The healthcare industry is facing a massive labor and operating model problem – one that involves a predicted workforce shortage of up to 3.2 million people. With more than a quarter of the industry workforce planning to leave in the next two years and $9 billion in annual burnout-related turnover costs the healthcare industry is at a crossroads. So, where do we start?
Prophet suggests that the solution starts with our nurses. In this report, we clarify the magnitude of the crisis, identify tangible issues to tackle and introduce viable solutions that will begin to drive impact against this behemoth of a challenge.
Key Takeaways:
Addressing the workforce shortage starts with a focus on nurses. By starting with the largest population of clinical workers, we can begin to make a more meaningful impact on the collective workforce challenge.
Sustainable solutions to this crisis are not just about workforce retention. They will require us to revisit hiring and talent development practices, redesign care delivery models and the roles required, and rethink the infrastructure needed to support innovation and scale care.
Ultimately, to drive meaningful impact for nurses, we need to hear from nurses. Once nurses have a say in the tools and solutions we develop for them, real change can happen.
Before jumping to the most ground-breaking innovations, we must bring ourselves back to the day-to-day needs of our nurses. Simplifying their routines with technology can help them feel heard and improve employee and patient satisfaction.
Prophet’s Human-Centered Transformation Model™ can help you understand where your organization can begin to tackle organizational and cultural dynamics that contribute to the labor crisis.
Five Rules for Optimizing Omni-channel Clinical Care Models
Building a human-centric healthcare organization that delivers on patients’ needs.
With the pandemic increasingly in the rearview mirror, many healthcare organizations are coming to terms with the big and small changes that have become permanent parts of the healthcare landscape. Ushered in during the pandemic, omnichannel care delivery is now a fixture and will play an influential role for many years to come; that’s a good thing, as patients prefer having options and are often enthusiastic about new channels, technologies and treatments. More caregivers now see the value of omnichannel care, especially telehealth and in-home care, because they work so well for patients.
In our recent work with clients, we’ve seen how different types of healthcare organizations can capitalize on leading practices for change and transformation as they seek to refine, optimize and expand their omnichannel clinical care models.
The common denominator with healthcare leaders is human centricity. Organizations that successfully drive change design their care models around what patients want and need. Similarly, organizations that adopt a human-centered approach to transformation are more likely to succeed in winning hearts and minds, instilling new behaviors and changing the culture in sustainable ways.
1. When transforming the clinical care model, start small and iterate fast.
There are ample transformation opportunities across healthcare but organizations that take on too much change too fast are bound to struggle. The key is to focus on the achievable while understanding the distinct needs of underserved populations and addressing drivers of high cost.
Organizing around a condition or a use case, rather than a service line, can be useful both for making progress and setting up for broader change over the long term. Breaking down big changes into manageable steps is the only way to go. For example, to redesign diabetes care, leaders will need first to address issues typically treated by primary care, endocrinologists and cardiologists, as well as supporting clinicians in nutrition and other related aspects of care.
Our work with one national player confirmed how many patients with kidney failure “crash” into dialysis in an unplanned fashion when longitudinal care models can address the holistic needs of such patients. When Geisinger launched a home care program, it realized impressive results, including reduced ER visits and lower costs, largely due to its careful patient selection, a focus on chronic conditions and proactive outreach by care teams.
Within value-based care models, better patient communication can increase HCAHPS scores, which directly impacts reimbursement. That’s a relatively small-bore change that can yield potentially big results.
2. Recognize that every healthcare organization is also a software company. And an AI and data science firm, too.
Whether or not they want to be, all types of healthcare companies are in the technology business – and we’re not referring exclusively to electronic medical records (EMRs). Software now underpins every step of the care delivery process and is essential to making the “anytime care from anywhere” vision a workable operational reality. And yet, there’s no denying that tech has contributed to significant burnout among healthcare workers, including physicians.
Healthcare organizations would benefit from several tech innovations, including agile sprints and experience design principles, to continuously enhance features. Had EMRs been designed in this manner, they would more seamlessly fit into the clinical workflow and not contribute to provider burnout as they are today. Healthcare organizations can take a similar approach as they design omnichannel care delivery models and deploy new technology.
Thinking like a service designer will help orchestrate the linkages between backstage systems and data sources and, ultimately, create a seamless experience for all types of users. Accommodating the needs of users with different levels of technology access and literacy – including both patients and caregivers – is the key to developing high-impact solutions. When designing a patient app for patients receiving home dialysis, we went through multiple rounds of design and user testing to ensure that the experience met patient needs in an intuitive way and delivered the right information at the right time. That’s how to empower – rather than overwhelm – users.
Organizations must also change the perception, common after initial rollouts of EMR systems, that technology is the enemy. One way to overcome that persistent bias is to co-create solutions with patients, caregivers and providers. That’s what we did with a national player seeking to shift the site of care from clinics and inpatient settings to the home. Service designers worked directly with nurses and nurse practitioners who could speak empathetically to the day-to-day needs and challenges faced by home healthcare teams and provide feedback on initial design sketches. These foundational insights, as well as those from patient groups, guided the design of new tools.
AI Goes Everywhere
There’s no talking about tech without talking about artificial intelligence (AI). AI seems to be taking over healthcare. Payers are using it to digitize claims, conduct audits and monitor payments. Clinically, AI is helping physicians scan X-rays and get ahead of emerging risks and adverse outcomes. Providers use AI to design care paths, personalize care coordination and model the financial impacts of different treatment plans. AI promises to revolutionize clinical trials in the pharmaceutical sector.
Embedding AI-enabled technology deeply into care delivery processes can make routine tasks simpler, faster and safer. And it’s the most effective way to use technology as a “force multiplier” in delivering care, which is the primary motivation for many healthcare organizations that acquire technology companies. Technology that enables caregivers to do their jobs more effectively and operate at the top of their licenses is invaluable in a time of provider shortages. Equipping end-users (including physicians) with training, skills and knowledge to use the right tech at the right time is how tech can directly support better outcomes.
That sort of human-centered approach is necessary to change minds, create advocates and smooth the transition as the organization evolves from being healthcare-centric to thinking and acting like tech, AI and data science companies.
3. Transformation takes an ecosystem.
Achieving ambitious change objectives will almost certainly require collaboration with others – including payers, specialty care providers, technology companies or other third parties. So finding the right partners is critical, even when focusing on a manageable, well-defined issue or opportunity.
The massive complexity of healthcare – both as a business and in terms of delivering care – makes broad organizational buy-in an absolute imperative for effective transformation. Overlooking a key constituency can make the difference between success and failure.
We define stakeholders as anyone playing a role in care or invested in its outcomes. Thus, the universe of stakeholders includes everyone from institutions (e.g., payers and large employers) to back-stage actors (e.g., hospital management, pharmacies) to front-line care providers (e.g., PCPs, specialists, therapists, care coordinators, social workers) and, of course, patients who must remain at the center. These stakeholders have wildly different incentives, hold different values and operate with different information and authority.
The broadest ecosystems require teams to think like systems designers in working outward from the patient to the entire stakeholder ecosystem, including front-stage actors (e.g., caregivers, PCPs and specialists) and back-stage actors (e.g., care managers, pharmacists, hospitals, payers, regulators).
Ecosystem design requires incorporating the needs and perspectives of many different stakeholders.
