Health B2B Marketing

The iPad and the iOS will change the expectations of the health B2B market.

OK, so the hype around iPads and healthcare may have some truth to it. So what does that mean to marketers?

Some marketers talk about how health care companies can market their wares through apps. Sure. Build an app, if it makes sense for you. Or they talk about iPad’s implications for mobile marketing. Yawn. Of course. A bigger screen + connectivity is a boon to messaging by mobile means. You don’t need me to tell you that.

There are two “tablet consequences” I find important: One, the iPad and the iOS will change the expectations of our market. Two, iOS will lower barriers to entry in the Health IT/eHealth space.

Tablets will further condition people to expect immediacy. I mentioned yesterday that iOS is not a program-based operating system, but a task-based one. We can use our iPhones, iPads, Android or Blackberry devices when we want to accomplish one thing, like looking up some bit of information or connect with our important data. There’s virtually no limit to the one-off tasks that these devices can help us do.

These devices make information retrieval immediate, just-in-time, when we want it, how we want it. And these devices are being adopted by tens of thousands of our most important customers. Doctors are interested in iPad because of its immediacy, its ease of use and its ability to enhance—rather than roadblock—their workflow.

That means that dead simple ease of use is an expectation. As more and more health care technology moves to the iPad, the audience will expect them to behave like apps—small, simple, and usable. Ease of use will no longer be a differentiator, it will be a requirement. That’s more of a takeaway for a product marketer than a communicator. Still, it’s important for communicators to understand biases, and this is the direction our audience is heading, especially as the older guard retires.

The health technology space will get more crowded. You don’t need millions of dollars and hundreds developers to create an app, so there will be more companies sprouting up that offer apps to meet highly specific needs. As the health care app space gets crowded, authenticity and relationships will become even more important. Winners will not only have a terrific product that solves a real problem but have a brand that captures the imagination and encourages genuine interactions.

Now, I realize that these are directions that modern consumers have been taking for some time, but iPad/iPhone/iOS have hastened the movement.

Any other “tablet consequences” that you can think of?

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I was a skeptic about all the iPad+Healthcare hype. But my skepticism is waning.

When the iPad 2 was released, I braced myself for the deluge of bloggers and tweeters who would find some connection between iPad 2 and healthcare. The deluge was significant. And much of what was discussed was at best hyperbole and at worst search engine baiting. What was worse was the number of iPad+Healthcare+Marketing posts I saw. Frankly, the only connection I envisioned between the iPad and health care marketing was another shiny device to give away at trade shows.

But now that the hype is waning, my skepticism is waning, too. There are still reasons to look at the iPad with a wary eye, but also plenty of reasons to be open to the possibility that the iPad—and iOS—might just be the biggest thing to happen to eHealth/Health IT since ARRA.

iPad has blown open the tablet market. Tablets have been around for years, but not until iPad have they gone mainstream. I remember when Microsoft came out with its Windows XP Tablet PC edition. There was much talk then about its uses for health care. But reality never lived up to the hype. Now, while doctors and hospitals aren’t necessarily beating down Apple Store doors to purchase iPads, their adoption rate is pretty good for being around just a year.

Docs want devices that are easy to use. One of the terrific things about the iPad is its ease of use. Millions of iPads have already sold. My 60-something neighbor can’t live without hers. My 30-something wife—who is a bit of a technology dunderhead (sorry, sweetie, but you know I’m right)—had to have one. She uses hers every day. Doctors, many of whom are technophobes, are only reporting minor usability troubles with the iPad. If any device could grease the skids for greater EMR use, it’s the iPad.

iPad is task-based, not software-based. As a group, doctors are the busiest multi-taskers on the planet. Wouldn’t it be great if they could have some program at their fingertips that will help them do just that one thing? With Windows slapped on a tablet, that’s a completely foreign concept. But with the iOS, it’s happening already.

Now, there are certainly other devices out there that do the same things. But iPads and the iOS are the market and the adoption leaders. If one tablet device can be pointed to as leading the revolution, it’s the iPad.

So marketers, why should the iPad mean more to you than a trade show giveaway? More on that tomorrow.

Photo credit: Robert Scoble (cc)

e-Health or Health IT? Yes, there is a distinction, and I believe it's a critical one.

Back at HIMSS11 in Orlando, I had a nice conversation with Bill Oravecz, a consultant who specializes in helping doctors make smart decisions about EMRs. He asked a question that I as a marketer hadn’t thought of before. “What is eHealth?”

