades, but lack of funding or the wrong format probably sank those ventures, she says.

There are one or two "imitators" touting a similar service, but Larkin is sure that MedTV offers a better product.

"The technology is so much more accessible now, but it's not about the technology, it's about the content."Mindful of the negative connotations of 'captive audience' - essentially an audience that can't , for some reason, walk away - Larkin stresses that MedTV respects its audience.

"Yes they are captive, they can't walk away until they've had their appointment and a least 50 per cent of them are feeling unwell. But we took that on board when we put the format together. Our ethic is to enlighten, educate and entertain. The messages have to be uplifting, of hope, not doom and gloom."