How Biometric Technologies Improve Healthcare Operations

Health Technology

Article | September 12, 2023

The healthcare industry is experiencing rapid shifts. Some of this is due to the current pandemic, but much of this evolution was happening even before the COVID-19 outbreak. Understanding and embracing the introduction of new technology into the market will be important for healthcare professionals and patients alike. Here are some of the trends worth keeping tabs on:

Health Technology, Digital Healthcare

Article | July 14, 2023

Throughout my professional carrier, I iused to visit many companies involved in drug discoveries and had seen the challenges they go through. Some are pleasant as the investigational molecules were moving forward in value chain whereas few faced bottlenecks at the end. The association with Pharma industry over the years had taught me about many new ideas and allowed me to see that how innovative ideas are impacting our social and scientific world to a great extent. The changes we see today, are the results of ideas came from various quarters globally and I feel digital innovation had shaped today’s world differently. The impact of digital platform in today’s Pharma world is a “Game-Changer". Innovation is a continuous process which simplifies challenges into reality and plays a very important role in our society. Centuries ago, scientists used to spend years in laboratories to understand material science. The chemical science evolved around discovering elements, synthesis of compounds or even isolating products from natural resources. Today’s world is highly indebted to those discoveries and efforts and modern science has gradually moved towards digital platform. Last few decades, innovations based on new technology platforms has made huge impact in scientific discoveries and few such ideas and action I feel has brought significant changes. Our lifestyle and social environment have witnessed deep impact due to such innovation. The chemical science is evolved not around only chemists today but have huge influence of mathematicians and technologists for faster development. Advancement of digital science, new algorithms to solve the problems has modified the way of drug discovery to a great extent. In the recent past, we were heavily depended on big machines, but innovation has brought the whole items in a small packet now. The technology platform is modified, speed has increased in identifying new drugs with artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning is accelerating the drug discovery and development processes. Today’s Pharma industries for commercial supplies are now depended on automation, optimization of the manufacturing processes, as well as designing effective marketing and post-launch strategies. The process is aimed to have better control on the operation, improving safety and better predictability of quality. For conducting clinical trials, identifying patient’s profile, an eligibility criteria is crucial which has been made by the processes being faster and cost effective by introducing Artificial Intelligence (AI). Earlier when focus was to identify the origin of life, finding new elements, compounds or building blocks, today’s world is heavily dependent on data or ‘Big Data’. The amount of information available throughout drug discovery and development process, analyzing, interpreting, and predicting right candidate require high-performance systems to analyze data properly and derive value from it. There is advancement of analytical techniques, which provides more accurate information about the clinical trial reports and the data across patient pool, zeroing down towards right candidate is a real challenge and there are several AI enabled tools available where the processing time is reduced significantly which might have taken several years. The exciting part is that innovation is not only limited to laboratory work but works in coordination of mathematical interpretations, data analysis and provide significant clues to develop new molecules and even provide approach towards therapeutic categories. Currently available advanced technologies enhance drug development process, making it less time-consuming and cost-effective process where AI can recognize hit and lead compounds, and provide a quicker validation of the drug target and optimization of the drug structure design. Data scientists play a very significant role in all these activities. Innovation focusing personalized medicine is now a reality and companies involved in such basic research have made breakthrough to understand how the human body responds to drug. Software solution is also available for simulating effects of drugs in patient body based on individual characteristics, scientific data for real time prediction of efficacy and drug interaction on individual. These predictive models are shortening drug discovery pathways to a great extent. Small molecule drugs or even large molecules development are heavily depended today on such modelling and predictive approach. The aim to reduce cost of drug development, shortening discovery path, focus on clinical trial mechanism is more productive with a higher success rate. During the pandemic period, in a shortest possible manner, several companies started working to develop new drugs or vaccines using drug-specific exposure models for drugs under investigation for the treatment of Covid-19. Similarly, discovery platform is also working on cutting edge technology ‘Organ-on-a-chip’ that can emulate the physiological environment and functionality of human organs on a chip for disease modeling, mimicking the impact and could be a game changer in future. I will be happy to see when technology platform can accurately predict human mind and with the help of AI, can find a probable solution to avoid any such complex conflicts. It would be interesting to see that AI is analyzing and predicting the chemical change in the bodies impacting human mind and analysisng it quickly to predict psychological behavior of the patient and guide physician for right therapy. This may lead to predicting problems one may face in old ages where the decays may be prevented at early stage. This is a challenge but understanding and predicting psychological behavior may improve patients’ life. Depression and its remedy may be based on understanding changes, patterns of physicochemical behavior and its impact during mood swing and predicting such things in advance by using the advanced AI tools could be a game changer. Another path breaking development where technology involving both engineers and scientists to help drug design to obtain maximal therapeutic benefits for patients including designing drug delivery systems and biomedical devices is 3D-printing technology. This involves high end computer simulations making analysis faster and predictive than before. Influence of 3D printing in designing variety of dosage forms has simplified its preparation. Though further study is under progress but the technology implementation at late has reduced cost of drug development to a significant extent and will add value in future drug development. It is interesting to see how this 3D printing technology works on human brain mapping and predicting a right path for treatment for betterment of large patient pool. Today with advanced technology, we are now more dependent on machines, limited close interaction with our near and dear ones, but created more friends on social platform. Though life looks easy, but over dependent on machines is creating another complex environment and this growing complexity may change the disease pattern. It will be interesting to see that how these technology platforms improve further to ease out such complexities for a healthy future.

