Leaders' Blog

Innovations impact on affordable healthcare

Hi, this is Dr. Eugenia Jones signing in to post on the Technology Marketing Center Leaders' Blog.

Affordable healthcare is a pressing concern for all, particularly as employers pass more benefit costs onto employees, and more people are under-insured or carrying high deductible plans. Both insurers and the insured are looking to healthcare providers for a quality service at lower prices. If you’re a healthcare provider what can you do to respond to the demands of your market for more affordable services?

An ounce of prevention may be worth a pound of cure, and cost a good deal less than a pound of cure. One of the most effective means of lowering healthcare costs is to increase utilization of preventive care services, such as regular check-up and regular screening. Insurers embrace the economics of early detection and treatment, and  provide a variety of offerings and incentives to encourage and reward the use of  preventive care. How do healthcare providers remain profitable while embracing the “preventative maintenance” insurer promote?

One method frequently employed is to use lower cost personnel to provide check-ups and screenings and to take as little time possible to provide such services so that more patients can be seen in a day. We could debate the relative merits of such approaches, yet there implementation has not done enough to drive down costs. So what else might help. Not surprisingly, staying innovative, I.e. using the best and most recent tests available, can significantly reduce immediate costs, and improve long term outcomes. 

Healthcare providers invest significant funds in capital equipment, and are often hesitant to adopt innovative screening technologies that significantly reduce the use of the equipment they own. Healthcare providers often get stuck in the mentality that they must recoup equipment and training cost if they are to remain solvent. . New technologies, approved by the FDA, can significantly out perform current detection procedures. The changes in performance can result from lower equipment cost, increases in ease of use for “non-specialty” healthcare personnel, lower per test price, greater test accuracy, and test detection sensitivity, and earlier detection.

So with all the benefits to healthcare providers, and the patients, why is there a barrier to adoption. The problem lies at the feet of those of us who market the tests. We need to do a better job of understanding and addresses the barriers to adoption. We need to not simply sale our wares, we need to work with healthcare providers to develop a plan that will allow them to transition from current procedures to our tests. Change is never easy, but is always necessary, and change is easier to embrace when a trusted advisor makes the recommendation and will be there to see you through.

 In my next post I review novel medical technologies that can lower our healthcare cost, yet are likely face difficulties in adoption by healthcare providers.

Five Things About Living in the Gray.

Hello all, Rob DeRobertis for the Technology Marketing Center... and here are Five things about living in the gray.

When I was younger, I saw things very much in Black and White. Two things happened in my life that changed that perspective. One was the birth of my son; the other was learning Japanese culture. For anyone who has become a parent, I think you can emphasize that bringing a child in the world really changes your worldly perspective. I remember prior to parenthood, how I lived a very structured world, then after the introduction of our son, well, our world turned upside down. I would like to say that after 21 years, the world righted itself, but that is not how it is.

Later, as I prepared to do business in Japan, I immersed myself in understanding the Japanese culture. There was on item I learnt that amazed me at the time. In Japan it considered a normal opinion that an answer can be yes and no to a question. Getting your head around this idea is difficult for a Westerner but once you do, it helps you live even better in the gray. I think living in the gray helps one balance decision making and also helps understand organizational dynamics.

So here are five things to consider when living in the gray.

1) Who is right when the engineering team wants to deliver a flawless product and marketing wants to get to market ASAP?

2) What do you do when the CEO wants to increase profits and the sales team wants to increase revenue and take market share?

3) What happens when the marketing team wants to launch a new innovation while the financial team is managing down spending?

4) What do you do when the customer wants a product with all the features in half the time anyone can deliver?

5) How do you bring on the best talent while managing fixed spending?

The answers are almost never one or the other, but a blending of both. These are all rational problems where negotiation and time are variables. Negotiation is a difficult, slowly achieved, meeting in the middle but the more the team is willing to accept “gray” as the answer the faster the team will move. Time is best deployed when one aspect can be deployed at a different time as the other. For example, deciding to strategically take market share then to maximize profits later. The answer isn’t “if” but “when”. Both answers may be right, it is simply a timing problem.

Thinking in the gray is a critical leadership quality. Being able to see both the “Yes” perspective and the “No” perspective is a level of maturity that enables driving organizations forward.

So when you look in the mirror, do you see Black and White or Shades of gray? I guess the answer is “That Depends…”.