All of these players have widely different incentives, hold different values and operate with different information and authority. Misalignment among ecosystem partners can manifest in systemic problems that reach deeper than any single touchpoint. When we design healthcare ecosystems, we apply such principles to understand current systems and envision those that will be necessary tomorrow. Design tools such as ecosystem and value exchange mapping are a critical part of incorporating the entire innovation ecosystem into specific solutions.
Leveraging Internal Ecosystems
The most successful transformation programs also involve many different internal constituencies. One Fortune500 healthcare organization seeking to disrupt renal care with increased use of in-home dialysis built a diverse, cross-functional team, including digital strategists, product teams, client nurses, nephrologists and other specialists, in its ideation process. It gathered ongoing input via iterative design and feedback sessions. The testing process of initial solutions involved 40+ external users, including patients, nurses and other caregivers and social workers.
Organizations enacting large-scale strategic change often convene a leadership council for regular reviews and feedback. Typically, such groups include chief medical officers, clinical business unit leaders, medical specialists and senior operational and administrative leaders.
4. Embrace regulation and payer mandates as inspiration for innovation.
The expanding adoption of value-based care shows how regulatory requirements can prompt necessary change for organizations with creative leadership and high degrees of operational agility. By default, many leaders resist new rules and love to complain about old ones, which can lead to regulatory oversight being used as an excuse not to change.
Federal regulators are certainly looking to foster innovation and prompt greater use of in-home dialysis via reimbursement changes in kidney care and other areas. The acute shortage of clinicians is another area where regulators are likely to be flexible in allowing healthcare organizations to experiment with new care delivery options. Consider how pandemic-era stop-gap measures to allow providers to practice telemedicine across state lines have remained in place. We believe the clinician shortage is an existential threat that must be at the forefront of the design of omnichannel care delivery models. Certainly, it will force provider organizations to automate more low-value tasks as they seek to expand their reach.
Social determinants of health (SDoH) are also being incorporated into regulatory frameworks as their importance to health becomes clearer. Medicaid changes are more likely in the short term, with Medicare following suit in the long term. Organizations that are proactive in developing solutions – ideally in collaboration with regulators and other partners – will be positioned for future success.
Working with a national provider organization to address the needs of diabetes patients, we focused on SDoH in determining how to shift the site of care to the home. Patients with mobility issues, those that lived in food deserts, or lacked reliable WiFi for remote diagnostics each required different design decisions. As innovation strategies more frequently intersect with regulatory requirements, we help clients think through the implications and find opportunities to streamline compliance processes as an outgrowth of experience design and technology development.
5. You can’t change your clinical care model without changing your business model.
This might be the hardest challenge in healthcare, because of the frequent tension between what’s good for patients and what’s good for the bottom line. In theory, clinical care organizations can find the financial backing to move to a more consumer-centric clinical care model in one of two ways:
Improving patient loyalty and outcomes to become a recognized market leader or provider of choice, with the net effect of boosting both patient volumes and financial returns.
Maximizing reimbursement for all kinds of clinical care services including those delivered outside the traditional clinic.
We’ve found the first is a harder recipe for success and following it can lead to internal disbelief at best and barriers at worst. Financial incentives need to align with care incentives. Organizations that invest in transforming their care model should expect to realize financial rewards or at least figure out how to get paid for providing services that benefit patients.
To make it happen, we have helped strong leaders think outside of existing markets to create new categories of care based on patient needs. To model the potential for a new home health business that a diversified healthcare giant was launching, we created a consensus view of existing service lines that could be brought together to meet patient needs in the home, from infusions, to telehealth, to diagnostics and monitoring. Here again, the key was getting stakeholders to collaborate and communicate in new ways.
Is there a more human-centric industry than healthcare? With technology becoming ubiquitous in all forms of care delivery, it may seem an odd time to ask the question. But in our experience, healthcare organizations that master the human touch in both care delivery and designing and implementing their own transformation initiatives realize the best clinical and business outcomes.
One critical foundation of growth that IMOs typically mismanage during M&A activity is the MarTech & SalesTech infrastructure. IMOs often focus on identifying and eliminating duplication of systems and subsequent cost reduction but don’t proactively explore improvements such as tighter cross-system integrations, cleaner data or more thoughtful process automation. While these sound like minor operational factors, they can become the underpinnings of more effective customer engagement strategies, compelling user experiences and powerful upsell/cross-sell/retention initiatives.
If organizations aren’t careful, MarTech and SalesTech can fall victim to cost-focused consolidation efforts and might come out of an M&A deal tied to systems that will suffocate growth. Here’s how to spot these dangers and avoid them.
Do Not Assume Your Options are Binary
We have yet to see a sales or marketing team 100% satisfied with their existing tech stacks and workflows. After a deal, you will have to invest time and money into consolidating and migrating systems. You will also have a large pool of vendors -many of which you have great interpersonal relationships with- feeling the pressure to hold onto their accounts.
Fight the urge to pick from a subset of existing vendors. You may find yourself with a system that is only designed for half of the company, or unable to scale into the new larger enterprise. Take the time to step back and make a holistic and strategic set of choices before diving into a large migration effort. It’s better to be at the bottom of the right ladder than halfway up the wrong one. As Amber Sundell, head of demand generation at Merative, a data and technology healthcare company, puts it, “We might have fewer marketing and sales systems these days, but everyone in this space continues to feel those budget and data standardization cuts/missteps.”
Clarify Your Desired Future State and Look Backwards
Your CEO and the deal team likely won’t stop talking about this future utopia of the new combined organization. That utopia two, five, or ten years from now probably doesn’t have tech stacks designed when the two companies were operating with different intentions.
For example, lead handling systems typically put potential customers into different categories or types. What if those categories are different between the two merging companies? And what if those categories are hard-coded into all sales flows and reporting systems — how will you operate?
Or what if your organization uses Platform X for email campaign management, and the acquired firm uses Platform Y, but they both use different sets of templates and other source data to trigger the message? Is it possible to send a demand generation campaign or order confirmation message without a manual workaround?
These sorts of “differences” are assumed and understood when framing an M&A event, but rarely is there budgeting for the hard work of standardizing data taxonomies, refactoring (reducing) templates, or re-integrating systems outside of core billing. What starts as potential synergy quickly becomes invisible technical debt. Often, that debt becomes a long-term liability for the resulting Marketing or Sales Operations Teams, and it persists for years beyond the merger event.
You are Building Pipes and Plumbing, not a Funnel
If you’re not already operating in a multi-business unit enterprise, the latest acquisition might spur it, or will in the near future. There is already an invisible wall between marketing and sales on a variety of dimensions, incentives, cultures, skills, styles, etc. And as you move towards –or deeper into – a multi-BU enterprise, you’ll likely have fragmented sales teams and centralized and decentralized marketing teams. From a demand gen perspective, you need to stop thinking of lead flows as a funnel, and more like pipes and plumbing. And don’t underestimate the people risks associated with M&A activities. Sundell states, “The employees who are redistributed or leave the organization after an integration, take legacy knowledge with them. You also find yourself missing reasons why things were or were not done in a certain way.”
How do you move forward with this approach? Examine each joint and pipe and look for leaks. Measure the pressure and flow rate at each valve and faucet.
And check the temperature frequently.
Translation: Standardize data formats and integration points to make sure systems are talking and information flows correctly from one step to the next. Use reporting to capture meaningful operational metrics and KPIs for each overall process and important sub-step. And use ROI analyses with clear and simple dashboards to know when the process is working and the effort was successful.