Healthtech Security

Article | November 29, 2023

Prioritizing health and managing it, has become highly important because our lifestyle is continuously evolving in ways that take a toll on us mentally, physically, and emotionally. However, the major issue for the patients lies in the inaccuracy of treatment due to the lack of complete health records in any hospital. With the recent changes in privacy legislation and data management, patients are even unable to retrieve their own health records. For example, someone had an accident and was taken to the emergency room. The first thing they will need to do in their condition is to fill the hospital’s form. Then, for the treatment, if the injured person is conscious enough, doctors ask questions like if they are allergic to some medicines or do they suffer from diabetes or any other disease. Besides, what if the individual denies having allergies or diabetes in their half-conscious state? And the previous hospitals where they have already had treatment before have denied sharing the medical details of the person either due to privacy issues or data corruption. Well, it can create a lot of fuzz. Solely, to improve the health industry without compromising the security of the individuals, blockchain has remained in the discussion. It has the potential to address the operability challenges present in the healthcare industry. But, what is blockchain, what are its underlying fundamentals, why blockchain, and what are its advantages? Today’s blog will help in understanding every aspect of blockchain and its impact on the healthcare industry. So let’s get started! What is Blockchain? Blockchain is a P2P or peer-to-peer distributed or decentralized ledger technology. It stores a chain of data called blocks of information. These blocks are chained together by cryptographic signatures. These signatures are called hash that is stored in the shared ledger and backed by a connected processes network - node. These nodes reserve a copy of the complete chain and get continually updated by synchronization. Though, to include blockchain in the process it’s necessary to hire a developer who has prior experience and knowledge about its architecture and can work with the components efficiently as blockchain is a designed pattern that consists of three major constituents - a distributed network, a shared ledger, and all the digital transactions. a. Distributed Network As discussed before, blockchain is built on peer-to-peer networks. While having no central point of storage, it makes the information on the network less vulnerable to being lost or exploited. Unlike the traditional client-server model that has a centralized storage point or controlling party, all the information in the blockchain network is constantly recorded and transferred to the participants of the network that are also known as nodes or peers. These peers also own several identical copies of the information. That’s why blockchain is seen as a huge improvement to centralized models and is considered the future of data storage and ownership. b. Shared Ledger Each authorized participant in the network records the transactions into the shared ledger. If they want to add any transaction, it is important to run algorithms that evaluate and verify the transactions. If the majority of members agree to the transaction’s validity, a new transaction gets added to the shared ledger. The changes done in the shared ledger is reflected in minutes or even seconds in the copies of the blockchain. Once the transaction is added, there’s no way to modify or delete it. Also, as the copy is shared in the form of a ledger to each member, no single member can alter data. c. Digital Transaction Transactions are information i.e. data transmission to one block. During the process of data transmission, each node acts as a central point to generate and digitally sign the transaction. As the nodes connect each other in the network, each of them has to verify the transaction independently for its conflicts, validity, and compliance. Only after the transaction passes the verification, the information is added into the shared ledger. The major element that makes digital transactions successful is cryptographic hashing that encrypts the data for security. Why Blockchain technology in healthcare? It has happened so often that the patient remains unable to gather all of their previous medical records in one format from one place swiftly or sometimes cannot even collect the required information at all. Unfortunately, in most cases, the information of critical patients remains scattered across several different institutions of healthcare that too in different formats. Besides, the