He must have noticed the puzzled look on my face because he kindly answered his own question. “It’s all about health, and making it easy to be healthy. Just like eCommerce was about making commerce easier and eBusiness was about making business easier, eHealth is about making health easier. ‘Health IT’ puts too much emphasis on technology. The emphasis should be on health.”

This conversation, at the largest health IT conference in America, was refreshing, and it changed my perspective. I’ve long believed that health IT was an answer to health care’s issues with cost, quality and access. Great technology removes administrative waste and drives cost out of the system. Great technology brings best practices into greater focus, improving quality of care. Great technology makes great care more widely available.

But the future is not about health technology. The future is technology helping us be healthier.

May I add myself to the many who have used the brand Apple as a positive example. Apple is a technology company that understands it is not a technology company. They’re more like Maytag than they are like Microsoft. Apple is a home appliance company. They understand that their technology should make life easier and that the form and function of their hardware and software are just as important, if not more important, than their cool features.

I’m no Apple disciple—I don’t own Apple stock and I run my business on PCs. However, I do own an iPhone and I got my wife an iPad for Christmas, and the overall simplicity of these devices is impressive. While my PC is essential for getting things done when I’m at my desk, my iPhone is an essential device when I’m living my life, moreso than other smartphones I’ve owned. They’ve made being connected easy.

As marketers, I think it’s essential that we stop thinking of our companies as technology companies and start thinking of them as eHealth companies. Our technology will improve the health care system, but ultimately, are companies will be irrelevant unless we impact the health of individuals.

And let’s make sure that everyone in our company understands that “e” doesn’t stand for “electronic.” It stands for “easy.”

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The economy, regulatory requirements, congressional inaction and meaningful use penalties are changing the provider market, with hospitals the likely winners. But hospitals are feeling the budget crunch, too

With all the great things happening in the health IT market in 2010, it’s easy to forget that the economy continued to be a strain on providers. Add the down economy to regulatory requirements related to ICD-10 and EMRs, and those who provide care will continue to be burdened by financial worries in 2011.

Consider these factors:

• There was no permanent fix for the Medicare physician payment formula. Physician organizations like the AMA are saying that this could cause doctors to stop seeing Medicare patients and military families.
• Doctors are wary about meaningful use requirements. There was a ton of excitement in 2009 when the stimulus package was announced. Providers were eligible for up to $44,000 in incentives. That excitement has waned a bit. Many physicians are skeptical of the benefits of EMRs. Some docs are wondering if it’s really cost effective for them try to qualify for the package. ARRA’s penalties may make meaningful use difficult to avoid, but that doesn’t make docs feel any better.
• Some doctors are getting out of private practice and opting for the safety of a large group practice or working for hospitals. Group practices allow docs to focus less on business and more on patients. At the big practices, clinic managers and billing offices take care of the messy financial details. Hospitals rightly see physicians as a source of referrals, and the closer their relationship with them, the more beds they can fill.
• Hospitals, however, are feeling the squeeze as well. They are trying to eek out as much money from their supply chains as possible, and they don’t seem to be making the margins they used to.

What can marketers take away from 2010′s tough financial environment?

The hospital market is going to grow. As hospitals buy up private practices, and as Accountable Care Organizations become more viable, hospitals will have a lot of market power. If you’re used to marketing to 250,000 physician groups, your world will get a bit simpler as many of those physician groups coalesce into one of the 6,000 or so hospitals in America. But reaching hospital decision maker can be even more tricky than reaching a clinic decision maker. Time to bone up on your knowledge of the hospital market.

Focus on value. No one holding purse strings these days is willing to spend more than they have to. It’s on you as a marketer to tell a convincing value story. But more often than not, decisions will be made based on price. If your product or service isn’t the lowest priced, you may be able focus on your total cost of ownership, or the costs that fall outside of the check they write to your company. If you can show that the total cost of your product is less than your competitors, tell that story!

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Huge mergers are proof that Health IT is a growth industry. But what do you do when you're part of an acquired company?