It is said that most mergers and acquisitions fail. Many believe that it is because deals are normally predicated on growth, but the integration process is dominated by cost-related decisions. The answer is both, and most importantly, your Salestech and Martech are your biggest demand gen investments. There will be opportunities to combine stacks to lower ongoing operating expenses. But don’t lose the opportunity to step back and fully re-evaluate your platforms to maximize your demand gen efforts to support the growth of the newly combined enterprise.
3 Ways to Transform Customer Engagement for the Future of Medtech
Customer engagement models are essential to maintain a thriving business, learn how Medtech firms can get theirs fit for purpose.
For a long time, the customer relationship between MedTech companies and healthcare professionals (HCPs), as well as healthcare providers (HPs), has been changing. The Medtech industry, like many others in the past couple of years, has been faced with an acceleration of nascent changes such as digital transformation and an increase in customer expectations – causing trends to solidify and become the new normal. Now, with basic assumptions around interactions and relationship building fundamentally altered, traditional customer engagement models can no longer deliver against their ambition for the future. We have witnessed different approaches by Medtech companies, some learning from inside and others from outside the healthcare space, to rethink their approach to customer engagement and how to make it more future fit.
Based on our experience, we have identified three crucial ways to transform customer engagement strategies so businesses can succeed in this new world of Medtech.
Hybrid Engagement with a Purpose
COVID-19 has permanently changed how the healthcare system works, forcing Medtech to quickly shift to remote engagements and digitize offline processes. Now, that the pandemic is more under control, it is apparent that there is no way back. Today’s customer engagement preferences have changed.
So, what does this mean for Medtech moving forward?
Medtech needs to engage with customers in a blended way – balancing the online and offline worlds – making permanent use of remote channels while at the same time recognizing the points at which a more human interaction makes a difference. In-person interactions remain a valid and irreplaceable tool at various points in the customer journey, but Medtech companies need to be targeted and purposeful in which types of interactions they favor for this and leveraging virtual interactions and multi-channel where relevant and feasible.
How to achieve a more hybrid engagement model?
Shift your mindset from sales to customer: One crucial element in our work in this space is about the organizational mindset shift – from a sales funnel mindset that focuses on closing the “deal”, to more of a customer journey mindset, where building longer-term relationships is of higher priority. The closing of a sale no longer marks the end of the journey, it is only one additional step in the MedTech-HCP/HP relationship.
Adapt engagement approach to customer type and journey stage: Different customer groups have different needs and preferences at different stages of the customer journey – understanding the journey both from a funnel perspective (awareness to conversion to loyalty/recommendation), but also from a touch point perspective (I.e. which touchpoints does a customer use across their journey). For instance, a hospital’s procurement lead will have different engagement needs than a physician who owns a single practice. Vivantes, the biggest hospital system in Germany, has different needs than a rural doctor. Understanding these needs and preferences is key to identifying which type of interaction adds the most value at each point along the customer journey.
Capture individual customer preferences: Medtech should focus on customer preferences and align with them where possible. Accurate tagging in CRM systems helps paint a stronger picture of customer understanding and personalization. It is important that this knowledge is shared within the Medtech organization so that all stakeholders act upon it accordingly (sales reps from different divisions, marketing, etc).
Ensure engagement and experiences align seamlessly: Individual high-quality interactions are relevant but diminished if a customer feels that follow-on connections are disjointed. A set of well-orchestrated interactions across the journey can improve the overall customer experience. MedTech organizations should work towards ensuring sales and marketing have a holistic view of the customer and follow through on the captured learnings.
Optimized Interactions in the Virtual Space
The pandemic has forced many to embrace tools they weren’t previously comfortable with, and these changes are permanent. The use of online tools has grown – and HCPs are using online information sources more than ever. The key benefits of more digital interactions are around convenience – research shows aspects such as flexibility of timing, less travel, less impact on workload and a more extensive selection of webinars instead of conferences. But purely digital interactions also have their shortcomings: loss of personal relationships with the sales reps, inability to network and overall, less engagement between reps and their customers. The focus should be on optimizing virtual interactions and reducing these drawbacks.
With so many competing demands on attention, nurturing and managing leads with targeted engagement is even more relevant in categories where the typical product lifespan is longer, given fewer windows of opportunity to sell the product. And digital channels allow for much more customized and recurrent interactions that permit Medtech to stay within the relevant consideration set.
Excellence in virtual events is driven by recognizing where efforts should be refocused when designing the experience. The key is to ensure virtual interactions are optimized to take advantage of the technologies used to engage customers, rather than be seen as a lesser alternative to in-person interaction. How can that be done?
Update and optimize content online: While online sessions are usually seen as more convenient, it is also harder to keep the participants engaged and focused. Digitizing content used in offline interactions was the first step many Medtechs took – and quickly found that this was not sufficient. The content needs to be fully adapted to fit different channels and delivery mechanisms, in terms of level of detail, structure etc.
Use data and insights to underpin decisions: One benefit of digital is its measurability. Data and insights need to be used to ‘test and learn’ when selecting and enhancing channels, content and delivery methods. Establishing the right KPIs and monitoring them is key. Virtual interactions provide an excellent opportunity to collect further customer insights, which can help inform both future remote and in-person interactions.
Reimagine interactions to facilitate discussion: Oftentimes, virtual interactions don’t provide the same opportunities for participants to connect with peers and share experiences. Duplicating offline approaches into an online channel does not work, and MedTechs need to refocus their activities accordingly. Optimized virtual events prioritize connection and community elements while reducing the relevance of purely communicational elements.
Content is King (even more than before)
Customers are looking for convenient ways to educate themselves on specific topics. An individual Medtech’s authority in specific fields can make them a trusted source to provide education or even build connections in a non-commercial way. But they are not alone in this endeavor, and companies are feeling the pressure to deliver high-quality, relevant digital content like never before. While not all companies can keep up with the accelerated pace of content creation, Prophet’s Altimeter colleagues found that those that are successful in meeting this demand have implemented an “Agile Content System.” For many Medtechs in particular, and healthcare companies in general, internal compliance processes are a key obstacle to timely content creation, but there are simple ways to improve this:
Ensure technology and workflows are working to streamline approval processes: Approval and compliance processes need to be structured in a way that allows for speedy, efficient publishing. In healthcare specifically, reviews by multiple stakeholder groups such as the ethics boards, legal teams and subject matter experts can slow down the approval process significantly. A modular content creation approach can help, as well as clearer content ownership and roles.
Restructure content teams for greater agility: A centralized content team does not necessarily work for all Medtech firms. Depending on the key objective and business need (i.e. brand awareness building vs demand/revenue generation), the ideal structure should be set up but it’s essential they work together on a shared agenda. Our research shows that the most effective organizations balance both brand and demand.
Set bolder, clearer goals that go beyond brand: Oftentimes, Medtech organizations are focused on content to drive brand awareness. With the changing preferences of their customers, there is a need to revise this approach. This shift in thought leadership (i.e. Siemens Healthineers Insights series or their Healthcare Challenges podcast), also requires a review of the KPIs to ensure the correct content metrics are being tracked and reported on.
Customer engagement is a critical aspect of any business, and this is no exception in the Medtech industry. The complex ecosystem and the diversity of customers do not make this an easy task for Medtech organizations, but there are strategies that can help to transform and succeed in this new world of customer engagement, enabling Medtechs to become the customer’s first choice of engagement.
Healthcare leaders can drive change in 2023 by thinking boldly and targeting investments in the following trending healthcare spaces.
