Digital Healthcare
Article | November 29, 2023
Discover the EHR companies that empower medical professionals with user-friendly interfaces and clinical decision support. Stay abreast of the top EHR companies reshaping healthcare delivery.
Electronic health records (EHRs) have become vital in streamlining patient care, enhancing efficiency, and promoting data-driven decision-making. As healthcare providers shift from traditional paper-based systems to digital solutions, numerous EHR companies have emerged, providing advanced EHR technologies that transform how medical information is collected, organized, and utilized.
This article features the top 25 EHR companies at the forefront of this digital revolution, showcasing their innovative solutions, commitment to data security, interoperability, and user-centric designs.
1. WebPT
WebPT is a premier rehab therapy platform that elevates patient care and drives business growth. With a comprehensive suite of features, including scheduling, documentation, billing, outcomes tracking, business reporting, and system integrations, it offers a robust web-based solution that caters to outpatient settings of all sizes, facility types, and specialties. Since its launch in 2008, WebPT has demonstrated remarkable growth and success, earning its place on the prestigious ‘Inc. 5000 List of America's Fastest-Growing Companies’ for an impressive nine consecutive years, an accomplishment achieved by less than 1% of companies on the Inc. 5000 list.
2. CarePaths EHR
CarePaths EHR, a renowned provider of affordable behavioral health EHR and practice management system, is recognized among the best EHR companies catering to psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, and counselors in private practice, group practice, and health systems. Its all-inclusive package offers seamless management of various practice aspects, including patient records, clinical record keeping, customized documentation, treatment plans, outcomes & assessment tracking, and practice management tools. CarePaths EHR offers practitioners a seamless experience with eligibility verification, scheduling, reporting, accounting, and convenient ePrescribing functionality, even from mobile devices.
3. iPatientCare
iPatientCare is a leading provider of a comprehensive suite of innovative healthcare products and value-added services dedicated to assisting physician offices, rural health clinics, and community/federally qualified health centers (CHC/FQHC) in enhancing patient care, improving patient health outcomes, and reducing the costs associated with delivering care. Its highly acclaimed EHR, integrated practice solutions, and additional services, such as revenue cycle enhancement and quality improvement consulting, offer a complete package to effectively manage practice operations, boost revenue generation, and provide superior patient care. iPatientCare enables healthcare providers to significantly reduce accounts receivable (A/R) days and enhance collection rates while streamlining billing processes, alleviating internal workload, and bridging staffing gaps.
4. Azalea Health
Azalea Health is a leading provider of interoperable cloud-based healthcare solutions and services. Its comprehensive portfolio includes electronic health records (EHR) with integrated telehealth functionality, personal health records, mobile health applications, and interoperability services. With a strong focus on customer success, this EHR company caters to practices and ambulatory hospital strategies, delivering immediate improvements in cash flow and clinical outcomes through innovations in revenue cycle performance and care coordination. The company's offerings include laboratory ordering and results management, patient portal and PHR solutions, telehealth services, population health management tools, revenue cycle performance services, patient-centered medical home services, and pre-certification services.
5. Bizmatics
PrognoCIS, engineered, owned, and serviced by Bizmatics Inc., is one of the leading EHR companies that provides clinical and business productivity software & services to medical practices and multi-specialties. Its flagship cloud-based application, PrognoCIS, offers a fully-integrated solution encompassing EHR, telemedicine, practice management, medical billing, RCM, patient engagement tools, and more. PrognoCIS EHR, built on a robust multi-tier internet architecture, supports various medical specialties and offers customizable templates for tailored documentation. With seamless information flow between the EHR and Billing modules, the company ensures real-time data exchange. It is HIPAA-compliant, ICD-10 enabled, and Meaningful Stage 2 Certified, with click-saving features that enhance productivity and optimize workflow.