2010 was a big year for mergers and acquisitions, especially among the big hitters who were positioning themselves to benefit from stimulus money. Allscripts acquiring Eclipsys, Aetna buying Medicity, MedQuist high-bidding for Spheris, Francisco Partners purchasing QuadraMed and Quantros, and Ingenix acquiring Axolotl (and A-Life, PICIS, and EHR) all made the news. Some acquisitions were relatively small potatoes—in the tens of millions range—while some were huge. The Allscripts/Eclipsys deal was worth $1.3 billion.

The number of mergers prove that the industry we work in has a huge upside. Collectively, we’re in a good spot.

But what if you’re part of the acquired company, not the acquiring company?

I spent five years at Ingenix, one of the most active health IT companies in terms of M&A. Having seen dozens of acquisitions firsthand, I can tell you that they’re never easy. There are issues related to culture, brand, leadership, and, of course, human resources. There aren’t many acquisitions that happen without job loss.

So, what should health IT marketers take away from all the shuffling of 2010? Allow me to cull from my own experience.

Be nimble. It’s a well-worn cliche: The only constant is change. That was true at Ingenix. That company was formed in 1997 as a merger of five technology companies acquired by UnitedHealth Group, and since then they’ve grown by acquisition. I would estimate that they now consist of about 70-80 companies. Because of the aforementioned adjustments needed in culture and leadership, it seemed like there was an internal re-org happening every 12-18 months.

I’m proud of how we handled change in the marketing department. We were constantly communicating with product management and sales teams, and we kept lines of communication open with our executives. We kept our heads down and focused on results that we knew would please these stakeholders, but we were able to quickly shift to new priorities when necessary. Ingenix has a talented marketing group, and it showed in how we consistently achieved results amidst acquisitions and reorganizations.

Don’t be afraid to reinvent yourself: Not only have I survived acquisitions and reorganizations, I’ve been a victim of them. While working on the Ingenix PR team, the company hired a new CEO who had some biases about PR that didn’t match the team we had built. So he let the entire team go. I returned two years later to Ingenix in a marketing role, but in the meantime worked as a communications manager for a hospital system. Those years were critical for me as I learned the ins and outs and needs of hospitals, especially on the finance and materials management side of the business, and that experience helped me immeasurably when I returned to Ingenix. I left as a media relations specialist. I returned as an expert in the hospital market.

The point is, never see yourself as a victim of circumstance. The changes over which you have no control can be seen as opportunities to learn new skills and use untapped strengths. When you do, you’ll come out stronger and better prepared for when the next opportunity arises.

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When President Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act into law, it had ramifications on the entire health industry. What can you learn from last year's health reform experience?

The year 2010 will go down in history as the year the United States passed health reform. It wasn’t as sweeping as many had hoped. And it went way too far for some people. But the fact of the matter is this: the country saw that the number of uninsured was unacceptable, and they passed sweeping legislation to help fix the problem. To me, that’s historic.

The target of the law was mainly health insurance companies. It required them to cover certain services, the details of which have yet to be ironed out. It prohibited them from medical underwriting and from spending less than 85% of their premium receipts on patient care. The law also gave regulators greater power to eliminate fraud and abuse, and it allowed for greater authority to challenge insurance rate hikes.

Rate hikes were the subject of much public debate in 2010, with HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius speaking out against WellPoint’s proposed rate hikes. She also pressured the CEOs of other major insurance companies like UnitedHealthcare, Aetna and the Healthcare Services Corp to justify their own premium increases.

What can marketers and PR pros learn from the health reform experience?

Keep tabs on politics and politicians. You know that your company’s fortunes can be helped or hindered by politics. One best practice is to understand and plan for what lies ahead. Your company’s government relations team can educate you on how legislation up for consideration this year could affect the company’s long-term prospects. Schedule some time with your government relations people now.

Assume the partnership position. Early on in the health reform legislative process, insurance companies behaved like partners with the Obama Administration. Remember the much publicized meetings between the Administration and the health industry execs back in 2009? That all changed, from my perspective, when public support for health reform started waning. The administration abandoned its conciliatory approach and reverted back to their old reliable way of demonizing insurance companies to gain public support. Such is life for health insurance marketers. Here’s hoping for a less turbulent year in 2011.

For the health IT market, we are well-positioned to be partners. Our products and services are generally designed to remove costs from the system. We can help insurance companies drive down administrative costs. We can help hospitals attain the lofty goal of driving up quality while lowering costs. We can help physicians meet the goal of electronic medical records without breaking the bank. If we are viewed as partners with government, insurers, providers and patients in becoming more efficient and driving down costs, we can avoid being in the difficult position that the insurance industry finds themselves in.