Looking ahead to 2023 in healthcare, the big macroeconomic clouds on the horizon make for a less than cheery outlook. The combination of an economic downturn and higher costs will be a dominant theme for the entire healthcare industry and a huge challenge for organizations across hospitals, health systems and device makers, pharmaceuticals, and life sciences companies, as well as players in technology.
Still, taking the glass-half-full view, we see many opportunities for leaders across the business to drive operational discipline and innovation by focusing on investments that matter most in driving better outcomes for all stakeholders. As we point out in our transformation playbook, changemakers that push beyond the many common barriers to innovation can achieve a great deal. Yes, the economic pressures will be greater. But 2023 will see plenty more disruption – and thus plenty of growth opportunities – as our annual list of healthcare trends below makes clear.
1. Holistic Wellness Solutions Continue to Influence the Market
Successful one-off wellness apps and small niche solutions are adopted by large employers and payers to enhance benefits programs and give people more options to live healthier lives. As consumers adopt wearable data trackers in support of that goal, they will increasingly choose to work with healthcare organizations that are committed to holistic wellness.
It’s not about the gadgetry, but rather driving good outcomes, particularly relative to social determinants of health (SDoH) and patients’ lived experiences. The start-ups and tech firms with the most attractive and powerful solutions will achieve rapid scale by going the B2B2C route. We think the biggest winners will emerge in in-home diagnostics, preventative health opportunities (e.g., perimenopausal women and metabolism and nutrition) and mental health, which will be of interest to large employers, as well as individuals. Apps and widgets that empower individuals with their own data, plus timely prompts and attractive incentives, will crack the code on growth.
2. Venture Capital Focuses on the Best and Brightest
While we expect to see a few big winners among tech players, most firms will face a tighter funding landscape and more intense due diligence. Venture capital, which has been flowing freely and voluminously for years, will become less available as investors scrutinize business models more closely and back only the best and brightest.
We suspect the firms that attract funding will be those that focus on narrowly defined patient cohorts already engaged in self-monitoring behaviors and where innovation can move the needle on cost control or value delivery. Those that can collect real-world data from outside the four corners of traditional clinical environments, and integrate seamlessly into core systems, will be specially well positioned to attract funding and potential partners. Chronic disease management, patient engagement and population health solutions will also be priorities because there is clear clinical and financial upside in all these areas.
3. The Workforce Shortage Worsens as a Full-Blown Crisis
With continuing burnout among healthcare workers, large provider organizations face issues with care quality and deteriorating patient experiences. The supply-demand fundamentals are inescapable: There are simply not enough doctors, nurses and paraprofessionals – not to mention data scientists, business analysts and experience designers – to fill all the vacancies.
However, there are multiple potential solutions to resolving talent shortfalls. Workforce optimization and workflow efficiency are necessary, so too automation and more advanced technology in everything from reading x-rays to identifying payment fraud. More support for patient self-monitoring, continued expansion of telehealth and in-home care will also help alleviate chronic talent shortages. There’s also a large cohort of tech-savvy talent looking for jobs with a higher mission after layoffs from Silicon Valley giants.
4. Value-Based Care Models Become Innovation Labs
The inevitable momentum toward value-based continues. More than 40% of U.S. healthcare reimbursement now has some value-based component, a proportion that will only rise in 2023 and beyond. Though pockets of resistance remain, more provider organizations will advance and mature their Value-Based Care capabilities. And they’ll do so on several fronts. More sustained preventative outreach efforts to underserved, high-risk and high-cost populations for routine screenings will continue producing strong results. Shared-incentive contracting will be more attractive for capital-intensive equipment, such as MRI machines and CT scanners.
Sophisticated technology usage will be a hallmark of VBC winners. Consider how the burden on the workforce could be reduced with digital apps and AI-enabled patient engagements leveraging HIPAA-compliant natural language processing on existing voice platforms (e.g., Alexa). Such applications also free clinicians to operate at the top of their licenses. The next year will see many pilots of creative concepts in the space.
The tightening economic backdrop, alongside rising consumer expectations, more powerful technology and the prevalence of chronic conditions, will fuel further adoption of VBC models. Large employers wanting to know what they are getting from higher rates will be yet another prompt for innovation.
5. Consolidation Increases as Non-Traditional Players Press on
Challenging macroeconomic conditions will drive more consolidation and spark aggressive plays from tech platforms and large retailers. In this sense, 2023 will look a lot like recent years. Retailers and other non-traditional players are cracking the code on healthcare, faster than healthcare players are cracking the code on consumerism. Amazon, Walmart and other large players will continue experimenting on their own, buying up promising ventures and looking for partners that can further their huge ambitions.
And their ambitions won’t shrink just because the economy does. If you already thought these companies were relentless competitors when the economy was good, then you can expect them to press their advantages even more forcefully in pursuit of ever greater market share as cost and capital pressures rise for others.
The healthcare industry has seen plenty of change during the last few years. The next year will continue that trend. And as challenging as the economic conditions will be, healthcare leaders can drive change for the better by thinking boldly and targeting investments in the most promising areas of opportunity.
The Keys to Improving Patient Engagement in Pharma
The notion of patient engagement has been taking shape for over 30 years. Here are 10 tips to accelerate and embed patient engagement systematically in your organization.
The notion of patient engagement has been taking shape for over 30 years. Going beyond patient advocacy, patient engagement is the active involvement of patients in processes and decision-making in their care experience, across the entirety of the development lifecycle and beyond.
Patient engagement works to address health disparities and inequity more systematically by including and elevating diverse patient voices across the key touchpoints of drug development, ultimately raising the standard of care all patients receive and the outcomes they experience. It’s about going beyond clinical outcomes and driving a more holistic understanding of patients and the treatment effect across their preferences, social phenotypes and circumstances – socioeconomic or otherwise. Ultimately, the goal is to create medicines, treatments and experiences with (not for) patients.
And we’ve seen the business and clinical results at key points across the development cycle.
So Why Haven’t Pharmaceutical Companies Cracked It?
Pharma is the only industry that has not fully embraced the end user in its product development. The practice of understanding patients and applying that understanding systematically to treatment development is complex and difficult.
There are several barriers to successfully engaging patients in pharma:
Historic Disregard of the Patient – The industry has historically been wired to disregard the perspectives and needs of patients outside of the clinical outcomes related to therapies of interest. Practitioners can often be resistant to centering on patients, with a typically paternalistic relationship with patients, coupled with a lack of time and capacity to actively involve patients in their care.
Regulations and Resources – The regulatory requirements, time and investment required to engage with patients mean it often doesn’t happen. Or at best, it happens sporadically.
Corporate Culture – Fragmented and siloed corporate structures and cultures result in ad hoc and unsustainable attempts at patient engagement. Not to mention, they are often not built into the drug development lifecycle.
Limited Pharma-Patient Interactions – Patients have limited capacity and agency to engage with pharma, leading to difficulties in diverse and representative patient groups.
Lack of Faith as a Strategic Priority – Due to the delayed ROI associated with patient engagement, pharmastruggles with prioritizing patient engagement as a sustained and systematic business imperative.
The only way to initiate and scale patient engagement sustainably is to take a systematic approach across the entire organization and at key moments throughout the drug development lifecycle.