6. Modernizing Medicine
Modernizing Medicine Gastroenterology, formerly known as gMed and now a subsidiary of Modernizing Medicine, is a renowned provider of an integrated health IT platform designed explicitly for the gastroenterology industry. Its comprehensive range of data-driven products and services caters to private practices, ambulatory surgery centers, and hospitals. The offerings include an advanced EHR system, an efficient endoscopy report writer, a comprehensive practice management solution, a patient engagement portal, a value-based care solution, data analytics tools, and revenue cycle management services. Additionally, gMed Canada, Inc. operates as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Modernizing Medicine Gastroenterology, Inc., further extending the company's reach and impact in the healthcare industry.
7. Sevocity
Sevocity is a leading provider of electronic health record (EHR) solutions dedicated to empowering physician practices and health centers to adopt and utilize EHRs effectively. It offers affordable and user-friendly cloud-based solutions supported by exceptional customer service. Sevocity's cloud solution ensures secure and convenient access to clinical information anywhere. The innovative model of this EHR software development company enables physician practices and health centers to implement cost-effective solutions with minimal upfront investments and eliminates the need for additional maintenance costs. Electronic health record companies such as this one is committed to facilitating the seamless integration of EHR technology, enabling healthcare providers to enhance their practice efficiency and deliver quality patient care.
8. Visonex
Visonex prioritizes establishing solid client relationships by going beyond technology and ensuring ongoing success. With its Clarity EHR solution, Visonex offers a treatment-centric approach tailored to the unique needs of dialysis clinics. Its user-friendly and configurable system keeps clinics ahead of regulatory changes and provides exceptional support with 24/7 assistance and cost-free webinars. The electronic health record company also offers Visonex Enhanced Services that combine Clarity EHR with data management and dialysis billing services, including CROWNWeb electronic submission, quality measures assessment tools, and specialized billers.
9. WRS Health
WRS Health is a cloud-based EHR and practice management software company. Its core mission is to assist physicians in achieving balance in their roles as healers, business owners, and individuals. With a focus on simplifying operational tasks and promoting business growth, WRS Health has developed systems and processes that automate practice management, allowing physicians to devote their time to patient care. Its comprehensive tools seamlessly manage clinical and billing information, while additional services such as the virtual front desk assistant, MIPS management, and revenue cycle management support automation and task delegation.
10. eClinical Solutions
eClinical Solutions is a globally recognized company that supports life sciences organizations in expediting their clinical development endeavors through its biometrics services and ‘elluminate’ Clinical Data Cloud expertise. The ‘elluminate’ platform serves as the cornerstone of digital trials, allowing clients to conveniently access all their data from a single centralized location. By integrating eClinical Biometrics Services, clients gain self-service capabilities and benefit from advanced analytics, empowering them to make informed and timely business decisions. With its comprehensive suite of services and cutting-edge technology, eClinical Solutions plays a pivotal role in accelerating clinical development initiatives worldwide.
11. AdvancedMD
AdvancedMD is a prominent electronic health record software company specializing in cloud medical office software. It caters to ambulatory medical practices, providing comprehensive solutions to support independent physicians and their staff. The company offers a flexible outsourced billing option, allowing practices to leverage the services of a third-party billing company. It empowers clients with state-of-the-art tools and technologies that seamlessly integrate practice and patient workflows, creating a transformative practice experience. With AdvancedMD, healthcare facilities can efficiently handle higher patient volumes, resulting in enhanced productivity and improved financial outcomes. Patients benefit from electronically connecting and engaging with their healthcare providers, enhancing their overall healthcare experience.
12. Practice Fusion
Practice Fusion is cloud-based EHR offers time-saving features like customizable templates and patient charts that adapt to individual needs, focusing on enhancing efficiency and streamlining workflows. This EHR platform integrates with local pharmacies, laboratories, imaging centers, and other tools, enabling smooth information exchange. Clients benefit from flexible billing options, collaborating with industry-leading partners to expedite payment processes. Monitoring progress is simplified with insightful dashboards, and reporting data can be directly submitted to CMS through the EHR. As a cloud-based solution, there is no need to download software or manage hardware, ensuring both security and up-to-date functionality.
