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Our Competitive Advantages
The confluence of demographic, legislative, and financial factors has given rise to a highly fragmented market sector broadly specializing in medical staffing and recruiting. With the projected demands facing the United States healthcare industry, Medical Connections is poised to take advantage of the windfall from this promising opportunity. The increasing opportunity in the healthcare industry was detected by a small number of high profile companies, who represent the main competition to Medical Connections. As shown below, the stable growth of these companies proves great possibilities exist for Medical Connections to secure its profitable place in the industry.
TRENDS CHARACTERIZING THE COMPETITION OF MEDICAL CONNECTIONS IN THE FIELD OF CONTRACT STAFFING
- • A significant concentration of companies providing contract staffing services.
- • In 2006, there were 21 large healthcare staffing companies, each of which had annual revenue in excess of $50 million.
- • These 21 companies account for $5.3 billion or nearly one half of total healthcare staffing revenue.
- • Even though the market trend is towards consolidation, the large majority of healthcare staffing companies are still relatively small.
- • The trend of consolidating recruiting companies follows the same pattern as staffing firms. This is more pronounced in nurse recruiting, while allied health, science and pharmacy recruiting remain vastly fragmented.
Current Competitive Landscape
High profile deals and consolidations in the healthcare recruiting and staffing industry continue to rise. The predominant trend for big companies in the healthcare staffing and recruiting is to acquire smaller market players in niche fields, mainly with allied care and hospital technology specialization. The companies profiled below have experienced unprecedented growth by acquiring smaller medical recruiting and staffing companies.
AMN HEALTHCARE SERVICES, INC. (NYSE: AHS)
AMN Healthcare Services, Inc. is the largest healthcare staffing company in the USA. It provides travel nurse and allied staffing services, locum tenens and physician permanent placement services. The Company provides staffing services mainly to acute care and sub-acute healthcare facilities, physician groups, dialysis centers, clinics, radiology imaging facilities, and retail and mail-order pharmacies. AMN markets its travel nursing services to hospitals and healthcare facilities generally under one brand, AMN Healthcare, as a single staffing provider with access to healthcare professionals from several nurse recruitment brands. The Company markets its locum tenens and physician permanent placement services under the brand names Staff Care and Merritt, Hawkins & Associates, respectively, and markets its allied healthcare staffing services under the brand names Med Travelers, Platinum Select Staffing and Rx Pro Health. It acquired Platinum Select Staffing in February 2008 for $50.3 million in cash.
Revenue for the full year 2007 was an industry record $1.16 billion, an increase of 7.6% from the $1.08 billion reported for 2006.
CROSS COUNTRY HEALTHCARE, INC. (NASDAQ: CCRN)
Cross Country Healthcare, Inc. is a leading provider of healthcare staffing services in the United States, a global provider of clinical trials services to pharmaceutical and biotechnology customers, as well as a provider of other human capital management services focused on healthcare. The Company has a national client base of approximately 4,000 contracts with hospitals, pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, and other healthcare organizations. During the year ended December 31, 2007, its nurse and allied staffing business segment represented 80% of its revenue. This segment includes: travel and per diem nurse staffing, and travel allied health staffing. Travel nurse staffing is the Company's largest business and it represented approximately 68% of its total revenue. On July 18, 2007, the Company acquired the shares of privately held Assent consulting (Assent). On June 6, 2007, the Company acquired AKOS Limited (AKOS) for $14.0 in cash. AKOS is a provider of drug safety, regulatory and clinical trial services to pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies in Europe, the United States, Canada and Asia.
Cross Country revenue for 2007 was $718 million – 7.4 % up from the 2006 reporting of $655 million.
MEDICAL STAFFING NETWORK INC. (NYSE: MRN)
Medical Staffing Network Holdings, Inc. is a diversified temporary healthcare staffing company and a provider of per diem staffing services (staffing assignments of less than two weeks in duration) in the United States as measured by revenues. The Company's per diem staffing assignments places its professionals, predominately nurses, at hospitals and other healthcare facilities in response to its clients' temporary staffing needs. Its travel and contract-based staffing assignments place its professionals at hospitals and other healthcare facilities across the country for assignments typically lasting more than two weeks. In July 2007, it completed the acquisition of InteliStaf Holdings, Inc., for $92 million in cash.
The Company serves its clients through a temporary healthcare staffing network in the United States. As of December 30, 2007, this network consisted of over 110 per diem branches providing nurse staffing on a per diem basis in 42 states. Its client base includes approximately 7,000 healthcare facilities, including for-profit and not-for-profit hospitals, teaching hospitals and regional healthcare providers.
ON ASSIGNMENT, INC. (NASDAQ: ASGN)
On Assignment, Inc. is a diversified professional staffing firm providing flexible and permanent staffing solutions in specialty skills including laboratory/scientific, healthcare, and medical financial and health information services. It also provides physician staffing and staffing in the areas of information technology and engineering. The Company's business consists of two operating segments: Lab Support and Healthcare Staffing. The Lab Support segment includes its domestic and international life science staffing businesses. The Healthcare Staffing segment includes its Nurse Travel and Medical Financial and Allied lines of business. In January 2007, the Company completed the acquisition of VISTA Staffing Solutions, a $41 million deal, to diversify its staffing portfolio with this provider of physician staffing and permanent physician search services. In February 2007, the Company acquired Oxford Global Resources, Inc. for $190 million in cash. Oxford Global Resources is a provider of information technology and engineering staffing services – both of which are of critical importance to hospitals and medical labs.