That vendors could be perceived as contributors to—not solvers of—the problem should be a real concern. There is skepticism about this industry’s sustainability. Congress is questioning HIT contracts. We need to be advocates within our organizations for words and actions that show that we are truly “solution providers.”

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The ICD-10 conversion will affect the systems and processes of every health care stakeholder. As a health care B2B marketer, what are you doing about ICD-10?

Health care B2B marketers: If you think ARRA was a big deal—to quote the immortal Randy Bachman of Bachman-Turner Overdrive—you ain’t seen nothing yet.

The impending conversion from ICD-9-CM to ICD-10-CM/PCS has been on provider’s radar since 2009, but it hasn’t received widespread attention until this year. Its effect on the health care industry has been compared by many to the Y2K conversion, and one organization has called it “the biggest change in health care since the advent of the computer.”

That’s high rhetoric, and, by all accounts I’ve seen, it’s not hyperbole. The ICD-10 conversion will affect the clinical, financial and IT systems, processes and workflows of every stakeholder in the health care industry: doctors, hospitals, insurers, government agencies. And it’s conversion is not that far away; it is mandated to be the method used for coding and reimbursement by October 1, 2013.

As a health care B2B marketer, have you jumped on the ICD-10 train? Since the conversion will affect so many organizations, it’s likely that it will affect your customers, too. How can you use marketing to set your organization up as an ICD-10 resource? To answer that question, go to your subject matter experts and pick their brains. Ask them questions like, “How does ICD-10 affect our customers?” “What will they need from our industry to prepare?” “What products or solutions do we have that will help our customers today?”

Once you’ve answered those basic questions, find out more about the ICD-10 challenge. I recommend reading the following:

Is ICD-10 the Industry’s Wake-up Call?
A good article in a recent Health Data Management issue on how (un)prepared the industry is at this point in time.

ICD-10 Watch
A microsite provided by Healthcare IT News, Healthcare Finance News and InfoSys that keeps readers updated on the latest ICD-10 developments.

American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) ICD-10 site
This page does a good job of explaining the benefits of ICD-10.

Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) ICD-10 Overview
Resources to help different industry segments prepare for ICD-10, plus information on ICD-10′s close cousin, the HIPAA 5010 transaction set.

Then comes the fun part: marketing your ICD-10 story to your customers. The only piece of advice I’ll give you is to move as fast as you can: chances are, your competitors have already gone to market.

What have you been doing to market your ICD-10 products and services?

Some hospitals are struggling right now, and marketing can help them. But what won't work is pumping more marketing dollars into a fatally flawed institution in hopes of reviving it.

I saw two tweets during the past week that triggered the same red flag: they proffered marketing as the savior for ailing hospitals. This marketer is skeptical. Here are the tweets:

@KarenEllis1: St Vincent in Manhattan Shutters – What I Wish They Knew About Increasing Patient Volume #hcmktg http://dld.bz/chsr

@mspier: Excellent piece on how aggressive #hcmktg may save Grady Memorial in Atlanta. Is it a smart move? http://shar.es/mjDZe

The first tweet links to the “Turn Up Your Volume” blog and a post by John Luginbill, who has some impressive credentials. But I take issue with his statement that St. Vincent’s hospital in Manhattan “could have been saved by marketing.”

The second tweet links to an article by Marianne Aiello, marketing editor for HealthLeaders Media, who writes a nice defense of Grady Memorial’s marketing budget. But I disagree with the sub-headline: “Why Marketing May Revive the Struggling Hospital.”

Before I go further, apologies to Luginbill and Aiello. I don’t know either of them, and I don’t want to make them enemies of mine. In Aiello’s defense, she probably didn’t write the headline. In the copy editor’s defense—the one who probably did write the headline—she’s trying to get people to read the article. Same goes for Luginbill: he’s drawing attention to his specialty: increasing patient volume at hospitals. Can’t blame a guy for that, can I?

I talked this week with some friends who work for some very successful Utah hospitals, but those hospitals are struggling right now because of the overall economy. Less disposable income has meant fewer elective (read: “money making”) procedures being performed in these facilities.