13. DrChrono
DrChrono aims to enhance the quality of care by making it more informed, interactive, and personalized. The company's open platform is the backbone for various healthcare solutions, including telehealth, electronic health records (EHR), practice management, medical billing, and revenue cycle management. With a strong emphasis on flexibility and customization, the platform easily extends through a robust API and offers a marketplace of applications and services. DrChrono's platform facilitates millions of patient appointments and efficiently processes billions of dollars in medical billing. It plays a crucial role in revolutionizing the healthcare industry by empowering providers and patients. 14. CureMD CureMD's portfolio comprises a range of cutting-edge solutions, including certified electronic medical records (EMR), practice management, patient portal, and medical billing services. By offering these comprehensive tools, CureMD aims to expedite the adoption of EHRs and assist healthcare providers in achieving ‘Meaningful Use’ qualification, thereby driving positive outcomes and maximizing value and subsidy payments. Leveraging advanced web technology and award-winning usability, CureMD empowers healthcare professionals to make informed decisions, streamline operations, and ensure compliance with industry standards. CureMD's comprehensive EMR solution is tailored to customize care delivery, enhance quality and patient safety, maximize efficiency, and reduce expenses. Its integrated platform combines practice management, electronic health records, patient portals, and a mobile care solution catering to medical practices of all sizes.
14. CureMD
CureMD's portfolio comprises a range of cutting-edge solutions, including certified electronic medical records (EMR), practice management, patient portal, and medical billing services. By offering these comprehensive tools, CureMD aims to expedite the adoption of EHRs and assist healthcare providers in achieving ‘Meaningful Use’ qualification, thereby driving positive outcomes and maximizing value and subsidy payments. Leveraging advanced web technology and award-winning usability, CureMD empowers healthcare professionals to make informed decisions, streamline operations, and ensure compliance with industry standards. CureMD's comprehensive EMR solution is tailored to customize care delivery, enhance quality and patient safety, maximize efficiency, and reduce expenses. Its integrated platform combines practice management, electronic health records, patient portals, and a mobile care solution catering to medical practices of all sizes.
15. RXNT
Founded in 1999, RXNT has significantly impacted the healthcare industry by introducing a groundbreaking cloud-based solution for prescription writing. Over the years, its commitment to innovation has remained unwavering, enabling it to deliver top-notch solutions that set the industry standard continuously. This electronic health record software company takes pride in offering these cutting-edge solutions at an affordable cost, ensuring that healthcare providers can access the best tools available. By providing these essential tools, RXNT empowers thousands of healthcare providers to concentrate on their core competency—delivering exceptional patient care.
16. TherapyNotes, LLC
TherapyNotes is a unique online practice management system tailored specifically for behavioral health, encompassing a comprehensive range of features, including robust notes, scheduling, and billing capabilities. Setting itself apart from other practice management systems, the company excels in its notes system, providing an intuitive form-filled approach that significantly accelerates data entry and note-writing processes. Furthermore, the platform offers a dynamic 'to-do' list that automates task management, guiding clinicians on necessary actions such as post-session note writing, contacting primary care physicians when necessary, and scheduling treatment plan updates.
17. SimplePractice
SimplePractice is an all-in-one practice management solution that serves private practices in the health and wellness sector. With a remarkable customer base of over 169,000 practitioners, the company has established itself as the leading EHR provider. This comprehensive platform empowers practitioners to efficiently manage their businesses with various powerful features, including autoPay, online booking, telehealth capabilities, and customizable documentation and notes. Through SimplePractice, practitioners can efficiently optimize their workflows, resulting in significant time savings.
18. eMDs
eMDs, a brand of CompuGroup Medical, stands as a prominent provider of comprehensive solutions designed to promote the well-being of both patients and healthcare providers. With a strong focus on integration and connectivity, the company offers a range of solutions, including EHRs, practice management software, RCM, and credentialing services tailored for physician practices and enterprises. CompuGroup Medical understands the unique needs of healthcare professionals and strives to deliver software solutions that enhance physician productivity and elevate the overall clinical experience. EHR companies, such as this one, demonstrate their commitment to excellence through the accolades they receive, with eMDs software consistently earning top rankings in respected physician and industry surveys conducted by prestigious organizations.
