The Health Innovators Show

In an age of digitized healthcare, some of the biggest issues and challenges for innovators are privacy, how patient information is collected and protected, and how legislation impacts the landscape of innovation. How can health innovators uphold regulations in their business models and operations? How can privacy influence the success and failure of an innovation?  On this episode Lucia Savage, Chief Privacy and Regulatory Officer at Omada Health, shares on why healthcare innovators needs to uphold and embrace privacy, how to make it part of their business model, and the biggest myths about HIPAA.   3 Things We Learned New HHS announcements and how they impact innovators The two classes of digital health innovation How healthcare innovators should be thinking about privacy   The success of digital health companies is immensely dependent on how well they handle the sensitive issue of personal patient/customer data. Even if a digital innovation is only regulated by the FTC and not HIPAA, the impact of data breaches or mishandled information can do real damage to the patient, so the same level of care and cautiousness should be applied, regardless of who’s regulating the innovation. Innovators do well when they leverage privacy as part of their business model positioning strategy. Ultimately, by embracing the well-founded rules and building innovations on practices that protect the rights of patients, the product is more likely to succeed long-term.

Physician turned entrepreneur. Working within the healthcare ecosystem can definitely be an advantage. It's important to understand how healthcare thinks and being a physician-entrepreneur can offer credibility for knowing what it's like to be on the frontline. On the flip side, doctors are trained to think about problems in a linear way, which can sometimes get in the way of innovation.    Just because you've identified a real problem in healthcare and developed an innovation that is superior to competing solutions on the market, doesn't guarantee commercial success. How can we make healthcare innovation easier? How can we become more focused on outputs instead of inputs? How can taking a sabbatical help entrepreneurs come back to the game with new clarity, energy, and passion?   On this episode, I’m joined by global health innovator and ScalaMed CEO, Dr. Tal Rapke, MD, who shares his formula for healthcare innovation success.   3 Things You'll Learn Four questions to use as a lens for creating value The difference between having a solution that solves a healthcare problem and having rigorous evidence to support your claims The power of curiosity: Why it's important to stay curious enough to keep asking "why"   In order to create an innovation that truly solves a problem on a large scale, we need to think of how we can reduce the workload and friction for patients and clinicians. We need to bring patients on the journey, think more about outcomes than inputs, and consider the entire flow of the whole system.

The process of commercializing an innovation in a completely new category requires an approach that is entirely different to incremental innovations. When you’re trying to innovate in such a space, how do you get the messaging and positioning right? Why do you have to put a lot of time and effort into your sales strategy? What core capabilities does an innovator need to have in order to succeed? On this episode, I’m joined by healthcare rewards pioneer, IncentOne and The Lonely Entrepreneur founder, Michael Dermer who talks about building the first healthcare rewards company, and his insights for innovators.   3 Things You'll Learn How to move a market that’s slow to change How to rise above the noise Why focusing on product isn’t good enough   Influencing a slow and clunky industry like healthcare can be an immense challenge because you’re trying to turn a huge tide. A lot can be learned from the story of IncentOne, and how they were able to succeed at a time most healthcare organizations find the idea of rewarding people offensive. The secret is positioning and messaging, and more specifically coming up with a central theme that people can connect to, and playing in an area where only you can win, a space where no one else is. You have to marry the clarity of your vision with what it takes to actually get business.

Commercializing an innovation in healthcare is complex and hard. But, there are challenges and opportunities that lie within the artistic economics of healthcare. Traditionally, medicine is practiced based on how insurance will pay for that medicine to be practiced. The lack of consumer empowerment and choice not only affects how medicine is practiced, but how difficult it is for entrepreneurs to commercialize their innovations.   What are some of the barriers to commercialization and how have they been changed recently? How does being intentional about the culture your are developing from the beginning affect your success? How can we remove the fear of risk to fail fast and fail up?  On this episode, I’m joined by founder and CEO of CaptureProof, Meghan Conroy, who shares her candid commercialization experiences and what it’s really like to ride the “roller coaster” of healthcare innovation.   3 Things You'll Learn Reimbursement alignment for commercialization success Running like a lean startup while you're starting and growing Reoccurring revenue business models   Changing something as integrated as healthcare isn’t easy, but we shouldn’t use the challenges as an excuse not to do something. We have to make innovation easier in healthcare so we can really move the ball forward. The only way you can beat the odds is "don't give up."