As a result of the service expansion and smart operations, the revenue of the company almost doubled from $287.57 in 2006 to $567.18 in 2007.
CHG HEALTHCARE SERVICES INC.
CHG Healthcare Services, formerly CompHealth Group, provides locum tenens (physician staffing) services, recruiting physicians in 35 specialties for temporary and permanent assignments at hospitals and medical practices throughout the U.S. It offers temporary placement of nurses and allied health professionals, including physician assistants, pharmacists, and radiology technicians. CHG Healthcare serves more than 4,100 customers and operates under the names CompHealth, Weather by Locums, Destination Healthcare Staffing, and RN Network. In December 2006, investment firm J.W. Childs acquired the company for more than $300 million.
At the end of 2006 the company posted revenue of $416 million.
Other substantial medical staffing and recruiting companies include:
– MAXIM HEALTHCARE SERVICES INC. 2004 Revenue: $307 million
– NURSEFINDERS INC. 2004 Revenue: $260 million
Competition from companies not traditionally involved with healthcare staffing and recruitment:
Multimillion dollar companies known worldwide for recruiting professionals in fields such as IT, accounting, management, and creative talent are entering the lucrative market of medical recruiting and staffing. During the last few years, multi-profile staffing companies created healthcare divisions or bought small to medium medical staffing companies in order to enter into the lucrative market of healthcare recruiting. Other companies, in healthcare industry or investment, bought or extended their services to offer medical staffing. This trend shows that the medical staffing and recruiting business represents a very profitable niche even for non-traditional players in the market.
TEAMSTAFF, INC. (NASDAQ: TSTF)
TeamStaff, Inc. was founded in 1969 as a payroll company and has evolved into a leading provider of payroll and temporary and permanent medical staffing services throughout the 50 states. The company provides specialized medical, nursing and administrative staffing services. TeamStaff provides allied healthcare, nursing professionals and administrative personnel through two staffing subsidiaries. The Company’s TeamStaff Rx subsidiary operates throughout the United States and specializes in providing travel allied medical employees and nurses (on a 13-week assignment basis), as well as permanent placement services. Allied medical staff includes MRI technicians, mammographers, dosimetrists, ultrasound staff and physicists. TeamStaff provides staffing services through its wholly owned subsidiaries, TeamStaff Rx and RS Staffing Services. Effective May 31, 2006, TeamStaff exited the payroll processing business. Effective January 27, 2008, the Company sold its Nursing Innovations Per Diem business unit located in Memphis, Tennessee to Temps Inc.
With this structure, TeamStaff achieved sales of $66.9 million in 2007.
SOLIANT HEALTH (Part of MPS Group, Inc., NYSE: MPS)
Soliant health was part of MPS Group Inc. – a giant in the staffing industry, with revenue of 2.2 billion in 2007. MPS Group Inc. MPS Group, Inc. (MPS), is a provider of business services with over 230 offices throughout the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, continental Europe Australia and Asia. The Company delivers specialty staffing, consulting and business solutions to industries, including information technology (IT) services, accounting and finance, engineering, legal IT solutions, healthcare, and workforce automation. Focusing on travel and direct hire assignments, Soliant Health delivers comprehensive healthcare staffing services. Their areas of expertise cover nursing, therapy, pharmacy, locum tenens, imaging, and healthcare financial positions.
Soliant Health revenue in 2007 was $109 million
– 27% increase from the previous year.
KFORCE, INC. (NASDAQ: KFRC)
Kforce Inc. (Kforce) is a provider of professional and technical specialty staffing services. The Company’s staffing services include Flexible Staffing Services (Flex) and Search Services (Search). The Company provide its clients staffing services and solutions through four business segments: Technology (Tech), Finance and Accounting (FA), Health and Life Sciences (HLS) and Government Solutions (GS). The HLS segment includes the Company's clinical research, scientific, healthcare-nursing (Nursing) and health information management (HIM) specialties, all of which are within the Health and Life Sciences field. The total revenue of the company for 2007 was $1,037 million. The HLS segment consists of skilled professionals and technical services in the clinical research, healthcare and scientific fields. Positions in these categories include clinical research associates (CRAs) for the pharmaceutical industry, and healthcare information management professionals and nurses for hospitals. The Scientific specialty group supplies laboratory, research and development, quality assurance and quality control professionals to a range of industries.
International Competition
International healthcare staffing and recruiting companies exhibit the same trends as their U.S. counterparts: large acquisitions, mergers, and purchases of healthcare staffing companies by traditional staffing giants. Clinical One with Vedior N.V. is just one example.