19. The Echo Group
The Echo Group is recognized as a leading developer and implementer of enterprise-grade software solutions exclusively designed for behavioral health organizations across the United States. The company's suite of tools includes visual EHRs, government reporting and compliance features, clinical and financial decision support functionalities, as well as medical and government billing capabilities. The company provides flexible solutions for managed care organizations with both self-hosted and SaaS deployment options. It offers additional services such as RCM, IT support, fiscal and clinical process workflow analysis.
20. MD Synergy Solutions
MD Synergy Solutions is a renowned provider of integrated solutions for medical offices, utilizing its advanced cloud-based technology and innovative RCM services. The company's technology platform encompasses EMR, PM, and patient portals, enabling seamless operations within medical practices. Using proprietary rule engine technology, MD Synergy Solutions delivers exceptional RCM service through its WorkQueues. The company's comprehensive offering caters to small-to-large physician practices, offering easily implementable and adaptable cloud-based software solutions.
21. Pulse Systems, Inc.
Pulse, a reputable RCM company, offers advanced medical billing services and cutting-edge technologies to facilitate payment processes, streamline workflow, and enhance patient care delivery for physicians. Renowned as a leading SaaS and mobile solutions provider, Pulse offers a comprehensive suite of integrated EHR, PM, population health, electronic prescription, medical billing clearinghouse, patient engagement, and payment technologies to physicians, medical service providers, and patients alike. With a broad user base encompassing thousands of providers across over 40 specialties, Pulse ensures that its clients achieve optimal financial and clinical outcomes.
22. DocuTAP
DocuTAP is a dynamic health information technology company offering integrated technology solutions to over 3,000 on-demand healthcare practices and primary care clinics nationwide. Renowned for its flagship product, DocuTAP's EMR and Practice Management software, this EHR company uses an innovative workflow optimization approach. Its comprehensive on-demand healthcare solution includes 'Clockwise.MD' patient engagement technology, RCM services, as well as DocuTAP Insight, a powerful business intelligence tool with customizable reports and industry benchmarks.
23. Elation Health
Elation Health is widely recognized as a premier technology platform for primary care that prioritizes delivering exceptional value. With a strong focus on clinical excellence, the company has provided innovative solutions since its establishment in 2010. Elation Health offers a collaborative EHR platform, enabling practices to effectively initiate, expand, communicate, and excel in delivering personalized, top-tier care to their patients. This electronic health record company is committed to supporting primary care clinicians in preserving the art of medicine while adapting to the ever-changing healthcare environment.
24. Net Health
Net Health is a company dedicated to leveraging data to improve human health. Its comprehensive solutions include EHR software and predictive analytics that provide actionable insights for various medical specialties, such as rehab therapy, wound care, home health and hospice, and employee health. Net Health empowers caregivers and organizations to effectively engage with patients, streamline documentation, optimize staffing, ensure appropriate reimbursement, and adhere to regulatory requirements. With its unique approach to analytics, this EHR software company integrates valuable insights into clinical and operational workflows, resulting in improved care quality and enhanced business performance.
25. ChiroTouch
ChiroTouch is widely recognized as a leading provider of cloud-based chiropractic software, offering a fully-integrated EHR solution tailored exclusively for chiropractors. This innovative platform is built from scratch and can be seamlessly accessed from any device at any time, providing chiropractors unparalleled convenience and flexibility. ChiroTouch eliminates the need for multiple vendors by offering a comprehensive system that handles payment processing and insurance claims management, allowing chiropractors to focus on their patients instead of paperwork. The software is designed to be user-friendly and accessible, ensuring a smooth transition for practitioners. The new generation of ChiroTouch is purposefully designed to optimize efficiency in all areas, accommodating various payment methods, including cash and insurance.
