Healthtech Security
Article | August 31, 2023
Worried about how to improve your healthcare sales? Wondering where to begin? Of course, these questions demand genuine consideration. Healthcare professionals are some of the most valuable and vital members of the societiy. And you will have to take care of their unique needs if you want to sell your products to them.
Over the years, selling in most of the industries has changed; the healthcare industry is no exception. The healthcare industry has been booming over the last decade. The boom has increased the necessity of managing patient care and innovating medicines exponentially. To cater to such rising needs, newer technologies are being adopted by the industry.
Flatiron Health, a well-known healthcare technology and service provider, is using data analytics to tackle cancer. They believe that the technology industry is essential to solve healthcare issues. This New York-based start-up uses its cloud-based software platform and big data to connect to various cancer centers across the country. The key asset of the company is its ability to use data analytics to make meaningful recommendations. The annual revenue of Flatiron Health is US$100-500 million. Yes! you read it right.
So, all you need is to have a smart healthcare sales and marketing strategy. Having an effective strategy will help you conquer the healthcare industry and increase your profit margin. One of the easy ways to increase your healthcare IT sales is to have a firm understanding of the ohospital's organizational structure Apart from that, you can analyze the organization by asking the following questions:
• How does this particular healthcare organization compare with its competitors in this
specific arena?
• What is their current position in the industry?
• What makes them stand out from their competitors?
• What makes them unique?
Just like the tips mentioned above, this article is all about tips and strategies to increase your healthcare sales leads. These tips will undoubtedly help you skyrocket your healthcare technology sales by reaching out to a wider audience.
Attract Your Target Audience with Content Marketing
Healthcare is always been trending on search engines through relevant keywords. People search for a related term like healthcare and wellness tips, local medical professionals and medical facilities, and jobs in healthcare.
• One in every 20 searches is related to healthcare
• 70% of visitors of hospital websites come from organic web search
• 77% of all online health queries begin with a search
So, using content marketing to attract audience is the best way to increase healthcare sales. Offering healthcare and wellness information through different online channels will help you improve your credibility and visibility. This step will strengthen the relationship between staff, patients, prospective employees, and the community and increase credibility. According to CMI B2B Content Marketing Report, 2019, 62% of B2B marketers said that they were more successful with content marketing than ever before.
The healthcare technology industry is technical, and it can be highly challeging when you sell the product directly to high-level executives or physicians. So, you must invest time to create compelling content like blog posts, whitepapers, case studies, etc. It will increase your healthcare sales as this content will establish your expertise. So, all you need to do is generate informative and appealing content to position your company as an authentic thought leader, which will help you land more healthcare sales.
Understand your Customer Better and Build Trust
You cannot imagine a society without healthcare professionals. Obviously, you will have to go out of your way to have a deep understanding of their requirements if you want to sell technology to them.
Requirements of each of your clients in the healthcare industry can vary. Hence a ‘one size fits all’ approach will not help when it comes to offering the best experience to every customer. Thus, it would help if you adapted to customer needs for successful healthcare sales. Furthermore, it is essential to realize that healthcare customers are different from other business professionals.
Don’t beat around the bush when you get a chance to talk to them. Directly give them information on what they are looking for, staying respectful and professional. This will help you grab attention and generate interest.. Be flexible despite the odds and do whatever possible to solve their problems.
Prioritize trust-building at all times. In any sales process, trust is a decisive factor, especially in healthcare sales. The reason for this is that if you are selling medical equipment, technologies, or pharmaceuticals, your clients are risking the well-being of their patients in your hands. So, to pull up the healthcare sales game, work on building up a strong relationship and trust with your clients.
Know the Buyer’s Organizational Chart
Unlike working with a small clinic with a single decision-maker, you need to deal with a purchasing department or a buying group when you sell to a big hospital. To ensure that you do not miss anybody, you may have to map out your client’s purchasing hierarchy and identify everyone in the hospital involved in the process. In the healthcare industry, every single client has a very different purchasing style.
You can obtain this information from your known contacts and network within the organization. Knowing the organizational chart of your clients will help you expand your influence with in he organization and boost your healthcare sales.
Focus on Your Client’s Customers
Even for most effective sales organizations, it is remarkably challenging to sell to a client-driven and continually emerging industry like healthcare. However, if you make it through this competitive industry, you will have endless opportunities to add to your profits through successful healthcare sales.
When dealing with a service-based industry, the best strategy is to serve your clients’ customers. Essentially, if you find a practical way to improve their experience, your clients will be happy and you can establish a long-lasting relation with them.
Whenever you deal with a client from the healthcare industry, remember to focus on the actual patients. This strategic line of thought can surely bring you more healthcare sales and increase your annual profit.