Health systems have inherent challenges when adopting technology because of how they are structured. How does this impact the ability to commercialize innovations? Why is collaboration such a key ingredient to finding success when selling innovations to hospital systems? What challenges are innovators facing and what can they do to solve them? On this episode, I’m joined by Dr. Ashish Atreja, the Chief Innovation Officer of Medicine at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, co-founder of Rx.Health, and co-founder of Node.Health. He shares his experience with commercializing innovations within a health system and as an entrepreneur.   3 Things You'll Learn How to find success selling to a hospital system Why financial success or ROI is a must-have for effective messaging How getting doctors to prescribe your mobile health app is critical for consumer adoption To successfully commercialize your innovation, there are three key things every innovator needs to consider: how to create unique value, how technology can improve efficiency in the health system, and how to find partners who can extend the value nationally and globally.    Never underestimate what partnering with the right people can do. There are many scalable innovations in the market, but they don’t go anywhere because they don’t find meaningful partnerships to collaborate with. The greatest thing about healthcare is, if you’re bent on creating efficiency, there are so many ways to do it. You just need to have the right people and messaging in your corner to achieve it.

Thousands of apps, devices, and wearables are brought to market with good intentions of solving real problems, but they just don’t get any adoption. Part of the problem is a disconnect between the innovation and the patient’s needs. What are patient leaders, and why is it so important for innovators to engage with them? How can involving a patient in the co-creation process help uncover hidden insights? What are some of the problems that can arise in these engagements? On this episode chief strategy officer of WegoHealth, David Goldsmith, and I dig into why product co-creation is so critical in order to successfully bring an innovation to market.   3 Things We Learned   How patient leaders benefit your marketing Working with the patients helps get the word out about your product to other patients. The information will have a far greater impact with other patients coming from them than if that same message is being delivered by the company creating the innovation.   How to get the most valuable contribution from patient leaders When it comes to patient leaders, most innovators don’t know where to find the right people to put into the room. They struggle to know who to draw in and what their contribution will be. Start with something along the lines of a patient advisory board. By creating a board that includes the very same people you want to reach, you boost the commercialization potential of your innovation.     What can go wrong with patient leader engagements The one thing that many companies get wrong is engaging with patient leaders and then choosing to ignore or dismiss what was put forth. You could get backlash, and this might really affect your reputation in the market.   The landscape of failed products and solutions targeting patients in healthcare is vast and highly documented. For a lot of innovators, the first mistake they make is in what they fail to do, and that’s bringing in the right voices and influencers from the market they are trying to serve. A lot of things get overlooked when you don’t involve the right stakeholders in your commercialization process. By choosing to co-create with the people your innovation is going to serve, you increase your chances of success significantly.   Guest Bio- David is the Chief Strategy Officer at WEGO Health. WegoHealth is the world’s largest network of patient leaders to help health innovators access patient experiences and expertise in the designs, development, and promotion of products and services. Connect with him on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/dsgoldsmith/.