In a Nutshell
These top EHR companies will enable medical professionals to benefit from user-friendly interfaces, streamlined workflows, and enhanced clinical decision support, improving patient care and efficiency. Furthermore, the innovations and expertise of these EHR companies have a positive ripple effect, inspiring collaboration and driving advancements across the healthcare ecosystem. By embracing these electronic health record software companies, professionals and EHR companies can harness the power of digital health records to revolutionize healthcare delivery and contribute to the industry's ongoing transformation.
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Health Technology, AI
Article | July 18, 2023
It is no doubt that the disappointment of a failed launch or campaign is one that is costly, especially in the healthcare industry. However, becoming acquainted with the possible flaws in your marketing strategy is the first way to remedy the situation and achieve your business goals.
With the new rise of post-pandemic integration of businesses into online systems, consumers have become more selective than ever when it comes to the brands they are willing to buy from and support. Healthcare businesses are re-orienting into greater awareness about their online presence and visibility.
No Marketing Strategy
The first mistake one could make is having no marketing strategy to begin with. Some healthcare businesses think that they can DIY their online content marketing strategy. I’m here to tell you that could not be farther from the truth. Putting strategy on the back burner is the equivalent of flushing money down the drain.
Having a custom marketing strategy that takes your readers through a journey on your website ending in your desired conversion is essential for success online. The same content strategy is one that needs to be implemented effectively across all your social media platforms, and used to hit your target audience at multiple touch points.
No Target Consumer
Generalising information and attempting to create content for everyone is the second most common mistake. A lack of targeted action is bound to decrease the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns. One of the most essential parts of establishing a content strategy that increases your revenue, is specifying your target group. For a brand that sells health enhancing supplements, this could be 50-70 year old African American men and women who want to live longer and healthier.
The next step after identifying your target consumer, is to create an avatar profile that includes all details about your customer’s age, gender, marital status, income, residence, their daily struggles and needs and many more. Personalising the service and products you provide, and tailoring them in this way is going to get you more engagement and clicks, which will convert into red hot leads.
Inconsistent Branding
The third most common marketing mistake you may be making is lack of consistency with branding. This one is important because your reputation as a health business is vital to your success in the industry. Logos are meant to have stories behind them that constitute the mission that brought about the creation of your brand.
But it’s not just logos, every piece of content on your website needs to be created with your strategic business objectives and aims in mind. You need to question if your brand promise aligns fully with your values and the level of service you are providing to your consumer. How is your brand contributing to their lives in unique ways? Is your brand easily recognisable to your target consumers?
Ignoring Credibility
It comes as a surprise that most health brands often neglect this strong aspect of marketing their business. If your services are not fully supported with a backbone of credible subject matter experts who are well known in their communities, your brand will not be recognised as an authority in your field, adding to the growing mistrust that consumers already feel.
One way you can improve this is to reach out to the influencers your target consumer already follows and knows, and involve them as part of your outreach. This will increase brand awareness and lead to more sales and more trust.
Another factor to never underestimate, is the power of positive reviews. Consumers trust each other more than they trust you, so enabling them to have conversations involving your service or products, including the ability to give a rating, is the optimum for increasing engagement, building trust and brand loyalty.
Lack of Healthcare Specific Approach
This is where you can assess your website to see if the content there is appealing to your patients or customers. Is it accessible and simple to understand for the average person, or is it full of medical jargon and complicated, dense information?
Many businesses forget that the core purpose of the healthcare industry as a whole, is still ‘care’. So are you caring and catering to your consumers by providing not just any information, but the information that they are specifically looking for? Are you answering their questions and tending to their concerns in a way that they understand and comprehend? Are you enabling them and empowering them to make informed decisions about their health?
These are all aspects that help build a long-lasting relationship with your customer in which they consistently turn to your services and products, because you have made your marketing strategy centered around them. You have made it easy for them to get the help they need.
By regularly providing content that is useful and full of value, search engines will begin to automatically direct more traffic to your website.
Lack of Relevant Metrics
Regularly assessing and improving on the efficiency of your marketing initiatives, is what will propel your business into new heights.
In the words of H. James Harrington, “measurement is the first step that leads to control and eventually to improvement”. You need to identify the metrics that directly correlate with your business objectives, and start actively examining them against your marketing campaign aims.
