The healthcare industry needs startups, and startups need the healthcare industry.
According to Mike Biselli, a leader in healthcare IT and the visionary behind Catalyst Health-Tech Innovation, “We’re not going to revolutionize healthcare just through the largest organizations that have dominated the space for the last 50 years, and it won’t happen with startups alone, either. We have to do it together.”
So, how can you become a trusted partner creating the innovations healthcare providers need?
1. Join an incubator or health-tech community.
Incubators provide mentorship opportunities, assist with seed-funding needs and allow startups in similar fields to pool certain resources. Perhaps more importantly, emerging businesses can work in close proximity to other innovators and thus build new connections and collaborate and gain insight organically.
The resulting cluster effect — interconnected businesses working together in a region — has shown phenomenally positive outcomes for multiple industries, including the medical community.
If you don’t want to join an existing incubator, however, you might consider building one. New incubators and collaboration communities are popping up nationwide, including Catalyst HTI’s new 300,000-square-foot workspace in Denver, dedicated solely to empowering and facilitating healthcare innovation for startups and Fortune 500 companies alike.
2. Track and adapt to venture capitalist funding patterns.
Venture investments in healthcare are on the rise and in 2015 were projected to reach $9.4 billion — their highest level since 2000. In fact, VCs made more than 400 new healthcare deals in the first half of 2015.
Patterns suggest that 2016 will be another big year for telemedicine tech and back-office tools, and other products. Look at which startups are securing VC funding, and evaluate your opportunities to innovate in an in-demand market.
23andMe, for example, saw an opening in the personal medicine and information space. This company has found success helping people trace their genetic ancestries to ascertain valuable historical and medical data about themselves and their descendants.
If your specialty isn’t a hot commodity at the moment, don’t stress. Opportunities for collaboration exist in many areas of healthcare, including cost transparency, tracking and wearable technology, as well as big-data analytics, personalized care and real-time remote healthcare solutions.
3. Identify an unmet need, and fill it.
Don’t just focus on something you think might be useful. Identify an actual pain point in healthcare access or delivery, and create something that alleviates it.
For instance, over the last two years, the number of healthcare providers seeking to move key applications to cloud platforms has grown exponentially. As a result, entrepreneurial players in the industry are now investing in software-defined networking that allows users to schedule bandwidth bursts or set predetermined thresholds.
This helps meet providers’ needs for end-to-end security and performance and allows their networks to scale automatically with business demands.
In another example, Doximity’s founders recognized the need for clinicians to collaborate on difficult issues. So the company created a consultation and collaboration platform to address complex patient cases, and today it’s paying off. With the ability to make $250 to $500 per hour for their opinions and support, about 1,000 physicians were joining the network weekly, in 2014. Within one year, 400,000 U.S. doctors had become members of Doximity’s medical social network, and this number continues to grow.
As Biselli said, “Without dramatic change, we are trending towards a $5 trillion problem, and I believe policy-makers, academics, clinicians and innovators all need to have a seat at the table. It’s going to take all of us working together to make the most of this unprecedented opportunity to transform healthcare.”
Shared from Entrepreneur.com
Medical Answering Services for Doctors, Dentists and Hospitals
Cititel Medical Answering Service Personalized To Your Needs. We’re on call 24/7/365 for overflow, after-hours and emergency calls. Message delivery, online appointment scheduling and appointment reminder services are all personalized to your needs.
• Inbound Medical Call Answer Service
• Receive the Calls You Need
• Manage Your Schedule
• Medical Answering Service with Speed, Compliance and Reliability
We offer a wide array of phone answering services for medical professionals and can customize any service to meet your unique needs. Just tell us what you need done for your business and we will provide an innovative solution. Our services are available 24-hours a day.
For more information about our Medical Answering Services, contact us by email at info@cititel.com, visit our website at www.cititel.com or call today: 1.888.923.2533