data management systems along with the security regulations also vary in different institutions making it difficult to trace and fix mistakes. But, what can blockchain do? A blockchain is a system used for storing and sharing information with security and transparency. Every block in the chain is an independent unit of its own and a dependent link among the collective chain that creates a network controlled by participants rather than a third party. As blockchains are managed by network nodes instead of central authority, they are decentralized that prevents one entity from having complete control over the network. With the incorporation of blockchain, the need for a central administrator will be removed by cryptography. Healthcare providers will be able to promote data management processes beyond perception. It will help in collecting, analyzing, sharing, and securing medical records. It will provide the access to healthcare workers for retrieving health records with the cryptographic keys provided by patients from anywhere without creating any privacy or security problems. Advantages of Healthcare Blockchain Although applications of blockchain in the healthcare industry are inceptive, some early solutions have shown the possibility of reduced healthcare costs, improved access to information among different stakeholders, and streamlining the entire business process. So, keeping aside the buzz, let’s see the real advantages of blockchain in healthcare. 1. Master Patient Indexes The master patient index helps in the identification of patients across separate administrative systems. It is often created within the EHR or electronic health record system. As these EHRs have different vendors, there are several irregularities of MPIs. In many cases, the data of a patient between these healthcare systems become mismatched. However, with the nature of decentralization in Blockchain, it possesses the ability to solve the issue. In the blockchain-based MPIs, the data will be hashed to the ledger and content will remain unique as only the authorized nodes of the data can make changes to the hashes while all parties with access can only check the related information. 2. Single, elongated patient records Blockchain technology is potent to transform health care by placing patients at the center of the system while increasing the security and privacy of health records. It provides a new model for health information exchange by forming electronic elongated patient records secured and efficient. Additionally, the fact that the data is copied among all the nodes of the blockchain network creates an atmosphere of clarity and transparency that enables healthcare providers and patients to know how their data is handled by whom, how, and when. It can also help healthcare from potential frauds, data losses, or security attacks. 3. Supply Chain Management Supply chain management in healthcare is a challenging aspect. With scattered settings for ordering drugs, medical supplies, and critical resources, there’s an inherent risk of compromising the supply chain that might impact patient safety. Indulgence of blockchain technology in the transactions can tap into the complete process of medicine or drug products movement. As all the transactions will be recorded onto the shared ledger with every block recording and maintaining every transaction, it will become easy to verify the vendor, distributor, and origin of the drug within a matter of seconds. It will also enable healthcare physicians and officials to check the authenticity of the supplier’s credentials. 4. Claims Justification Currently, the insurance claim processes face difficulties like lack of transparency i.e. most customers don’t even know how insurance works; human errors and inefficiencies i.e. insurances are full of confusion along with human errors that create inefficiencies that lead to the increased cost to customers; higher frauds in claims. But, blockchain technology can simplify and enhance recordkeeping, payment processing, claims registration, contract management, and closure with its immutable ledger. 5. Interoperability Interoperability is the capability of distinct healthcare information technology to interpret, exchange, and use data. Due to the privacy issues, the alphanumeric code to identify a patient has been revoked that caused problems in gathering the required record of the patient. Enforcing measurement standards for industry-wide interoperability is also a challenge in interoperability. With blockchain in healthcare interoperability, data can be shared in real-time on the trusted network and provides access to the patient’s record in a secured manner. Moreover, with the pri