Many healthcare innovators build amazing technology but struggle with adoption and engagement. What can healthcare entrepreneurs learn from academia to solve this problem? Why is it so important to understand the business models in healthcare innovation?   On today’s show, we’re talking to Dr. Kate Wolin, the CEO and co-founder of ScaleDown, the one-of-a-kind digital behavioral health innovation that successfully eliminated the “graveyard” drawer of digital fitness devices, attracted around 145,000 users to the platform, and was acquired by Anthem Health - Blue Shield in November 2018.   Dr. Wolin shares the lessons she’s learned while switching lanes from academia to entrepreneurship, and the power of starting with an underserved demographic. 3 Things We Learned   How to cut through the noise and competition in healthcare innovation The best way to rise above all the noise and competition in healthcare innovation is evidence and published work. This de-risks the investment for potential partners which makes it easier to go to market.   The unique strategy Dr. Wolin and her team implemented ScaleDown managed to reach people no one else was reaching and people who hadn’t had success with existing models. Nothing makes a stronger business case than starting from the underserved, hard-to-reach markets. It helps the idea of going to the easy-to-reach markets make more sense to investors and partners.   The value of building relationships with academics As a healthcare innovator, you don’t have to become a world-class scientist, you just need to find one and work with them. Invest in building relationships with academics. They can offer the insight and evidence you need to make commercialization easier.   95% of innovations brought to market fail to reach an adequate level of customer acceptance and profitability, but there are steps innovators can take to increase the chances of success. Working with scientists to build evidence for your innovation is key, along with paying attention to the innovations that have found success in academic science, and understanding the business model and product-market fit in healthcare. Ultimately, it’s all about reducing risk for investors and perfecting the user experience around ease of use. Guest Bio- Dr. Kate Wolin is a behavioral scientist, epidemiologist, and entrepreneur. She is the CEO and co-founder of Scale Down, a digital behavioral health innovation. Go to https://www.linkedin.com/in/kate-wolin/ to connect with her and follow @DrKateWolin on Twitter.

Running a business can feel a lot like raising a child: anything can happen. What are some of the key decisions we can make in order to be more adaptable to shifts and changes? Why is saving money in the early stage of a company so important? How can rapid cycle innovation influence our success? On this episode, Deerwalk CEO Jeff Gasser shares how he turned his health innovation into what Amazon health considers one of the best life science companies in the country. He’ll walk us through his key entrepreneurial do’s and don’ts, the need for a minimum viable product, and capital-raising myths. He also shares on building lifelong business and customer relationships and how each innovation you commercialize is building the legacy for your next one.   3 Things You'll Learn How to be efficient with product strategies Why critical customers are actually a good thing The importance of finding early adopters   Running a business comes with many phases and challenges, and you need to be ready to pivot and shift accordingly. Having an ego and being too focused on your specific plan gets in the way of your success. The important thing is creating what people actually want and care about, and understanding how you’re going to distribute the product. Instead of over-developing a product, focus on very small, incremental and agile product roll-outs. That way, your company moves fast and can react to market forces more readily.

Many healthcare innovators fail to get any traction because they don’t take the time to learn the unwritten rules and principles of the industry. What are the rules and languages that govern healthcare, and how do we become better skilled at using them to guide our approach? How can you cross the chasm from pilot to mainstream?  On this episode, I’m joined by President of Health Strategy at V3, Dr. Paul Markham, who talks about the mistakes innovators are making and how we can correct them.   3 Things You'll Learn Why some healthcare innovations fail and others succeed The unwritten rules of successful commercialization Three most important unspoken languages in healthcare: data, doctors, and dollars   The truth about healthcare is: if there’s no financial benefit or forcing factor, there’ll be no reason for an innovation to happen. This means that as we sell our innovations, we have to tell the right story and get buy-in from the right people. Understand how data, doctors and dollars play into it, and tailor your approach to get the messages through to different people. If our innovations can generate revenue and change the business of healthcare, we’ll have incredible clinical outcomes, and the quality metrics will go through the roof.

“Death by pilot” is a phenomenon that happens far too often for healthcare innovators, and it can take them out of business before they even start selling anything. What is the root of this problem, and what are the initial mistakes innovators make? What are the things you need to nail down before you launch a pilot so that it doesn’t mark the end of your business?  On this episode, I talk about how to have a pilot that actually leads to sales and avoids “pilot purgatory”.   3 Things You'll Learn Many innovators get so excited that someone was interested in their project they accept everything during the negotiation process. This is how they end up with unfavorable terms. If you don’t negotiate any sales terms for the end of the pilot, you can be left holding the bag. You want to have a pilot of early adopters because they are the people with a higher likelihood to buy your innovation after the pilot.    When health innovators have to launch a pilot in order to establish medical validation or clinical evidence, they can end up in pilot purgatory and go out of business before making any sales. In order to get a good outcome from the pilot, you have to know what it’s actually for. The pilot is the pathway to demonstrating safety and efficacy. You still need sales afterwards for it to be viable. Your negotiations, goals, and KPIs should be going in that direction.