CLINICAL ONE (Euronext Amsterdam: VDOR)
Clinical One is a healthcare staffing firm that recruits select professionals for placement in travel, contract, per diem, case management and permanent positions nationwide. Clinical One is a member of the Vedior Group of companies, the third largest international specialty staffing organization, serving 18 distinct niche sectors through more than 2,300 offices in 44 countries. The company places clinical professionals throughout the U.S. and overseas through the following divisions:
Clinical One Travel: 13-26 week contracts anywhere in the United States
Clinical One Per Diem: Flexible day-to-day shifts in local areas with nursing, allied health and unlicensed personnel.
Clinical One Case Management Group: Short-term contracts and permanent placement at a variety of facilities, including corporations, in targeted areas such as Case Management and Social Work, as well as other non-clinical healthcare professions.
Clinical One Permanent Placement: Direct hires nationwide in high level nursing, allied health and healthcare administrative/financial positions.
Clinical One International Placement Program: offers placement of RN’s, Allied Health Professionals and Social Workers in the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand.
Locum Medical Group: Provides physicians.
Delta-Pharma: Life sciences staffing.
The 2007 revenue of Vedior was $3.4 billion, with significant growth of Clinical One’s share.
In the international market, Medical Connections faces competitors with characteristics similar to those of U.S. companies
These companies are mainly based in the European Community and Canada. They tap into the vast global pool of qualified professionals to satisfy not only the needs of their respective countries, but also to export nurses, pharmacists, and physicians to the United States. Most of the UK companies have offices abroad. Since the nurse and allied health specialists shortage in the UK has the same characteristics as in the USA, many new companies were created between 1996 and 2007 to take advantage of this growing market.
ALLIED HEALTHCARE INTERNATIONAL INC. (NASDAQ: AHCI)
Allied Healthcare International (formerly Transworld HealthCare) offers temporary staffing services to the UK healthcare industry. The company operates through a network of some 130 branches across the UK and offices in NYC. Allied Healthcare places its staff, which includes more than 25,000 nurses, nurse’s aides, and home health aides, in hospitals, nursing homes, care homes, and private homes. Allied Healthcare also provides medical-grade oxygen for respiratory therapy to pharmacies and patients at home in Northern Ireland. UK healthcare staffing (patient services) operations account for nearly all of the company's sales. Allied Healthcare generated about 65% of revenue from governmental organizations.
AHCI’s sales in 2007 were $277 million.
NESTOR HEALTHCARE GROUP PLC (United Kingdom)
Through its subsidiaries, Nestor Healthcare Group provides health care services to individuals and commercial enterprises. The firm’s Healthcare Staffing unit provides temporary and permanent health care workers to hospitals, nursing homes, private residences, and prisons. The company also provides live-in companions for clients in need of extra aid (through Country Cousins) and offers support for patients with learning disabilities and mental illness (New Horizons). Nestor’s Social Care and Primary Care divisions offer home-based care services, out-of-hours service to health care providers, primary care, and other services. Its division Cornelle provides physician staffing. Nestor Healthcare Group revenue for 2006 was $338 million.
ICON PLC and DOCS INTERNATIONAL (Ireland)
DOCS International ambition was a leading pan- European Staffing Company for the Healthcare Industries before its acquisition in 2007 by ICON Contracting Solutions. DOCS growth into Europe commenced in 2002 with offices opening in France, Germany and the Nordic countries, then expanding into the UK, Sweden and Poland in 2003. Later that year DOCS formed an alliance with the U.S. Company Clinforce, Inc. as their partner in Europe. In late 2006, DOCS opened its European head office in Amstelveen, bringing the total number of DOCS offices to 10, located in 8 different countries.
As of July 1st 2007, DOCS International was acquired by ICON Contracting Solutions (ICS), based in New York, to form a global specialist staffing division. ICON designs studies, recruits investigators, manages and analyzes trial data, writes reports and other documents – and assists with regulatory filings. It also helps with preclinical drug development and with post-approval safety monitoring. The firm operates some 50 facilities in more than 30 countries.
ICON has more than 350 clients, including all of the world's 20 largest drug makers. The company has been expanding its geographic presence and its service line with the aim of becoming a single source provider of clinical outsourcing for its clients. It opened offices in China, India, Lithuania, and Poland in 2006 and plans to continue expansion in Eastern Europe, Latin America, and some parts of Asia (particularly India and Japan). In 2007 it expanded its clinical staffing services into Europe with the acquisition of DOCS International. In addition to designing and managing clinical trials, the company provides clinical research staffing services (through ICON Contracting Solutions).
REED HEALTH GROUP (United Kingdom)
Reed Health Group provides staffing services in the areas of health care and social work. The company operates through four primary divisions. Reed Nurse supplies nursing staff to clients in the South East of the UK. Reed Doctor provides doctors to the private sector; it operates from four branches and covers the entire UK. Reed Health covers almost 15 health care professions and operates from five branches and clients located across England, Scotland, and Wales. Reed Social Care recruits specialists in social work, community support, and residential work in both the public and private sectors. The company acquired in 2007 the Locum Group and increased its operations to Australia, Canada, New Zealand and across many other European countries.