Article | February 18, 2021

Your sales cycle encompasses every action you take to close a new customer as a salesperson. But there is a possibility for the sales cycle to be confused with sales methodology. Sales methodology is a framework in which one practices a sales cycle. Whereas the sales cycle is the step-by-step process of you, as a salesperson, to close a deal with a client. Piper Drive, a sales CRM and pipeline management platform defines a sales cycle as the series of predictable phases required to sell a product or a service, and that sales cycles can vary greatly among organizations, products, and services, and no one sale will be the same. Especially with the healthcare industry, a thorough understanding of your health tech sales cycle will make your sales operations more efficient. Shortening the sales cycle without an up-front investment for sales is one of the critical healthcare sales and marketing goals. If you shorten your health tech sales cycle, you get more time to make additional leads. This will ultimately result in having an improved bottom line. A faster and shorter sales cycle can bring you more advantages in the competitive sales world of your industry. It will indeed allow your company to grow its business by improving market share. Have you ever thought, as a salesperson, about the effective ways to shorten the health tech sales cycle? This article mainly focuses on proactive ways to shorten your sales cycle and improve profitability. Challenges of Long B2B Health Tech Sales Cycle According to Marketing Sherpa, a market research institute, the length of the sales cycle can vary from industry to industry. Comparatively, the health tech industry has a longer sales cycle. Still, there are many effective ways to shorten it and bring a positive impact on your sales process. In general, B2B sales take a lot of time to maintain. Thus, the B2B health tech sales cycle takes even months to close a sale with a prospect and faces many challenges in the process. Some of the challenges you may face, as a health tech salesperson, can be the following on the process: Turning the Lead to a Sales-Ready Prospect No health tech salesperson will find a lead ready to make the sale without any persuasion from you. In the health tech sales cycle, lead nurturing should be your best bet to convert a prospect. With longer sales cycles, it won't be easy to nurture a lead all through the process and make a sales-ready prospect. It would be easier to convert leads when they are ready if you keep in touch with the prospects. People often find it difficult to do so in the long health tech sales cycle and end up not converting potential clients into happy customers. Maintaining Engagement Over Time The sales team keeps converting leads on their radar. As days and months pass, it is challenging to memorize each prospect you have interacted with. Neglecting them brings nothing to your business. It can be a juggle to balance new prospects with existing SQLs. Older ones may get lost in the weeds as new leads come in. No one can tell which one is a higher priority. Whom will you pay more attention to and for how long? It can be a severe obstacle in the long B2B health tech sales cycle. Keeping Your Sales Team Energized If your sales team is not engaged with the process itself and enjoys it, they will have a more challenging time dealing with leads. It is a fact that, unfortunately, salespeople can become frustrated or bored due to working with difficult and hesitant leads. As the health tech sales cycle drags on, it is tough to remain emotionally calm. If you have no strategies to energize them promptly, apathy or discouragement may come into play. Ensuring Marketing and Sales Alignment Lack of communication between the sales and healthcare marketing teams can pose the most detrimental challenges. It can impact the health tech sales cycle seriously. This loss of alignment between marketing and sales can hurt lead nurturing and lead to further difficulties like the ones listed above. When the two teams move out of sync, it often requires a lot of effort to get them on the same page again. These teams can work separately with decisions and different goals, but it would not benefit the entire company. Five Stages of the Typical Sales Cycle It is better to understand the five stages of the health tech sales cycle to comprehend how the sales cycle comes into play completely. Prospect This is the stage where the sales team attracts leads and listens to them, and learns to offer what they need. Connect This is the stage for you to get leads to move forward with your offers. You can utilize all the data you have amassed during prospecting. Research As a salesperson, this is when you learn about leads and determine whether the prospect intends to buy. Present In this stage of the health tech sales cycle, you offer your product or services as an effective solution for your lead's pain points. Close It’s a fit! By now, you know if your lead wants your product or service and move forward. Benefits of Shortening your Sales Cycle A shorter health tech sales cycle allows you to meet more prospects within the same time frame. For example, if you take one week for each prospect to complete the cycle, you can meet more people than with a two-week average life cycle for a single prospect. As you meet more people, it allows you to make more money. Moreover, most of the prospects prefer to have shorter sales cycles provided that you fulfill their need and solve their problem. However, even with a short health tech sales cycle, you should have an effective method to track sales information. Along with a short sales cycle, an effective method will increase your team’s efficiency and sales numbers. You will make more profits and improve your sales cycle. Ways to Shorten your Long Health