External Pressures for Patient Engagement are Mounting
All of that said, the lack of impetus is changing. Patient engagement is no longer a nice to have, with a range of forces driving an increased focus on patient engagement. Industry leader, Roche, is in the process of training 10,000+ employees in patient engagement. The most important medicines regulators in the world, the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) and EMA (European Medicines Agency) are strongly invested in expanding Patient-Focussed Drug Development (PFDD). In 2016, the FDA codified patient engagement as a key pillar of its mission, formally requiring records of Patient Perspectives in drug review under PDUFA VI. It will become increasingly difficult and slow to get new indications approved and paid for without showing patient engagement throughout the development process and treatment regime design. The global COVID-19 pandemic has also seen familiarity, scrutiny and pressure on pharma corporate brands as their reputations increased hugely, presenting a timely and important opportunity to build trust and understanding between pharma and patients.
The Solution? Systematically Embed Patient Engagement into Your Culture and Operating Model
Through the learnings shared by different businesses and patient engagement leaders, it has become evident that no existing business function can fully own patient engagement. An overarching function, or center of excellence, must focus on shifting mindsets of each therapeutic area and motivating change while permeating tools, training, new ways of working, processes and systems through all cross-functional aspects of the organization to deliver impact for patients and ensure patient engagement practices are adopted cohesively.
Leaders must be bought into the need for patient engagement and must be willing to drive home the message within their teams and prioritize it as a focus across the organization. For a patient engagement function to be able to identify and navigate the appropriate channels within the organization, the correct process, governance and stakeholders must be in place. This requires organizational, operating model and cultural adaptations to bring an enterprise-wide and systematic approach to patient engagement. Getting it right brings not only better results but renewed purpose and inspiration to teams across the business.
10 Tips to Embed Patient Engagement (PE) Systematically in Your Organization
From our experience globally we have distilled the key areas of focus that will help you build and embed a systematic approach to Patient Engagement across your organization
Set Up Strategically
Embed patient engagement holistically, X-FN and enterprise-wide approach
Clearly articulate the value of patient engagement – and link it to the corporate and therapeutic strategies
Ensure the patient engagement function sits strategically in the organization and is clearly distinguishable from other patient-facing functions, acting as a key enabler for other functions
Initiate Meaningful Work
Create a comprehensive patient experience blueprint that drives equitable access to care and an improved experience
Start by piloting patient engagement initiatives and tactics in the “moments that matter” across the lifecycle
Develop a patient insights function to understand patient experiences and improve outcomes
Disseminate and Scale Rapidly
Build patient engagement infrastructure quickly by codifying best practices into repeatable processes
Fill gaps in understanding with bespoke learning and development programs
Maintain momentum by creating visible platforms to articulate the importance of patient engagement
To become systematic in your organization, patient engagement needs to be driven by enterprise-wide momentum while being bolstered simultaneously with enterprise-wide infrastructure. Why? Proving the ROI of patient engagement is still challenging for most organizations. As a result, the patient engagement function needs to develop a strong and robust proof of concept across drug development and commercial processes. This means partnering and collaborating across the business to make sure everyone is clear on what ‘including the patient’ looks like in their role. This will reconnect employees with the organizational purpose, which in turn attracts top talent, galvanizing them to build enterprise momentum around the value of patient engagement.
At the same time, for this to be sustainable, we need to ensure a systematic approach so pharma can realize the full ROI of patient engagement – building the right infrastructure to make this happen. You need momentum to be able to build the infrastructure. These two things can’t be done sequentially, they need to be done in tandem.
The good news is that it’s easy to get started. Patient engagement is inherently motivating to your people and every pharma organization has teams with an immediate need for support.
To figure out how to accelerate the momentum of your patient engagement strategy and embed it across your organization, Prophet conducts a 2-hour workshop that helps clients define and articulate their challenges and where they need to focus efforts based on our top 10 insights outlined above. Get in touch with our Organization & Culture experts at Prophet to learn more.
5 Common Mistakes in Managing Healthcare Data Products
How healthcare organizations can avoid and navigate data pitfalls while building data products.
As we embark on another chapter of technology adoption, moving from the Internet of Things (IoT) to web3 and the metaverse, and as a greater degree of interoperability takes hold, data in all things healthcare is no longer a differentiator but a table stake. As we cover in our research, “Transforming Healthcare: The Changemaker Playbook,” the ongoing healthcare data revolution opens the opportunity to deliver better clinical decisions, faster and more appropriate care delivery and ultimately more equity and context to patient treatment. Everyone by now knows that by using data and managing it the right way, organizations will see costs go down and both clinical and business processes get smarter and more efficient. However, where does data specific to your needs come from? Who’s generating it, curating it and selling it?
There is a massive gap emerging in organizations as it relates to managing and extracting value from their data, namely the productization of it. Yes, there are seasoned players in the healthcare data space such as Optum, Merative and IQVIA that have a high degree of maturity as it relates to data-as-a-product. But there are also new entrants, such as growing physician groups, amassing unique and compelling data sets, as well as device and equipment manufacturers, whose smart products are also accumulating data.
We are finding that these fringe players in healthcare data are extremely eclectic as it relates to their product management capabilities with data. These organizations are oftentimes shining examples in product development with their core products (e.g. specialty practices, vital signs monitors, claims clearing houses, etc.), but when it comes to data-as-a-product, they are often overlooking a variety of fundamentals. These mistakes are having a dramatic impact on their ability to create value with data. Generally, we are seeing three categories of data products that exist in healthcare:
3 Categories of Healthcare Data Products
DaaS: Data as a Service – When you take raw or transformed data that can be sold or licensed to additional parties
Data Resulting From a Feature – By utilizing features of an existing product or service to generate data that may be productized
Algorithmic and Logic Based – Where you take data, apply logic and algorithms to it to give outputs or aid in decision making
The following highlights a set of frequent mistakes to avoid when entering the healthcare data space.
1. Prioritizing “More” Data Instead of Necessary Data
Date range or depth are often things companies will tote as a major selling point. As you peel this back, we found that customers look for the quality and completeness of the essential data that they need to solve problems they’re working on.
Focusing on who wants or needs this data, and why, is a critical question to answer when defining the data product. Adding lots of nice-to-have data sets to your product may not create customer value. Sophisticated customers who take the time to examine your data will often try to poke holes or find gaps that will impact their decision to purchase and adopt your product.
2. Lack of Data Accessibility
Whether your product is a database, web platform, App or API, thinking through the end-to-end customer journey is often a gap. Data is usually part of a broader workflow that combines multiple systems, tech stacks, integrations and processes.
As you build your product, it’s crucial to envision the data’s entire journey. Make sure your customers can pull and access the data! Rarely does a customer only use a single data source, so being able to integrate and distribute with their other solutions is essential. Often data may need to be mapped to your customers’ existing data models. A helpful tip is understanding your customer’s personas, and their level of understanding and skills, as they will be the day-to-day people interacting with the data.
3. Loose Data Governance Practices
As your product’s data is generated or compiled, it is critical to creating a formal taxonomy (hierarchical grouping which gives structure and standardizes terminology). This allows you to keep track of the attribution (source, rights, ownership) of where the data comes from. some of the things included in data taxonomy are clear definitions of what data means, whether those terms are generally accepted in your industry and knowledge of how to explain the data. Another critical element to data governance is understanding your meta-data. For example, it is essential to document things like time stamping, user, source, security, segmentation and IP rights. Data in healthcare can be sensitive with regulations and policies affiliated with it so understanding what is classified as HIPAA when data can remain identified or needs to be de-identified needs to be considered.