Get Started with Social Media Marketing
This is fairly obvious that, in the modern world, social media has become a part of the everyday. There is no easier way to increase your client numbers than to promote your product or service on a platform that everyone uses.
Facebook is the best social media platform. Mainly because senior people use it as they are likely to require medical assistance. A Facebook page is the best place for you to start with your social media advertising. It is an informational source that can increase the targeted traffic coming to your website.
Due to the easy availability of information online, medical professionals do not depend upon salespeople. Instead, they do online research before making a purchase decision. Social media marketing can help you increase healthcare sales and be on the top at all times.
Rapidly evolving regulatory forces, market dynamics, and consumer demands are constantly adding to the healthcare industry's complexity. Driving meaningful patient action and true engagement through your innovative sales and marketing solutions will increase your healthcare sales. This will also make you stand out from the rest of the pack, ending in a long-term relationship with all your customers.
Ace your healthcare sales with these strategies and tips. Reach out to us if you are looking for any assistance. We at Media 7 provide all the B2B healthcare sales and marketing solutions. We focus on bringing in potential clients to your business platforms, converting them, and making them your happy customers forever. To know more about us, visit: https://media7.com
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a healthcare marketing strategy?
Healthcare marketing strategy is usually an inbound marketing process. We bring forth all the resources that could bear against various threats and opportunities in a highly competitive healthcare business through the process.
Why is healthcare marketing important?
For the sustainable growth of the healthcare industry, healthcare marketing is very important and an integral part. Marketing of healthcare technologies and other new facilities in line with treatment is very important for the transformation of the industry.
What is healthcare sales?
The process of persuading healthcare clients and making them buy your products is healthcare sales. In the process, you will sell drugs, medicines, equipment, and technologies to healthcare clients.
How can healthcare professionals drive sales?
Focusing on your client’s customer is an innovative strategy for sales in healthcare. A healthcare professional is likely to buy your product if you prove that your product can make their patients' lives easier.
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Health Technology, AI
Article | July 18, 2023
“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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Health Technology, Digital Healthcare
Article | August 21, 2023
Over the past twenty-five years most businesses have been revolutionized by the easy availability of cloud and mobile-based computing systems. These technologies have placed power and access into the hands of employees and customers, which in turn has created huge shifts in how transactions get done. Now the companies with the highest market value are both the drivers of and beneficiaries of this transition, notably Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Alphabet (Google), as well as their international rivals like Samsung, Baidu, Tencent and Alibaba. Everyone uses their products every day, and the impact on our lives have been remarkable. Of course, this also impacts how businesses of all types are organized. Underpinning this transformation has been a change from enterprise-specific software to generic cloud-based services—sometimes called SMAC (Social/Sensors/Mobile/Analytics/Cloud). Applications such as data storage, sales management, email and the hardware they ran on were put into enterprises during the 80s and 90s in the client-server era (dominated by Intel and Microsoft). These have now migrated to cloud-based, on-demand services.
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Digital Healthcare, Medical Devices
Article | June 14, 2023
Explore latest hospital industry trends driving digital transformation, data analytics, and patient-centric care for improved outcomes and personalized experiences in a dynamic healthcare landscape.
Contents
1. Understanding Dynamic Hospital Industry Trends
2. Significance of Keeping Up with Hospital Industry Trends
3. Quick Glance at Latest Hospital Industry Trends
3.1 Cybersecurit
3.2 Virtualization and ML capabilities
3.3 Telehealth and Telemedicine
3.4 Robotics
3.5 Wearables
4. Future Scope
1. Understanding Dynamic Hospital Industry Trends
The hospital industry is undergoing dynamic changes driven by digital transformation, data analytics, and patient-centric care. Hospitals are adopting technologies like electronic health records (EHRs) and telemedicine while leveraging data analytics and artificial intelligence for better insights. Patient engagement and personalized healthcare experiences are prioritized. The shift towards value-based care and proactive population health management is evident. Collaboration, interoperability, and preventive care initiatives are also gaining importance. These emerging trends in healthcare technology reflect the industry’s commitment to improving patient outcomes in an evolving landscape.