Tech Sales Cycle One of the significant challenges faced by healthcare technology salespeople is shortening their health tech sales cycle. Unlike B2C, the B2B process of sales has to deal with many decision-makers and educate them about the value of your products. Typically, it takes a lot of time and effort to convince your prospects that your solution is customized to meet their unique needs. However, your health tech sales cycle can become agonizingly long as each prospect can have a different perspective about your solution. It can also occur due to the number of people involved in the decision-making in B2B companies. According to the latest Demand Gen Report, the buyer’s journey is getting more complicated and longer. This makes the sales process worse, which is already tedious. However, the good news is that you can follow these marketing strategies to shorten your health tech sales cycle tactically. Understand Your Buyer Personas Keep yourself away from trying to engage the wrong people. This will not bring you any results in the end. Before commencing the sales process, you should have a clear idea of who your targeted audience is. The decision-makers or influencers in the organizations you are targeting are your buyer personas. After identifying your personas, by answering the following questions, you can outline their qualities: • What are their goals? • What are their responsibilities? • What trigger drives them to buy? • What problems are they dealing with? • How do they like to research? • What inhibits a purchase? As you answer these questions, you will get a clear idea of the best way to approach them. Send an Introductory Video The prospects get to know the salesperson only in the in-person meeting. So before the in-person meeting, you can consider sending them an introduction video. This would add value and explain why you are interested in them with a ‘call-to-action. It creates familiarity by the time you connect with them. This is a very creative step to shorten your health tech sales cycle. Provide Pre-Sales Appointment Content Having a sales appointment with a prospect, who does not know anything about your solution, is one of the biggest mistakes you can make in your health tech sales cycle. This means you may have to have several meetings to convince the client. This problem can be eliminated with a lead nurturing email with informative content. This email can have a link to an informative blog about your product, which was written previously. It will make them peruse your website before the actual sales meeting with you. It saves your time by eliminating many meetings to educate the prospect about your product. Provide Post-Sales Appointment Content The prospect is expected to come out with some concerns and objections after the first sales appointment. As a healthcare tech company salesperson, it is your responsibility to eliminate all those obstacles by addressing them strategically. Sending follow-up emails, videos, and case studies helps address those concerns. The content can be used to guide other prospects too. Overcoming these obstacles with effective content can shorten your health tech sales cycle effectively. Come Clean with Pricing Pricing of your products can be one of the main concerns for your prospects. Many salespeople address it only at the last stage of the health tech sales cycle. Not revealing the price at the beginning will only lengthen your process. Moreover, it may result in losing trust in you. Be transparent and reveal the price, to save yourself from such issues. Leverage Social Proof One of the smartest ways to win the trust of your prospect is to provide social proof. It will also make the deal close sooner. The best social proofs are case studies with the impact of your products or ROI. Remember to make that the company featured in the case study is similar to the particular prospect's company. In the health tech sales cycle, it is crucial to thoroughly understand the prospect. Your sales cycle should connect with the process of lead nurturing, where you act as an advisor. This will also help you build trust with the prospects and increase your chances of closing the deal before the expected time. Executing all of these alone would be challenging. At Media7, we help companies market their healthcare technology product with innovative strategies and support by implementing these strategies effectively. Our strategies help attract prospects, convert them and turn them into your happy customers forever. To know more about us, visit https://media7.com/ Frequently Asked Questions What are the stages in the health tech sales cycle? B2B health tech sales cycles include seven main stages. They are sales prospecting, making contact, qualifying the lead, nurturing the lead, making an offer, handling objections, and closing the sale. Following these steps help a salesperson to close the sale effectively. How does the health tech sales cycle help? The health tech sales cycle helps you identify potential clients and nurture them through the process of sales. It makes you effectively and efficiently guide your clients and gives them the confidence to go forward with more effort. What are the best practices for the health tech sales cycle? The best practices for the health tech sales cycle can be attracting more prospects through content marketing, building trust by understanding clients better, focusing on your customers' clients, and knowing the prospect’s organizational chart. Why is the sales cycle important in health tech? The sales cycle in the health tech industry helps the sales managers to forecast the accurate picture of your sales. This because they know where your salespersons are in the sales cycle. It also gives a clear picture of how many deals your salespeople close out of a given number of leads.