"Establishing a user community throughout Europe"

Many journalists visit healthcare conferences in order to learn about the latest medical technology innovations. How important are congresses for your magazine?

Domestic and international conferences are a very important source of news and features for us and we send both in-house staff and freelance reporters to cover these events. We are definitely not restricted to product news at trade exhibitions – we also cover scientific lectures, abstract sessions and poster presentations in order to let our readers know about important conference results.

How do you decide which news items are most interesting to your readers?

We rely heavily on our readers’ feedback and their comments shape our ideas about what is truly important. Our website serves not only as an online archive of the print magazine and as a site for daily news updates, it also allows readers to comment on any items published. Our website was launched fairly recently and we are aiming to establish a user community throughout Europe, giving us a valuable insight into which developments are newsworthy and deserve coverage.

Your magazine also accepts contributions from readers. How do you make sure that articles submitted are unbiased and factual?

Essentially our expert professional readers are our writers. While we do employ healthcare journalists to cover conferences and produce special features, we also welcome contributions from our professional readers, for print and online. Topics range from best practice and technical developments to case studies. Although we are not a research journal with original articles per se, we do employ an editorial board to ensure that content is accurate, relates to up-to-date technology and is relevant to professionals in the field. Our current board members include professionals from centres of excellence in the UK and Germany and we are currently looking to further expand its composition to include hospital staff with various areas of expertise and from several other countries throughout Europe. (AG)

Contact Stephen Taylor at stephentaylor@campden.com