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Oct 01, 2005

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Writing Effective Proposals

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Dear Friends,

Companies devote tremendous resources toward generating leads, then
fail to invest the time and effort required to close the "last
mile" between prospect and contract. Failure often results from an
inability to deliver an effective proposal.

That's a shame. Proposals can be your best branding and sales tool.
Companies make the same mistake in proposals that they make in
their branding campaigns. The issue is not about you and your
capabilities; it's about a solution for the prospect that reflects
an understanding of its business issues.

Just as important, it's the start of a relationship and its
ultimate success may well depend on what is said in the proposal.
The seeds of failure are often planted before the proposal is
generated. Many proposals are written with the attitude and
perspective of a cocky fourth-grader with his hand in the air
yelling, "Pick me! Pick me!"

The proposal focuses on all the glowing reasons why the firm should
be picked-but that's not what the prospect is looking for. When
prospects review a stack of proposals, all making indistinguishable
and unprovable claims about "quality," "commitment" and
"satisfaction," they first look for reasons to disqualify
proposals.

Didn't follow the RFP (request for proposal) guidelines? Trash. Too
long? Life's too short. Full of boilerplate? Next!

To avoid being sidelined, put yourself in the prospect's shoes as
soon as work starts on the proposal. Essentially, all successful
proposals fall into two camps. Either they create an opportunity or
they solve a problem more easily or cheaply than prospects could
themselves.

Spend as much time in research, planning and analysis as you do
writing the proposal. Be sure to include a go/no-go decision.
Generating a proposal can cost tens of thousands of dollars, and
sometimes the outcome or prospect is not worth the effort.

In the long run, success rates will increase significantly if there
is a process behind proposal generation. Although debate continues
about whether proposals should be generated inside or outside the
sales department, 60% of the responsibilities should center around
proposal development and submission, 20% to a proposal "library"
for research and generation, 10% to pipeline and proposal tracking,
and 10% to analysis, including post-mortems, win rates and proposal
development costs.

Ciao!

Maj (Dr) Amit Chatterjee, SM
Strategist / Founder ~ mailto:amit@...
MT India ~ www.mtindia.org
"The Community of MT Professionals"
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NEWS AND VIEWS :
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1) Lister job fears

Medical secretaries working at Lister Hospital could lose their
jobs if a pilot overseas letter typing service is implemented.
Morale among the 150 secretaries working for the East and North
Hertfordshire NHS Trust is said to be very low following a meeting
between staff and managers.

Last week we reported that letter typing is being carried out in
India as part of a cost-cutting trial and this week the trust
admitted they cannot rule out redundancies if it is successful.

A medical secretary, who did not want to be named, said: "This
latest cost-cutting scheme by the management goes to prove, if
proof were needed, just how little they know about the work of a
medical secretary but it clearly shows how little they value our
work and dedication."

But this week the director of a Stevenage-based transcription
company contacted The Comet to warn of the problems of using an
Indian- based company. Mike Coxall, of e-Dict Transcription
Solutions, said: "I can assure you after two years of using an
Indian Typing Agency they will return to the UK as we have. The
quality return is so poor that we spent more money correcting
before sending back to clients than we paid to invoice out and the
return rate was so poor we lost clients."

He said there were problems with spellings, place names and
grammar.

http://www.thecomet.net/content/comet/news/story.aspx?brand=CMTOnline&category=N\
ews&tBrand=herts24&tCategory=newscomnew&itemid=WEED29%20Sep%202005%2011%3A51%3A3\
1%3A070

2) Service converts Windows Mobile handhelds into transcription
devices

Tech S2 has launched a wireless dictation and web-based
transcription service that uses Windows Mobile handhelds as
dictation devices. CaseScribe, aimed at healthcare professionals,
combines speech recognition software on the handheld with a
web-based application server to provide round-the-clock
transcriptions in less than one hour, according to the company.

CaseScribe uses ScanSoft's Dragon NaturallySpeaking software to
capture dictation on Windows Mobile handhelds with wireless
Internet access. The dictations are securely uploaded to the
CaseScribe application server. For dictations shorter than five
minutes, the transcribed dictation is stored and ready for review
within one hour, according to Tech S2. Longer dictations are
processed at a lower priority and can take as long as a day, the
company says.

Users are able to securely access transcriptions online, from any
web-enabled handheld or PC, according to Tech S2. Using the
CaseScribe website, users can review, edit, copy, and email their
transcriptions -- even listen to the original dictation.
Transcription text can also be dropped into patient records or an
electronic medical record (EMR) system.