Now, these hospitals aren’t in danger of closing like St. Vincent’s did or selling out like Detroit Medical Center did. The Utah hospitals serve populations that are relatively healthy and relatively well-insured. They can rely on commercially insured patients to make up the difference for the uninsured and for those insured by government payers like Medicaid and Medicare. Grady, St. Vincent’s and DMC all serve different patient populations: more unhealthy with a high percentage of uninsured or government-insured patients. They can’t rely as much on commercially insured patients.

The answer that Luginbill and Aiello offer is for public, urban hospitals to use marketing to go out and get more commercially insured patients. I see a few problems with that:

• There’s a finite pool of commercially insured Americans, and they’ve probably already chosen a hospital close to them
• You can bet that if urban hospitals use marketing to attract the commercially insured, suburban hospitals will do the same thing, too
• Health reform won’t kick in more insured people until 2014; even then, many of the newly insured will be on poor paying government plans

But let’s say that more marketing does bring more commercially-insured patients to urban hospitals. Will that fact alone save the hospitals from the brink of ruin? Not necessarily. Tight spending and prudent decision-making are key to running a hospital—any hospital—and just because there’s an influx of cash doesn’t mean that the root of the problem is resolved.

We all know the old saying, “put lipstick on a pig.” It refers to dressing up some unattractive product or service in hopes of making it more attractive. That can sometimes work, honestly. But what won’t work is pumping more marketing dollars into a fatally flawed product in hopes of reviving it. Marketing alone can’t save a failing hospital.

Kathleen Sebelius's department of Health and Human Services just gave health care IT marketers a late Christmas gift

Any time there are new, complex regulations related to health care, it’s a marketing moment for health care vendors. Last week, just before the New Year’s holiday, a golden opportunity fell in to your laps when the Department of Health and Human Services proposed its long-awaited meaningful use and certification criteria. If you sell products that are affected by these rulings, you should be working right now to take attach your brand to meaningful use.

Share your perspective. Chances are, there are a few people in your organization who know every nuance of the HITECH bill, who have read every major news article on meaningful use, who have contributed to online discussions, and who have pored through every page of the meaningful use proposals. Take some time with these people to learn about the rulings and what they mean to your company, your clients, your prospects, and to the industry in general.

You probably already have talking points on meaningful use; adjust those talking points based on the new information. Then, share your updated perspective every way you can: pitch an interview to your media contacts, send an email to your user’s group, update your employees, etc.

Teach your audience what you know. All told, there are more than 700 pages to read, 556 proposed meaningful use regulations and 156 discussing the proposed certification standards. Most people are going to rely on outside sources to learn what it means to them. Be their source. Working with the experts you identified earlier, develop a webinar presentation that discusses the important points of the meaningful use rule. Share how the changes would affect your audience, and give them detailed instructions on how they should prepare. It’s also a good idea to schedule and promote a webinar to discuss the final rulings, since its contents are will likely be the last word on meaningful use.

Go public with your response. Your organization has a lot riding on meaningful use, so it will want to respond to the proposed rule as a corporate entity. Your response will become public information, so why not go public with it as soon as you can? Now’s your chance to influence the court of public opinion. Post your response on your company’s website or blog, but don’t stop there. Start and participate in discussions in appropriate LinkedIn groups and with your Twitter followers. Do your part to keep the discussion about meaningful use moving.

What are you doing right now to take advantage of meaningful use? Please share in the comments…

Most top 10 lists are about as useful as the one above, but I found one worth passing on.

‘Tis the season for Top 10 lists, be they looking back on the Top 10 things that happened in 2009, or the Top 10 things you can expect in 2010. Most of these lists are just random musings from some guy who doesn’t really know much more than you or I. But I found this list by PriceWaterhouseCoopers worth a second look—Top 10 health care issues for 2010.

Items I found interesting:

Issue #1: “Expect intense, industry-wide efforts to reduce health care costs.” For health care IT marketers, that means we need to continue to promote the products and services that have a strong, verifiable ROI. That was our story in 2009, and it looks like it should continue in 2010.

Issue #3: “Physicians and providers will be scrambling in 2010 to adopt healthcare IT to reap bonuses in 2011 under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.” Doesn’t really take a rocket scientist to figure that one out. I hope that you’ve already been positioning your products in relation to ARRA, because it might be too late to enter the game.

Issue #5: “The technology and telecommunications sectors will become leading players in healthcare.” I think that means that an already crowded B2B landscape will get even more crowded. And crowded marketplaces favor stronger brands.

What issues in 2010 will most affect your marketing?

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