2. Significance of Keeping Up with Hospital Industry Trends
Staying up-to-date with the latest trends in healthcare industry is of utmost importance for professionals and organizations. It enables them to deliver improved patient care by implementing cutting-edge technologies and treatment methodologies. Hospitals can streamline processes, reduce costs, and allocate resources effectively by adopting industry trends focused on operational efficiency. Keeping pace with industry trends also provides a competitive advantage, helping hospitals attract and retain patients, maintain their reputation as innovative institutions, and outperform competitors. Furthermore, staying informed about evolving regulations and compliance standards ensures hospitals remain compliant, avoiding penalties and legal issues. Industry trends also reflect the changing demographics of patient populations, allowing hospitals to adapt their services and offerings accordingly. This knowledge aids in strategic decision-making, enabling administrators to align their strategies with the evolving healthcare landscape. Additionally, staying updated on industry trends facilitates collaboration and partnerships, promoting innovation and improved healthcare delivery.
3. Glance at Latest Hospital Industry Trends
The hospital industry is experiencing a wave of the latest trends reshaping the healthcare delivery landscape. From technological advancements to shifting patient needs and evolving care models, these trends drive significant changes in how hospitals operate and provide care.
3.1 Cybersecurity
Taking the lead in hospital industry trends is cybersecurity, which plays a vital role in safeguarding the industry against cyber threats and protecting patient information, sensitive data, and critical infrastructure. By implementing a robust hospital cybersecurity policy, patient data confidentiality, integrity, and availability can be ensured, along with mitigating the financial and reputational damages that can arise from cyberattacks. Furthermore, cybersecurity measures enable the continuity of healthcare services and foster patient trust. Prioritizing cybersecurity helps hospitals maintain compliance with data protection laws like HIPAA and strengthen relationships with patients and other stakeholders.
3.2 Virtualization and ML Capabilities
Next in line with hospital industry trends is the adoption of virtualization and machine learning (ML) capabilities that are revolutionizing healthcare operations and patient care. Virtualization allows hospitals to optimize infrastructure, reduce costs, and enhance resource utilization by creating virtual instances of hardware and software. Concurrently, ML algorithms analyze vast amounts of healthcare data, such as electronic health records and medical images, enabling accurate diagnoses, personalized treatments, and predictive insights. The integration of virtualization and ML facilitates remote healthcare services, ensures data security and privacy, and drives operational efficiency, ultimately leading to improved patient outcomes and streamlined healthcare delivery.
3.3 Telehealth and Telemedicine
The rapid adoption of telehealth and telemedicine, which will transform healthcare delivery, is on the horizon for the hospital industry. These technologies enable convenient access to healthcare services, especially for individuals in remote areas, reducing travel time and costs. Telehealth and telemedicine improve healthcare efficiency by reducing wait times, allowing timely medical advice, prescription refills, and follow-up care. They also facilitate collaboration among healthcare providers and specialists, ensuring access to specialized care. In emergencies, telehealth and telemedicine in the hospital industry enable real-time triage and remote monitoring. Despite challenges related to regulatory compliance and data security, telehealth and telemedicine have transformed healthcare delivery, offering convenience, efficiency, and expanded access to care.
3.4 Robotics
The integration of hospital robotics is reshaping the industry, revolutionizing surgical procedures by enabling exceptional precision and significantly reducing recovery times. Surgical robots assist in complex surgeries, improving accuracy and patient outcomes. Additionally, robots streamline tasks like medication dispensing and inventory management, reducing errors and freeing up healthcare professionals. Rehabilitation robots aid patients in regaining mobility, while robotic telepresence enables remote consultations and monitoring. Despite challenges such as implementation costs and regulatory considerations, robotics continues to transform healthcare delivery, enhancing patient care and operational efficiency.
3.5 Wearables
The widespread adoption of wearables, emerging prominently in the hospital industry, redefines patient care and monitoring practices. Wearable devices, such as smartwatches, fitness trackers, and remote patient monitoring devices, offer real-time health data and enable continuous monitoring of vital signs, activity levels, and sleep patterns. These devices provide valuable insights into a patient's health and allow for early detection of potential health issues. Wearables promote patient engagement and empowerment by encouraging individuals to manage their health actively. Healthcare professionals can remotely monitor patients' health status, track medication adherence, and intervene promptly if abnormalities are detected. Additionally, wearables offer opportunities for remote patient monitoring, telemedicine consultations, and personalized health interventions.
4. Future Scope
The potential of hospital industry trends in the coming years also encompasses genomics and personalized medicine advancements. With an increasing understanding of genetic factors in health and disease, hospitals can offer tailored treatments based on an individual's unique genetic makeup, leading to a revolution in disease prevention, diagnosis, and treatment. Furthermore, integrating blockchain technology in healthcare is expected to enhance data security, interoperability, and patient privacy, enabling seamless sharing of medical records across healthcare providers. Overall, the horizon of the hospital industry holds immense promise for innovative technologies, data-driven insights, and patient-centric care models, all contributing to the development of a more efficient, accessible, and personalized healthcare ecosystem.
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