The system requires minimal individual speaker training, which can
be completed online, according to the company. About 10 minutes of
dictation are required to create an initial speaker voice profile.
Tech S2 claims that Dragon NaturallySpeaking has an accuracy of
around 97 percent at rates up to 160 words per minute. Tech S2 says
that CaseScribe requires no initial investment beyond the handhelds
and wireless access, and no long term committment.

http://www.windowsfordevices.com/news/NS5679503204.html

3) MedQuist Launches DocQsign(TM) Electronic Signature Module

MedQuist Inc.announced the release of DocQsign, a Web-based
electronic signature module of DocQment(TM) Enterprise Platform, an
Internet-hosted document workflow management solution. Available
as an optional service, DocQsign integrates the requirement of
electronic signature with the process of document workflow and
ensures a seamless transition from transcribed document to
authenticated document, facilitating patient care and the
reimbursement process.

"MedQuist understands the value of the healthcare providers' time
and the urgency to gain quick access to patient medical records.
With DocQsign, physicians no longer need to visit the Medical
Records department to sign charts or view a patient medical
record," says Terry Cameron, MedQuist's senior vice president of
Marketing. "Not only does DocQsign make the process faster and
easier for the healthcare provider, it ultimately reduces the
turnaround time for quicker reimbursement and enhanced patient
care."

Physicians are provided access via the Internet to documents within
seconds of completed transcription, from anywhere, at anytime.
Using a Web-based user account and an array of electronic review
and signature tools, physicians can authenticate patient documents
that they originated, or with appropriate permission, documents
that were originated by other physicians. Physicians can access,
listen, review, edit, reject and sign patient documents, all
through a Web-based interface.

http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/09-19-200\
5/0004110679&EDATE=

4) HL7 Launches eHealth Effort for Katrina Relief

The Health Level Seven, Inc. (HL7) community is supporting the
development of portable, interoperable electronic health records
for the hundreds of thousands of people whose lives have been
disrupted by Katrina. "The HL7 community represents the most
concentrated group of interoperability expertise anywhere. We are
rising to the challenge of rebuilding the medical records of the
displaced population and doing so in a way that can become a model
for the future of the country," says Mark Shafarman, HL7 Chair. "We
stand ready to work with anyone and everyone implementing
standards-based applications. Our Reference Information Model for
healthcare, our community of experts and our standards and
specifications for interoperability can guide this process." The
Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS)
Electronic Health Record Vendors' Association (EHRVA) is already
working with the Office of the National Coordinator for Health
Information Technology (ONCHIT) towards constructing and
integrating an electronic health record (EHR) infrastructure within
the areas of the gulf coast affected by Hurricane Katrina.

HL7 standards are already making an impact on the ground in the
wake of Katrina providing access to records of childhood
immunization records. The American Immunization Registry
Association (AIRA) (www.immregistries.org) -- an HL7 member
organization -- reports that nine registries are now using HL7
messages to query the Louisiana Immunization Network for Kids
Statewide (LINKS), resulting in retrieval of 4,250 records as of
Tuesday, September 27. Immunization registries querying LINKS are:
Arizona, Houston, Idaho, Indiana, Maryland, Ohio, Washington, West
Virginia, and Wyoming.

"The importance of HL7 standards was never more evident than during
Katrina," said Julie A. Boom, M.D., Medical Director,
Houston-Harris County Immunization Registry and Director of the
Immunization Project at Texas Children's Hospital, and AIRA member.
"Literally overnight, the Houston-Harris County Immunization
Registry was able to be connected to the 'LINKS' Louisiana
statewide immunization registry with the assistance of Scientific
Technology Corporation. Because each registry was fully HL7
compliant, this link was able to be made quickly and easily.
Retrieving these records from LINKS has saved the public health
community thousands of dollars for the cost of re- immunizing these
children and it saves the children of Louisiana from the discomfort
of additional immunizations. This experience truly highlights the
importance of following national standards and should encourage
other immunization registries to fully support HL7 standards as
soon as possible."

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/050929/sfth047.html?.v=30

5) Speech recognition helps King's meet cancer target

Speech recognition technology has helped produce a 50% reduction in
diagnostic reporting times according to a report of a recent cancer
treatment trial at King's College Hospital, London. The software
used was Dragon NaturallySpeaking which converts speech into text
at up to 160 words per minute, according to supplier, ScanSoft,
which worked on the project with UK Dragon integration partners,
Hands Free Computing.

Using speech recognition helped to automate the clinical
documentation process and eliminate the high cost and long
turnaround time associated with the manual transcription of patient
notes. The pilot at King's College Hospital audited the difference
between conventional reporting using dictation to tape or written
notes that are then typed compared to using speech recognition for
the same task.

During the trial, the histopathology department reduced reporting
times from six days to three.

http://www.e-health-insider.com/news/item.cfm?ID=1452
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Mediweb Infotech Pvt. Ltd. All cited articles are copyright of
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Thank you for your interest in MT India!

The MTIndia Team
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