ShareHope invests in Consusafe, Taiwan’s largest surgical-dressings supplier, to develop medical supply channel.

ShareHope invests in Consusafe, Taiwan’s largest surgical-dressings supplier, to develop medical supply channel.

ShareHope (8403-TW), the only medical supporting and logistic company listed in Taiwan formally announced it took a 46% participation in Consusafe, hence grabbing a controlling stake in a major surgical-dressing supply channel nationwide. According to ShareHope, this investment will strengthen the company’s core business, diversify market channels, lower purchasing cost, and enhance its R&D capability. All these benefits add value to ShareHope’s branding image and created a new milestone for its health supply group purchasing channel integration.

Founded in 1980, Consusafe is GMP, CE, and FDA certified, and is Taiwan’s largest manufacturer of surgical dressing and health supplies. It is licensed to produce and sell over 600 items, including surgical dressing supplies, respiratory care supplies, and anesthesia tubing supplies. Consusafe also operates a biotechnology platform that conducts new product R&D.

According to Dr. Fred Yang, board chairman of ShareHope, the scope of ShareHope businesses includes medical device leasing, health checkup services, medical specialty services, healthcare management and consulting, and medication and health supply group purchasing which currently accounts for 80% of its revenues. The company is running an innovative business model, and is expanding its market from northern Taiwan to the rest of the country and mainland China. Its customers include hospitals, pharmacies, and clinics. ShareHope is also introducing several new products to Taiwan, establishing a testing platform, and promoting SmartCare technology.

ShareHope’s competitive advantage comes from its three departments: health logistics, health management (health checkups), and medical specialty. The health logistics services provide customers with an efficient, tailor made, low-cost, and simplified group purchasing process. The health management department will benefit from the opportunity presented by the influx of more tourists from China. The medical specialty department hopes to provide medical device leasing and specialty services to 378 mid to small size hospitals it currently targets.

ShareHope considers M&A as expanding strategy. Revenue expected to increase 20-30%.

Based on market forecast, the after-tax earnings per share of the newly listed company ShareHope (8403) is expected to be 2.4 dollar, and its annual revenue growth rate is projected to be 20-30%. ShareHope is considering domestic mergers and acquisitions to expand its medication and supply logistics, and clinic operation businesses. With regard to development in China, it is hoping to establish a strategic partnership with companies that share complementary goals.

Group purchasing of medication and health supply logistics accounted for over 80% of

ShareHope’s revenues last year. The rest of its revenues came from health checkup business (11-12%) and medical specialty service (6-7%). Earnings after tax for the first 3 quarters were 80.32 million dollars, or 1.9 dollars per share.
ShareHopes’ revenue in January reached a historic record of 130 million dollars due to a spike in customers’ orders before the Chinese New Year. Medication and health supply logistics generated revenues significantly higher than their average the previous year. Earlier this month, ShareHope signed a contract with the Ten-Chen Healthcare Network, a Taoyuan based healthcare supplier, adding another customer to its group purchasing platform.

Ten-Chen Healthcare Network, which is viewed as a typical healthcare provider in the Taoyuan area, operates two hospitals and will be an important contributor to ShareHope’s revenues in the future. Meanwhile, the Department of Health latest policy to recommend patients refill prescriptions for chronic medication from local pharmacies rather than from hospitals provides an incentive for local pharmacies to join the group purchasing platform offered by ShareHope. As indicated by ShareHope, the company is considering more M&A to broaden its channels among pharmacies and clinics.

ShareHope also hopes for a boost to its health checkup business from an expected influx of tourists and patients from the Chinese mainland. However the degree by which this will impact on ShareHope’s business is highly dependent on a loosening of the policies that still restrict the travel of Chinese nationals in Taiwan. Health checkup services provided by ShareHope now account for 30% of all health check up services in the Taoyuan, Hsin-Chu, and Miao-Li areas.

DAISY nurse March -- Wu Jia-Yun

Nurse Wu Jai-Yun worked on the ventilator care unit for 6 years. The patients are all long term chronic respiratory dependent patients. Most of these patients are unresponsive and they stare blindly in the white ceiling every day and that may be the only thing they see day in and day out. Typically the nurse's duty can also be mundane and repetitious. But to nurse Wu, she sees her job is to not only take good care of the patients physically with compassion and enthusiasm but also provide emotional and spiritual support to the patients and their family.

She once had to attend to a 70 years old female patient who was ventilator dependent, and bed ridden after a severe stroke. Her condition wasn’t stable and the outlook was not too optimistic. The patient relied on machines to maintain her vital signs, and her primary caregiver was her daughter. When the physician discussed the DNR option for her mother, her daughter refused and insisted on aggressive resuscitation instead.

While interacting with the patient’s daughter, Nurse Wu Jia-Yun realized that there was a strong bond between the daughter and her mother. The daughter was not married and her mother was her life’s only focus. Losing her mother would mean lose her motivation for other things. Understanding the situation, Nurse Wu Jia-Yun made exception to the visiting-hours limitation, hence increasing the time available to the daughter to care for the patient. Ms. Wu also made efforts to improve the comfort level of the patient, by relieving her pain and providing spiritual support. Through interaction, she soon developed a very good relationship with the patient’s daughter. Ms. Wu helped the daughter cope and grieve. The patient’s daughter began to understand that since nothing could be done that would improve her mother’s condition, letting go may be the best way to relieve her mother from suffering. She eventually accepted the DNR option for her mother, and the patient passed away surrounded by her family in peace and dignity.

For Nurse Wu Jia-Yun, the core of good patient care is to maintain the patient’s dignity and improve his or her comfort during illness. The scope of care is also extended to the patient’s relatives. She demonstrated the core values of Min-Sheng Healthcare Network in:

■ Honesty：
1. Complete duties within timeframe.
2. Follow hospital and department policies and procedures.
■ Originality：
1.Involved in quality indicator monitoring, and in various quality improvement projects.
2. Involve in developing nursing continuous education.
■ Progression：
1. Pursued further academic degree while working at the same time.
2. Voluntarily attended nursing administration training course and was promoted as the deputy head nurse of the respiratory care center in 2010.
■ Excellence：
1. Proactively identifies patient and family needs/difficulties and provides recourses and support.
2. Patient and family satisfaction.
■ Sharing：
1. Is a clinical mentor and teaches new staff and nursing students; she is viewed by others as enthusiastic and a patient mentor.
2. Willing to cover extra shifts and support other units when there’s a staffing shortage.