Sandhill Scientific Sandhill Scientific is a medical device manufacturer that has revolutionized the world of gastrointestinal diagnostics with its patented impedance technology. Sandhill’s resistance monitoring systems have eclipsed outdated pH monitoring techniques for diagnosing acid reflux symptoms that adversely affect millions of people. Sandhill Scientific provides doctors around the world with technology and support for accurate reflux monitoring and comprehensive esophageal function assessment.

Because of the advanced nature of Sandhill's products, effective use of their technology requires a significant amount of customer training on topics such as impedance theory, equipment setup, esophageal motility, editing and analysis, and more. To provide this training, Sandhill operates a state-of-the-art clinical education center at their Denver, CO, headquarters where doctors and clinicians visit for 3- or 7-day training sessions to receive hands-on experience and meet with product experts. However, face-to-face training is time consuming and expensive for both the customer and Sandhill staff. Not only is it difficult for doctors and clinicians to find time in their hectic schedules for off-site training but, since September 11th, travel has become more costly and cumbersome for everyone. Sandhill found it increasingly difficult to get customers to attend classes. For these reasons as well as general market pressures, Sandhill decided to look for a faster and more convenient training method.

The Starcast Solution Now Sandhill customers go directly to the company’s website and access a series of 18 StarCast courses that guide them through product theory, equipment setup, patient preparation, intubation, monitoring, analysis, and many other topics. Each course is from 30 to 45 minutes and can be viewed from the hospital floor, a patient’s room, home, or anywhere—day or night. Training is now much more convenient for the customer, which makes it a customer-friendly solution.


One of the biggest advantages of converting to web-based training has been that doctors and clinicians can now review training information just before a procedure. A typical procedure involves a number of steps. The equipment and methods are complicated, and having instant access to refresher training is very helpful for clinicians who do not work with the system every day.

Another benefit of using StarCast is in the area of upgrade training. Like many high-tech products, software and hardware upgrades are released frequently, and some are complex enough to require retraining. In the past, time and inconvenience dissuaded customers from returning to Denver for refresher training. Now with StarCast, product upgrade training courses are made available to customers on the Internet the instant the upgrade is released.

StarCast has also helped in the area of turnover. Each hospital –(customer) designates certain nurses and clinicians to be trained as experts on Sandhill products and procedures. When those expert employees leave the hospital for employment elsewhere, Sandhill sales reps had the responsibility of training replacement clinicians. Such training keeps Sandhill equipment in active use and generates continuous sales of supplies and consumables, but it is time consuming for the sales reps and takes away from their primary job, which is finding and closing new business. Now that training has been taken over by StarCast, Sandhill sales reps are freed to focus on new customers.

The Customer Friendly Solution Sandhill Scientific continues to offer live training at their Denver headquarters and at locations around the world, and many customers choose to utilize both the web and live courses. However, for customers who need to get started immediately, training is instantly available on the Internet; no one has to wait for the next classroom opening. Customers can buy Sandhill’s products today and begin training immediately.

For more information on Sandhill Scientific, go to http://www.sandhillsci.com.