Medical Design & Outsourcing won regional Azbee awards for these 2023 cover stories.
Medical Design & Outsourcing and members of our team have once again won honors in the annual American Society of Business Publication Editors (ASBPE) Awards of Excellence competition.
The ASBPE Awards of Excellence, also called the Azbee Awards, recognize the highest quality reporting, editing and design in business-to-business, trade, association and professional publications.
Medical Design & Outsourcing won four regional awards in the Heartland region, which covers the Cleveland, Ohio headquarters of our owner. ASBPE will reveal whether they are gold, silver or bronze awards in April or May.
Additionally, ASBPE will name national gold, silver, bronze and Overall Excellence finalists on April 18. Medical Design & Outsourcing won four national and Overall Excellence honors from ASBPE in 2023.
Our 2024 regional awards were for:
Diversity in medtech: Women hold less than a quarter of executive roles in medtech (Category: Diversity, Equity and Inclusion)
Senior Editor Danielle Kirsh conducted this analysis as part of our annual Women in Medtech edition.
“Now that this analysis is in its fifth year, I have been able to watch the prevalence of women in leadership roles go up,” she said. “This project has inspired critical thinking within companies — some even reaching out to tell me that they realize they need to work on how they present their leadership teams to the public. As some of the industry experts in the article said, the patient population is diverse, and medtech leadership needs to reflect that diversity in positions that have a seat at the table. I’m thankful that this analysis continues to start conversations within the industry about the state of leadership. Hopefully by the analysis’ tenth year, the prevalence of women in leadership roles will look more like the patient population.”
Untangling medtech CEO pay ratios: Exploring the industry’s corner office compensation dynamics (Category: Data Journalism)
Kirsh analyzed medtech CEO pay packages as part of our annual Medtech Big 100 report online and in print.
“The pay ratio analysis really sheds light on some of the pay disparities between median employees and CEOs,” Kirsh said. “It also shows the differences in pay across the industry and the factors at play. For example, one executive can be paid tens of millions of dollars by the board of directors while another CEO chooses to take a smaller pay package to benefit innovation at the company. We’ve seen pay ratio analyses for other major industries, but never for medtech. As someone who frequently covers diversity in the industry, I wanted to bring that data to our industry to encourage a discussion about pay disparities.”
The secret behind Intuitive’s surgical robotics success (Category: Company Profile)
For the cover story of annual Women in Medtech edition, Kirsh interviewed Dr. Myrium Curet — the chief medical officer at Intuitive — to explore how the reigning leader in surgical robotics can stay competitive with other device developers large and small in pursuit.
“This story highlights what a prominent technology leader can do to stay at the forefront of innovation for more than 20 years and how it can compete in today’s market conditions,” Kirsh said. “Dr. Myrium Curet’s input on how collaboration with surgeons helps drive innovation seemed obvious. But the data trove that surgeons can provide engineers offers insights into how devices can evolve with the growing needs of the market and patients.”
LVADs save lives: So why aren’t more available? (Category: Feature Article)
Medical device developers like Abbott have solved technical challenges to create implantable LVAD heart pumps that can keep heart failure patients alive for years while they wait for a heart transplant. But thousands of Americans still die of heart failure, including deaths that might be avoided if more patients had access to these life-saving devices.
Executive Editor Chris Newmarker explored this technology and the barriers keeping them away from patients — notably, members of historically disadvantaged communities. He researched LVAD technology and utilization, and also moderated a live panel at our Device Talks Boston conference featuring experts from LVAD manufacturer Abbott and Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
The panel also included a patient who survived on LVADs for seven years until a new heart was available. That patient, Kyree Miller, is making the most of his new life by advocating for expanded access to heart failure technology, and posed with an LVAD for the cover of our magazine to accompany the feature that Newmarker wrote. It’s vital reminder for the medtech pros in our audience — and even for our own editorial team — of our mission to save and improve as many lives as possible.
Creative Director Matt Claney designed the LVAD feature for our July 2023 magazine, while Managing Editor Jim Hammerand edited the piece and directed the magazine cover photo shoot with Miller. Claney and Hammerand were named as co-recipients on this award with Newmarker.
Links to MDO’s Azbee Awards nominations and award recipients
The ASBPE website has a full list of regional winners, including more about our finalists as well as award-winners from other publications owned by our parent company, WTWH Media.