There will be a number of team members working around your data (engineers, data scientists, database managers, statisticians, researchers, product managers, etc.), so creating a taxonomy and decision for access rights ensures the integrity of your data is preserved. Continuously auditing change logs and benchmarking data is essential and good hygiene. Furthermore, you need to ensure that this data is protected and that your business model for monetization is secure with accessibility. Whether it be in your technology or contract terms, protect your data’s IP. From the business and legal side of governance, your MSA, EULA and contract language (whatever is applicable to your product) need to clearly spell out ownership, give the right to anonymize, create derivate or redistribute data. Knowing where you are or what you can’t do must be relayed back to the product and technology development process.
4. Data Analytics and Tools as an Afterthought
Along with #2, we have found that customers want to generate more insights out of their data. This is often why clients ask for periodic data dumps or direct lines of access to the data. It is an important product decision to determine if and how much you want to invest in analytics and tools that enable your customers to generate more insights on their data.
The more you understand their needs and what they are doing with the data outside of your product, the more you should consider what would make your product stickier if you built those capabilities in. These can be simple things like filtering, searching, scheduled reports or extracts or dashboards. We often see customers still taking data and using excel or tableau to generate basic insights that can be offered inside your product.
5. Overly Technical Products Can Deter Adoption
Knowing your user, their technical abilities and their thresholds should be accounted for in your product development process. User retention will suffer if it takes too long to develop skills and understanding to use your product. This will manifest itself with low user activity, as well as unsatisfied business stakeholders who made an investment in selecting and implementing your product. If you are building products that are technical in nature, be sure to engage that user type/ persona early-on and understand how big that sellable market is. Don’t expect a large population of non-technical people to easily embrace your product. You will get early and stronger usage with intuitive products, short-term implementation cycles and onboarding processes, FAQ/help documents and quality customer support offerings.
As data, product and strategy experts, we have built and worked with numerous healthcare organizations that are challenged with building products that thrive in this rapidly evolving environment. Many companies that are in the early stages of building data product(s) are working through the prioritization of a backlog through current experiences – face a set of common obstacles.
As a growth and transformation firm, we focus on partnering with our clients to enable the building of the highest quality products possible. Our specialization in healthcare, data and product management practices is a great resource to support you on your data product journey. We cover this subject more in our new report, but please reach out if you’d like to learn more.
Tackling the top four areas ripe for innovation and transformation in healthcare, this report inspires action and impact with big-picture strategic ideas and tactical tips for driving change.
Change is hard, especially in healthcare. But in the sometimes lagging, but always vital industry, transformative change enables real people with real needs to live better lives. Not to mention, change strengthens bottom lines, improves investor returns and supports a more productive and sustainable society. That’s a powerful and synergistic business case to inspire all people that work in healthcare to take on the challenge of driving innovation.
At face value, becoming a “changemaker,” can be daunting. It requires bravery and a clear sense of direction. This new report, from Prophet’s Healthcare team, was written to empower and guide healthcare’s future changemakers so they can ignite change in the industry and realize their transformation goals.
Based on interviews with 29 senior leaders in healthcare, extensive market research and decades of experience helping healthcare organizations transform, “Transforming Healthcare: The Changemaker’s Playbook,” provides insights and recommendations to drive necessary change in healthcare.
Download the report for:
Deep dives into four areas ripe for innovation and transformation in healthcare:
The rise of connected and empowered consumers
The expansion of care outside the hospital
The ascendancy of Value-Based Care
The decentralization and democratization of data
Highly relevant commentary and insights from industry leaders across the ecosystem
Digestible and achievable “next steps” for leaders seeking to become changemakers
The Equation for Growth in Healthcare: Customer-Centricity, New Skills and Balancing Brand and Demand
Prophet recently hosted a healthcare leadership roundtable, moderated by John Ellett, focused on driving uncommon growth in healthcare today. Read the takeaways.
These were the takeaways from Prophet Healthcare’s leadership roundtable, moderated by John Ellett, which focused on driving uncommon growth in healthcare today.
We convene for these discussions a few times a year so leaders from different subsectors and functions can compare notes and share insights. The latest session was all about growth – where it is coming from today, how senior marketers can make it happen and who needs to be on the team.
Key Takeaways for CMOs and Growth Leaders Across the Healthcare Ecosystem
Play the Long Game of Innovation
In healthcare, innovation takes many forms – from new product launches and optimized experiences, to M&A and business model innovation. But no matter the approach, and whether we’re talking about startups or large enterprises, innovation requires both a long-term perspective and a sense of timing. It can take years to develop, say, breakthrough technology, but if the market’s not ready for it, new offerings might not take off.
Relative to growth, innovation must be viewed in the context of core value propositions, as well as future impacts. That means knowing what really moves the business and understanding what innovation will deliver (e.g., future revenue gains, increased profitability, brand differentiation). The support of senior leadership is key to keeping the organization’s eyes on the prize across long time horizons.
Solve for Talent
Executives agree that talent is as important as ever, even as marketing becomes more tech-driven. A few firms were looking for more skilled strategists to set the direction for marketing. But more are looking for tactical and functional expertise to execute growth strategies. There was consensus that “even the best strategy needs worker bees.” Ideally, workers will be self-starters who understand big-picture objectives, think analytically and measure results. As with growth itself, there seems to be no such thing as too much talent.
Focus on The Perennial Value of Customer-Centricity
As much as marketing has changed, customers remain the perennial focus. Everyone agrees that customer insights should be the core of all growth strategies. But participants also noted that it’s easier to say “we’re customer-centric” than to integrate the voice of the customer throughout all brand and marketing efforts, especially when targeting new segments. Many felt CMOs are uniquely positioned to maintain the powerful link between such customer-centricity and growth, including building stronger customer communities. In fact, being a “customer advocate” might be the most important responsibility CMOs have.
Recognize it Takes a Network
As healthcare leaders face an ever-expanding range of growth possibilities, the importance of internal and external networks grows more important. Asking the right questions of mentors, peers and external advisors is key to staying ahead of important industry developments. Socializing and testing your own vision is just as important. A strong network can certainly provide tips and insights relative to engaging customers in new channels. On a larger scale, they can shed light on how new technologies, ecosystems and partnerships, as well as business models, will impact growth strategies over the longer term.
Balance Brand and Demand
Senior marketers and other growth-oriented leaders across industries are trying to balance brand-building and demand generation investments and activities. (Check out Prophet’s blog series on this very hot topic). Demand strategies are easier to measure, a huge advantage in the multi-channel digital world. However, because of the unique nature of healthcare where relationships are at a premium, brands remain critical to building trust with consumers and patients.
One participant mentioned the classic formula of “40% demand and 60% brand,” but the optimal balance will vary based on an organization’s customer base, growth strategy and market position, among other factors. Because both “brand builder” and “performance marketer” are inherent parts of their job descriptions, CMOs must continue seeking the right balance, and recognize that it will evolve continually along with market conditions.
From the most effective channels and platforms to new media that might emerge, to new rules for customer engagement, the only thing that seems certain about the future is that CMOs and growth leaders in healthcare will keep watching developments closely and comparing notes with peers and colleagues.
If you’d like to participate in future healthcare roundtables, please reach out to Paul Schrimpf or John Ellett.
Elevating Wellbeing Can Inspire Change in Healthcare Organizations
Since the onset of the pandemic, mental health and burnout have become more common topics of conversation in the healthcare space and within the broader culture. The use of #MentalHealthAwareness in more than four million Tweets in 2021 alone, for example, shows just how common conversations about mental health have become.
