Founded in the US in 1910 as a small manufacturer of healthcare supplies, Medline is today a thriving US$7-billion enterprise with a presence all over the world.
Its overall mission is to provide quality medical products with superior value to healthcare providers and end users, improving patient care, and enhancing the quality of people’s lives.
In Australia and New Zealand, the business is achieving great feats under the direction of General Manager Brian Palmer, who joined the group in the US in 2006, initially as a product manager and then moving up the ranks and into the top spot in Australia and New Zealand [ANZ] two years ago.
With a decade worth of experience under his belt at Medline, Brian knows the industry well and has witnessed many instances of change. “Something that’s happened in the US, Australia, and around the globe is that there is a lot of cost pressure on healthcare. I think this is why we have such an interesting opportunity here in Australia and New Zealand,” he says. “You hear about it a lot in the press; all of our politicians are talking about having to get the cost of healthcare down. This means procurement for hospitals, aged care, and the entire healthcare spectrum is really targeted at the cost of products and getting them to be as low as possible. I think that has already happened in Australia, especially with the recent drop of the Australian dollar,” he says.