As you probably know, each Friday we try and share something funny or entertaining to start your weekend. This week I’m not sure if this is funny, sad, scary, disappointing, or all of the above. In case you missed it, Siemens Healthcare renamed their business to Siemens Healthineers. No, this is not a joke. No, it’s not an Onion article. It’s too late for April Fool’s day. They really did rename their healthcare business to Siemens Healthineers. Everyone is wondering how much money they paid for that misguided choice.
Of course, to layer on the absurdity, it looks like Siemens also did a big announcement party for the new name and someone shared it on YouTube:
If you made it through the whole video, I’m sorry. You’ll never get that 3 minutes of your life back. I can only imagine how much it cost to produce that event. I guess they’re using the $1.3 billion they got from Cerner when they sold a big chunk of their EHR healthcare business to fund it.
The reactions to the name change and party in the comments of the YouTube video are pretty brutal. Here’s one example:
So they spent all this money on renting the space, bringing in all that equipment, paying people to write and sing the song, etc when they could have given all the employee’s raises.
Followed by this comment from someone who seems to have been there:
They also had a helicopter landing platform plus roadblocks for the whole area. And yes, it was just to announce the second rename in 12 months.
My comment is simply, “And we wonder why healthcare is so expensive.” I guess they’re living the principle that no PR is bad PR.
Of course, this YouTube video comment took the cake for me:
Corporate: How do we motivate our employees?
Drone: We could pay them more or improve their benefits?
Corporate: Don’t be stupid! We’ll do a power rangers routine on stage instead, it’ll be great.
Nothing like power rangers to improve company morale. Do you all feel more motivated? Go forth and be healthcare pioneers!