Increased consciousness of behavioral health and wellbeing was one of the driving forces behind the Great Reshuffle, which significantly hit the healthcare industry. It’s estimated that almost 20 percent of healthcare workers quit during the pandemic. And because behavioral health is very much on the minds of workers, it’s an urgent topic for employers too, in healthcare and nearly every other industry.
Forward-looking organizations are leaning into the critical issue by seeking ways to facilitate more productive conversations and provide additional behavioral health support.
Why Employers Should Support the Health of Healthcare Workers
Today, wellbeing in the workplace has evolved to become more holistic, including both physical and behavioral health. As we highlight in our POV on employee wellbeing, Prophet believes a balance of flexibility and connection is key to promoting wellbeing among employees across industries; empathetic leadership and emotional support also play important roles. This can help workers feel free to bring their authentic selves to the workplace and have candid conversations about sensitive topics, including mental health.
“Employers can enable a sense of belonging, where workers see how their own values align with the organization.”
By talking about the health of healthcare workers and creating space for conversations on wellbeing broadly, organizations send the message that their people are not alone in navigating stress, anxiety and fatigue. In proactively helping healthcare workers live their best lives both on the job and outside of work, employers can enable a sense of belonging, where workers see how their own values align with the organization.
How to Prioritize and Boost Wellbeing Across Healthcare Organizations
Prophet’s Human-Centered Transformation Model™ focuses on four elements key to organizational health and success: DNA, Mind, Body, and Soul. By changing the way wellbeing is talked about in the workplace, each element contributes to a healthier workday and more effective employee retention.
The ‘DNA’ is the Heart of Wellbeing
Wellbeing can – and should – be a part of an organization’s purpose and employee value proposition. Whether an organization has long provided behavioral health benefits or is just now considering doing so, supporting ongoing conversations around wellbeing can provide deep and authentic connections. This is especially important at a time when healthcare workers are prioritizing wellbeing in their workday and are more likely to move on if those expectations are not met.
The ‘Mind’ is How to Enable Wellbeing
Drive change across the healthcare workforce by actively promoting greater wellbeing. The organizational mind can be shaped by educating workers on the importance of behavioral health, providing useful resources, and building awareness of these offerings. Across industries, many companies are offering subscriptions to mental health platforms and meditation apps (e.g., Calm Business and Headspace for Work), which offer exercises and tips to stay focused and mindful throughout the day.
The ‘Body’ is How to Act on Change
To help healthcare workers feel equipped in prioritizing their wellbeing, organizations can change their operating model by putting in place processes and systems that support greater behavioral health and continuously measure their effectiveness. While workers navigate implementing wellbeing tools, organizations can encourage workers to share what is and is not working so that the types of resources being provided can simultaneously evolve.
The ‘Soul’ is How to Ignite Belief
These are the mindsets, behaviors, and rituals that continually demonstrate that wellbeing is an organizational priority. For instance, when leaders in the healthcare space open up and share their own stories on behavioral health and wellbeing, people get the message that it’s an important consideration. By furthering the dialogue on behavioral health and creating a sense of belonging, organizations will have happier, healthier workers.
While healthcare organizations are limited in their ability to provide the flexibility (e.g., remote working) that some workers want, there is an opportunity in the healthcare space for organizations to support their employees’ behavioral health deeply and authentically.
As talk about behavioral health becomes the norm in the workplace, companies are seeking to build more genuine connections with their employees. Removing the stigma of talking about mental health is a great first step to creating lasting change. Robust behavioral health programs will become standard features of benefits for those organizations that want to stand out as “employers of choice.”
Get in touch with our Healthcare specialists and our Organization & Culture experts if you would like to learn more.
Hosted by Jeff Gourdji and Priya Aneja, Prophet’s Healthcare Changemakers podcast is where healthcare leaders who are driving change in their organizations, as well as today’s healthcare experience, share their stories. In this podcast, you’ll hear from industry-leading healthcare professionals about their personal transformation journeys and what organizations can do to create the next wave of growth today and in the future.
Episodes
18. What We’ve Learned About Changemakers
Jeff, Lindsey, Priya and senior editor Anna Kuno look back at 2022 and look ahead at what’s next, including a new name for the podcast. The hosts reflect on topics that have stood out, lessons they have learned, and things that have surprised them, as well as why the show is now called Healthcare Changemakers.
Dr. Thomas Cornwell, National Medical Director of Village Medical at Home, has made more than 34,000 house calls. That’s astounding considering that home-based visits haven’t traditionally been considered to be a profitable service line. Nothing has been shown to reduce hospitalizations on the sickest patients in society as much as home-based primary care, but the economics haven’t added up until players like Village Medical have found a place for it in their value-based care models. Take a detailed look at the economic engine behind “doing the right thing” and how aligning incentives has transformed the state of home-based care.
Dan Liljenquist, Senior Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer for Intermountain Healthcare, discusses physician shortages, the economics of drug development and distribution, and his career path with and before Intermountain Healthcare. Value-based care isn’t a destination; it’s an evolution. Learn where Dan sees that evolution going next and how it has led to the creation of the nonprofit generic drug manufacturing company Civica Rx.
A. J. Loiacono, CEO of Capital Rx, believes in unlocking the power of the pharmacist in the healthcare value equation. If we can stop fighting over drug pricing and just let buyers and sellers freely communicate, it would free up pharmacists to be more innovative. Learn how Capital Rx is challenging the traditional PBM (pharmacy benefit manager) space and transforming drug pricing once and for all.
Jamey Edwards, Chief Platform Officer at StartUp Health, sees transformation through the eyes of hundreds of entrepreneurs that he supports. Their collective efforts are making progress in key areas such as improving access, reducing bias, and addressing health equity. Learn how StartUp Health’s portfolio companies are gaining traction and overcoming blockers of innovation that have limited the industry’s progress until now.
Snezana Mahon, Chief Operating Officer at Transcarent, shares how transparency, care, and empowerment are vital components of a transformation. An empowered healthcare consumer understands the choices that they need to make and has the right information at their fingertips to make those choices. Learn how Transcarent is focusing on the longitudinal experience of care in oncology, behavioral health, and more.
Dr. Shoshana Ungerleider, founder and president of End Well, shares how the practice of medicine is changing to better serve end-of-life needs. Without the proper training and education, it can be challenging for healthcare professionals to know where palliative care fits in their patients’ treatment. Learn how End Well is working to transform the dialogue about end-of-life care and honor the needs of patients and their loves ones.
Tony Ambrozie, Senior Vice President and Chief Digital and Information Officer at Baptist Health South Florida, shares how he represents consumers’ digital needs in their personal health journeys. Clinicians are heroes for the most important part of a patient’s journey – providing their care – but it isn’t the only part of the journey. Learn how Tony employs lessons he learned from his time at The Walt Disney Company, why communications preferences are considered table stakes, and how empathy for the operations team goes a long way.
Dr. Joneigh Khaldun, Vice President and Chief Health Equity Officer at CVS Health, shares the impact when organizations move beyond buzzwords and embark on a health equity transformation. Disparities aren’t inevitable, and there’s no gene that says that you should have a lower quality of life because of the color of your skin. Learn how to recognize the existence of implicit bias, collect data at scale, and use that data to address disparities in care.