This will enable you to identify what messaging works on your consumers, leading to better outcomes for your campaigns.
The Bottom Line
Tweaking just one detail in your marketing strategy could be the key to multiplied revenue for your business. This is why it is important to work with experts in order to make sure you are aligned with your highest potential, enabling you to invest your time into the other aspects of your business that need it.If you would like to continue the conversation about how health content marketing could help your brand, feel free to reach out to me.
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Digital Healthcare
Article | December 18, 2021
“Health care is different, the data here is emotional! If you tell me you were buying a fishing rod online and were emotional about it, I’d say you are lying. But I do frequently see people helpless and confused when it comes to receiving health care, managing its costs, making sense of its data.”
- Senior Product Leader inOptum Global Solutions Pvt. Ltd.
Yes, health care is different, and so is product management in it. This piece highlights the top 4 product management trends that are specific to health care and serve beyond being just a list of technologies making their way into health care.
Health care consumerism
Lance broke his ankle in a bicycle accident and is now in hospital waiting for surgery. Which of these words would describe him more aptly— a ‘patient’ or a ‘health care consumer’? The fact that Lance holds a high-deductible health plan, manages an interactive relationship with his primary doctor, keenly monitors his fitness through his smartwatch, and learns about healthier diet plans and recipes online — I can say he isn’t just receiving health care, but making active choices on how to pay for and manage his health. This choice and responsibility that people demand, is ‘health care consumerism’. This trend has been growing since 2015 when value-based care started picking up in the US.
What does this imply for products/PMs?
These are challenging and exciting times to be a product manager (PM) in health tech. This is because people are now demanding an experience equivalent to what they’re used to from other products in their lives, such as e-commerce, streaming platforms, and digital payments, to name a few. Any consumer-facing product (a mobile app, a web-based patient portal, a tech-enabled service) needs to meet high expectations. Flexible employer-sponsored health plans options, health reimbursement arrangements, price transparency products for drugs and medical expenses, remote health care services, and government's push to strengthen data and privacy rights — all point to opportunities for building innovative products with ‘health care consumerism’ as a key product philosophy.
Wellness
COVID-19 has tested health care systems to their limits. In most countries, these systems failed disastrously in providing adequate, timely medical assistance to many infected people. Prevention is of course better than cure, but people were now forced to learn it the hard way when cure became both inaccessible and uncertain. With lockdowns and social isolation, prevention, fitness, diet, and mental wellbeing all took center stage.
Wellness means taking a ‘whole-person approach’ to health care — one where people recognize the need to improve and sustain health, not only when they are unwell, but also when they’re making health care decisions that concern their long-term physical and mental health. A McKinsey study notes that consumers look at wellness from 6 dimensions beyond sick-care— health, fitness, nutrition, appearance, sleep, and mindfulness. Most countries in the study show that wellness has gained priority by at least 35% in the last 2–3 years. And wellness services like nutritionists, care managers, fitness training, psychotherapy consultants contribute 30% of the overall wellness spend.
So, what do health-tech PMs need to remember about wellness?
The first principle is, “Move to care out of the hospital, and into people’s homes”. A patient discharged after knee surgery has high chance of getting readmitted if he/she has high risk of falling in his/her house, or is unable to afford post-discharge at-home care with a physiotherapist. This leads us PMs to build products that recognize every person’s social determinants of health and create support systems that consider care at the hospital and care at home as a continuum.
The second principle is, “Don’t be limited by a narrow view of ‘what business we are in’, as wellness is broad, and as a health tech company, we are in health-care, not sick-care”. Wellness products and services include — fitness and nutrition apps, medical devices, telemedicine, sleep trackers, wellness-oriented apparel, beauty products, and meditation-oriented offerings, to name just a few. Recent regulations in many countries require health care providers to treat behavioural health services at par with treating for physical conditions, and this is just a start.
