Today we actually got the opportunity to sleep in. Last night I got the most sleep that I have gotten this entire trip. This morning someone came to the hotel to speak to us from Johnson & Johnson, his name was Vladimir Kosek and he is a healthcare compliance officer. He has worked for Johnson & Johnson for 13 years. This presentation was interesting to me because he made sure to point out the differences between how they do things in the Czech Republic and how we do things in the United States. Johnson & Johnson has three sectors and they are medical devices and diagnostics, which make up 40%, Janssen pharmaceuticals, which make up 36%, and then consumer, which make up 24%. This was interesting to me because all I am familiar with is the consumer section and that is their smallest sector. One big way they differ from the U.S. is that Johnson & Johnson is an umbrella company, which means that they are all under one legal entity. There are many companies under the Johnson and Johnson brand. Just to name a few thee is Gynecare, Ethicon and Codman. Here in the Czech Republic they do not have as big of an issue with keeping doctors like Austria and Hungary do. The average salary for a doctor here is $2400 a month. We found out the Czech Republic has one of the worst age structures in Europe.

Ways in which the Czech Republic differs from the United States were very interesting. All people here have health insurance and there is almost no co-payment. Since there is no co-payment there is a low level of private resources in healthcare. You can pay for private care but you have to pay for the WHOLE procedure, not just the difference. There are also 7 sickness funds and 58% of the population is in the major one. There is also no stability in healthcare financing. Compliance and corruption is also a problem here and there is low adoption to new technologies and new procedures. This is because there is no clear process for lobbying and relationship management. I’ve also learned that it seems to be a trend in Europe that they get way more vacation time then we do in the U.S. The standard so far has been about 5 weeks!

After the Johnson & Johnson presentation we got free time to go eat and we went into a little grocery store here to get a delicious sandwich for lunch. After lunch we went to go meet with Cisco. They deal with software and a lot of other technical things that I do not understand. There we learned about trends that they are seeing and the biggest one is mobility, which I’m sure surprises no one. Another trend is smart-buildings and he showed us how they can control LED lighting with your phone or tablet. We also learned that 46% of organizations are planning to transition to internet connects and this is because the cost of internet is going down. In 1998 it cost $1000 and by 2012 it only cost $2.34. One crazy prediction that have made is that by 2017 video will exceed 66% of all mobile data.

For the rest of the night we are going to get ready and go to a local pub to watch the world cup! Tonight it is Germany v. USA. I’m excited we get to experience watching some soccer here in a local pub and get to cheer on USA at the same time! It will be nice to enjoy a few drinks and get to sleep in again tomorrow!

 

This is a picture of a pretty building we saw on our walk to Cisco!

 

This is a picture of the sign right inside the Cisco office!