Dr. Alistair Erskine, Chief Digital Health Officer at Mass General Brigham, breaks down what’s coming next as major medical institutions embrace the next phase of their digital transformation. While data is currency in managing patient care, it hasn’t been fully unlocked at scale yet. Learn how Mass General Brigham is aligning key digital components of their business model, operations, clinical workforce, and more, to provide a more satisfying patient experience.
Tamara Ward, SVP of Insurance Business Operations at Oscar Health, shares what happens when you put empathy at the center of the transformation equation. Sometimes starting and failing at transformation is still better than never trying it at all because of what you learn along the way. Learn how Tam has learned to align transformation with the core competencies of the business and not get distracted by the hot topics of the moment.
Michelle Lockyer knows that the pace of transformation can affect the ultimate result in large, established organizations. The longer that a transformation continues, the more challenging it can become for leaders to keep up the momentum and for team members to stay engaged. Learn the myths and realities of transformation in the biotech space, including the three steps on Michelle’s 90-day checklist, her tips for constructing a strong purpose statement, and the attributes she looks for in leaders to drive long-term change.
Myoung Cha, President of Omnichannel Care & Chief Strategy Officer at Carbon Health, knows that behavior change takes more than just sharing information. Human beings are wired to act on short-term outcomes rather than longer-term habits where behavior problems often occur. Learn how Carbon Health is creating a new kind of primary care by filling care gaps, creating tighter feedback loops, and leaning into ambiguity.
Dr. Nick Patel, chief digital officer at Prisma Health, shares what the 2025 version of a holistic experience strategy looks like, and what he’s working on today to get there. Shifting from fragmented care to connected ecosystems requires governance and alignment so that IT, informatics and medical groups can all look in the same direction. Learn the types of personas and data sources that Dr. Patel’s team uses to complete the patient picture and help physicians to provide more personalized, effective care.
Stella Sanchez, VP of consumer marketing at Teladoc Health, shares how building loyalty with consumers makes it easier to drive behavior change. Transformation requires inspiration, and that inspiration needs to come from a clear vision. Learn how Stella’s team uses a B2B2C marketing model to clearly articulate their vision not just for their client partners, but for the consumers whom they serve.
Matt Gove, chief marketing officer at Summit Health, discusses what health system leaders can learn from the transformation story of merging brands and growing relentlessly during the pandemic. Matt shares lessons about providing access to all the right care, developing the right type of relationships with consumers and the need to bring operations into patient experience work much earlier in the process. Learn more about Summit Health’s ongoing transformation work that has continued since their merger with CityMD, the leading urgent care provider in New York.
Mary Varghese Presti, SVP & GM of Dragon Medical, shares her experience setting the pace and direction for innovation at the same time. She explains the need for having not just a vision and inspiration for transformation, but also the execution and sweat equity to drive it to the destination.
Nishi Rawat MD, chief clinical officer of Bamboo Health, shares her experience in addressing whole-person health by attacking the twin epidemics of opioid abuse and mental health. There is an expectation for transformation in healthcare to happen quickly, but Nishi sees it happening incrementally, and it’s almost unnoticeable at times. Learn more about the work that their team at Bamboo Health is doing to make a difference.
Teladoc Health: Building Purpose-Led Consumer and Employee Experiences
Every year, Prophet surveys thousands of consumers and asks, “Which brands play an important role in your life at why?” And every year we crunch the numbers, synthesize their feedback and produce a ranking and insight-rich report for business leaders to leverage as they transform and grow their businesses through innovative customer and employee experiences.
This year’s survey focused on questions about the “head” and “heart” of consumers. While companies that won over the “heads” of consumers brought pragmatism and convenience, “heart” winners found ways to connect with them on an emotional level. The top brands – aka relentlessly relevant all-stars – did both.
In the 2022 Prophet Brand Relevance Index® (BRI) leading healthcare entities—pharma, providers, suppliers—gained traction and awareness for bringing innovative solutions during the COVID-19 pandemic. Pharma giants like Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson grew in name recognition and brand value as they stepped up to the world stage with life-saving vaccines. Non-traditional care platforms also gained traction as consumers opted for telemedicine experiences.
But which healthcare organization was the most relevant to the lives of 13,500 U.S. consumers? Teladoc Health, the multinational telemedicine and virtual care healthcare company, ranked as the #1 healthcare organization and #21 overall.
The pandemic forced the adoption of virtual care and Teladoc Health’s newly transformed experience was there to meet the moment – providing whole-person digital-first solutions to patients. And with gaining momentum, more and more consumers have begun to embrace digital native health platforms. These platforms are rapidly scaling to become not only the digital care continuum for patients but the care continuum. Traditional sectors of healthcare are drawing inspiration from modern digital healthcare players like Teladoc Health who are taking center stage (and top spots in rankings).
Stephany Verstraete, chief marketing and engagement officer at Teladoc Health, joined Prophet’s brand leadership team in the Prophet BRI webinar to share her take on the organization’s rise in consumer relevancy.
What was the focus of Teladoc Health’s brand in 2021 and is that changing as we step further into 2022?
The pandemic created this unique moment where Teladoc became relentlessly relevant – hitting both on the needs of the ‘head’ and the ‘heart.’
We’ve reached an inflection in the adoption curve of virtual care. Which is something that is pretty rare in the world of healthcare. And I think that really stemmed from being there in the moment of people’s needs. In 2020, suddenly something they had taken for granted – access to a doctor – was compromised. And fundamentally, it transformed the relationship they had with our brand, from being largely “head” dominated, focused on convenience and value, to increasingly meeting those needs of the “heart” side as we became a place that they could safely turn to, speak to, without leaving their home.
How do you ensure brand relevance is at the core of building the brand and customer experiences?
We have been digesting our recognition on the list for the first time and are using the brand relevance construct to put a framework around what we are focused on this year.
People naturally gravitate to Teladoc for the “head” needs – like simplification and transparency – and how it can provide individuals in system-centric environments with experiences that are more “person-centric.” As we think about moving forward, we want to focus on how to make those deeper focuses on the “heart” as we deliver innovative experiences. We want to change the way people think about the Teladoc Health experience – from just sick care to healthcare. This brand thinking is transformative for how we go to market, from a marketing perspective, all the way through how we infuse it in our experiences.
Outside of marketing, what do you do to drive relevance in other aspects of the business? How do you inspire the rest of your organization around a brand?
Getting your employees to be power users makes them your greatest brand evangelists. They are the first line of feedback that we incorporate into our experience.
Fundamentally, the Teladoc Health team is inspired by our mission of enabling all people everywhere to live their healthiest lives. Our 5,000 global employees are really the power users of our services. And I would tell you, as a marketer, who has not spent a career in healthcare, this is unique.
We are very intentional about keeping consumers front and center in all of our strategic conversations. For a lot of our DTC marketers, this would seem like an obvious statement but as you get into a healthcare context, it’s really important. For example, we start every strategic meeting with a story from one of our members. It really has a powerful impact on how to keep us grounded in our company’s true north. That is the experience we are delivering and the people we are helping. We are defining a category and something for consumers that is new. When I talk about the brand, it is critical because our brand relevance is still being formed for a lot of consumers.
It is rare to see a study of this kind that can parse out innovative and traditional brands in a way that is relevant and meaningful for all of them. That’s something that we’ve really appreciated.
The Prophet BRI serves as a roadmap for building relevance with consumers, the type of relevance that leads to business growth. Contact our team to learn how to apply the insights from the 2022 Index to your organization.
