Many technical or innovation leaders at healthcare organizations can relate to this sentiment. Through conversations with partners and clients, we at Healthbox often hear similar refrains. While leaders recognize the need to embrace digital health technologies, the process of assessing and selecting the best-fit solutions at scale is challenging.
With $3.5B in private capital invested in digital health startups during the first half of 2017 combined with the ongoing investment in R&D by incumbents, there is no shortage of available solutions. Strategy, business development, and innovation teams at hospital systems and other healthcare organizations encounter a myriad of digital health companies through channels such as conferences, articles, or referrals from clinical teams. Navigating the crowded space is time-consuming and often haphazard.
There are a number of inefficiencies leaders and teams face while seeking and evaluating relevant digital health solutions:
• Lack of (accurate) information: Websites filled with marketing information can make it hard to discover what the company actually does. Furthermore, even if a company’s solution is clear, evidence to verify assertions on the efficacy and cost savings attributed to the tool is limited.
• Uncoordinated problem definition: Health systems are still highly siloed organizations and budget for new technology adoption often spans multiple business units. This often leads to multiple people in the same organization looking for similar or redundant solutions.
• Unclear selection criteria: Even if there is a coordinated effort to evaluate new technologies, it is still challenging to sift through dozens of potential technologies if organizational needs have not been properly prioritized.
At Healthbox, we’ve evaluated over 3,000 digital health companies through our history as an accelerator and currently as we provide innovation consulting and fund management services. With so many digital health solutions available, how can healthcare executives improve the sourcing and selection process?
Start with the Problem
Before searching for a digital health solution, it is important to identify the specific problem the digital health solution must solve. These problems may include inefficient workflows across particular departments, patient access to behavioral health services, or management of chronic disease patients. Problem identification can be achieved by interviewing various stakeholders such as clinical and support staff to determine their pain points. The more narrowly defined the problem, the easier it will be to later evaluate potential solutions. However, organizational leaders must avoid the pitfall of describing a challenge so specific that is it created with a particular solution in mind. Doing so runs the real risk of unexpected losses from misaligned priorities and expectations (and increases the likelihood of lack of commitment on implementation). Evaluating ad-hoc requests from clinicians will be simpler, efficient, and transparent if the decision-maker can compare against ranked list of priorities.
Determine Priorities for Selection
Once the organization’s leadership has defined the problem that the organization is looking to solve, it is important to determine the process through which available solutions will be evaluated. The decision process should be guided by a framework or scorecard that specifically outlines decision criteria and how those criteria are weighted relative to one another. Organizations will have a range of risk appetites, availability of IT resources, and patient demographics. Health System A may be in the midst of an EHR implementation and not have IT resources to undertake a solution that requires a lengthy implementation, while Health System B might have limited ability to take on technology risk, so it might prioritize solutions from incumbents.
Gather a List of Relevant Technologies
Once priorities and problem areas are established, organizational leaders can begin a systematic search for companies using resources such as CapIQ, Lucro, and articles from trusted industry media outlets. If your organization has a high degree of comfort with earlier stage companies, recent venture capital investments announcements and portfolio companies of relevant incubators, accelerators, and venture firms also can provide insight into the newest technologies and companies.
Rank Companies
After gathering the list of potential solutions, leaders and teams can assess the companies with an established ranking based on the previously defined selection criteria. For this part, it may be helpful to have a “peer reviewer” who does not have an interest in the outcome of the process, but can offer insight to appropriately evaluate the companies and solutions. The aim of the stack ranking should be to filter down to a manageable number of potential solutions based on your priorities and available staff. It’s unlikely that a team can meaningfully and rapidly evaluate more than five or six companies with live, in-person meetings.
Research and Deliverables
With a short list of target solutions in hand, organizations can begin gathering secondary research to help further narrow the list. This research may involve reading case studies or whitepapers available on the company’s website, as well as browsing third party reviews of each company. Once sufficient secondary information is gathered and evaluated based on organizational priorities, the team can begin primary research through interviews with each company, as well as with other health systems that have adopted the technology. Key questions include:
• For Companies:
o How does the solution solve the problem being addressed?
o Who are the key customers? If it’s a new technology, are these paying or pilot customers?
o How will the program be implemented and evangelized throughout the organization?
• For Health Systems that have adopted the solution:
o How did the actual implementation process align with your expectations?
o Where did the company not deliver on original promises?
For the most critical questions, particularly those related to cost and quality outcomes, the leadership should ask, “How do you know?” and validate this information through references, peer reviewed results, and demonstrable criteria.
Once an assessment of the technologies has been made, the top contenders should be presented to key stakeholders and decisions makers. The presentation should include a recommended solution and supporting rationale, as well as suggested structure of the pilot or initial roll out. Organizational leaders should also determine how to define success for the pilot or roll out, with specific references to metrics that will be used to evaluate whether the solution adoption has been successful.
Learn more about how Healthbox helps organizations find, filter, and select validated digital health solutions by visiting the Healthbox website.
About the Authors:
Justin Gernot, VP Business Development, Healthbox
Justin leads business development for Healthbox. After nearly 20 years selling healthcare technologies, he’s excited to help leading organizations make better decisions on how and why to Build, Buy or Partner on strategic digital health technologies. Follow him @jgernot or on LinkedIn.
Emily Wengel, Manager, Healthbox
Emily leads Healthbox’s Horizon Scan, a platform that helps healthcare organizations source top-tier digital health solutions. Qualifying organizations can receive access to research by requesting a complimentary trial of Horizon Scan. Follow her @emilywengel.
The views, opinions and positions expressed within these guest posts are those of the author alone and do not represent those of Becker’s Hospital Review/Becker’s Healthcare. The accuracy, completeness and validity of any statements made within this article are not guaranteed. We accept no liability for any errors, omissions or representations. The copyright of this content belongs to the author and any liability with regards to infringement of intellectual property rights remains with them.