Equitable AI
Last month, WHO released a report titled “Ethics and Governance of Artificial Intelligence for Health”. The report cautions researchers and health tech companies to never design AI algorithms with a single population in mind. One example I read was, “AI systems that are primarily trained on data collected from patients in high-income settings will not perform as effectively for individuals in low or middle-income communities.” During COVID-19, we came across countless studies that talked about the disproportionate impact on minorities in terms of infections, hospitalizations, and mortality. A student at MIT discovered that a popular out-of-the-box AI algorithm that projects patient mortality for those admitted in hospitals, makes significantly different predictions based on race — and this may have adversely moved hospital resources away from some patients who had higher risks of mortality.
How should I think about health equity as an AI health-tech PM?
Health equity means that everyone should have a fair chance at being healthy. As a PM, it’s my job to make sure that every AI-assisted feature in my product is crafted to be re-iterative and inclusive, to serve any community or subpopulation, and is validated across many geographies. To prevent any inequitable AI from getting shipped, it is important to ensure that the underlying AI model is transparent and intelligible. This means knowing what data goes into it, how it learns, which features does it weigh over others, and how does the model handles unique features that characterize minorities.
Integrated and interoperable
In every article that I read on topics such as digital platforms, SaaS, or connectivity with EMRs, I always find the words: ‘integrated’ and ‘interoperable’ therein. Most large and conventional health tech companies started by offering point-solutions that were often inextensible, monolithic, and worked with isolated on-prem servers and databases. To give a consistent user experience, leverage economies of scope, and scale products to meet other needs of their customers, started an exodus from fragmented point-solutions to interoperable, integrated solutions. The popularization of service-oriented architectures (SOAs) and cloud vendors like AWS, Azure, and GCP has also helped.
The what and how of integrated-interoperable solutions for PMs:
Integrated solutions (IS), as I see them, are of two kinds — one, in which as a health tech company, we help our customers (health systems, insurance companies, direct to consumers) accomplish not just one, but most/all tasks in a business process. For example, a B2B IS in value-based care contract management would mean that we help our customers and health systems by giving an end-to-end solution that helps them enter into, negotiate, plan for, manage, get payments for their value-based contracts with health plans.
In the second type of IS, we offer products that can be easily customized to different types of customers. For example, a health management app that people can subscribe to for different programs such as obesity, diabetes, hypertension, cholesterol management, as needed. The app works with different datasets for these programs and uses different analyses and clinical repositories in its backend, but still delivers a consistent user experience across programs to a user who enrolled in multiple programs, say diabetes and weight management.
‘Interoperable’ simply means that one product should be able to talk to other products both in and out of the company. For example, if product-A can alert a doctor about any drug-drug interactions or allergies a patient might have, while she is writing prescriptions for the patient in product-B (an EMR), then product-A does talk to product-B, and hence, is interoperable. This trend is picking up further with the growth of IoT devices, and industry-wide participation in adopting common standards for data exchange.
Conclusion
Though the article derives much of its context from US health care, I have tried to keep a global lens while choosing these topics. For developing economies like India, digitization is the number one trend as much of the health system is still moving from manual records to digitally store patient and medical data in EMRs. The good news is that India is booming with health-tech innovation and that is where consumerism, wellness, and equitable AI make sense. Once companies develop enough point-solutions for different health system needs and use-cases, Indian health tech will see a move towards creating integrated, interoperable (IGIO) systems as well.
There are some other trends such as — use of non-AI emerging tech such as Blockchain in health information management, cloud infrastructure for health tech innovation, big data and analytics to improve operational efficiency in areas such as claims management and compliance reporting, Agile product management for co-developing with and continuously delivering to clients etc. — but I see them either as too nascent, or too old to feature in this list.
Finally, as a health tech product manager, you can use the following questions to assess your products against the above trends — (Consumerism) do the products that I manage, empower consumers with choice, information, and actionability? (Wellness) Does my product emphasize keeping them out-of-hospitals and healthy in the first place? (Equitable AI) Am I sure that my product doesn’t discriminate against individuals belonging to underserved populations? (IGIO) And finally, is my product scalable, integrated and interoperable to expand to a platform, in the true sense?
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