Rick Import founded Whitehat Communications in 2008 to fill an educational need for Point-of-Care Coordinators (POCCs). Prior to Whitehat, Rick led interactive and educational discussions at POC Groups throughout the country titled “Leadership Communication” which provided attendees with techniques and tips to improve their communications with their supervisors and operators using real-life issues in the lab and on the floor (this effort also led to Rick presenting at the 2016 the Association for Diagnostics & Laboratory Medicine (formerly AACC) POC Forum – speaking on the subject of ‘Leadership Communication for the POCC: Overcoming the Barriers of Productive Communication’).
At the same time, he was hosting and producing webinars for a Charlottesville, VA based company, Medical Decisions Network (MDN), on their products and services. While at POC group events, the subject of alternative ways to ‘meet’ often came up, as it was harder and harder for POCCs to attend face-to-face meetings – and from these discussions – the idea of POC Group hosted webinars was born.
Rick left MDN and formed Whitehat Communications with one sole purpose – to produce webinars for the hospital laboratory and point of care community across the U.S. that would provide educational sessions covering a wide range of timely and practical topics chosen by the POC groups themselves.
Since the inception of Whitehat POC Webinars:
- Educational sessions have been delivered by respected experts in the field of POCT
- Each session is free to attendees and funded by a supportive family of vendors
- Each session gives point of care groups the opportunity to communicate, discuss, and share knowledge relating to point of care on a regular basis
- Each session includes PACE® continuing education credits to attendees
- More than 350 sessions have been held and hosted by POC groups throughout the country
- More than 400,000 people from all areas of the hospital lab have attended
- POC groups have used the webinars to maintain the visibility of the group and to maintain communication with their members
- POC vendors have turned to Whitehat to produce corporate webinars