HISTORIC CHANGE IN THE HEALTHCARE INDUSTRY CALLS FOR NEW APPROACHES

Healthcare innovation is increasing in importance as historic business models are upended by a myriad of shifts: competitor consolidation, global payments, accountable care, and a move from isolated therapies to disease state solutions.
To win on this shifting ground, companies need healthcare strategies that look objectively at where profits will lie in coming years. If companies can build a pipeline that addresses the coming “pain points” in medicine, they will do very well. For instance, existing healthcare strategies tend to balkanize companies by product class -- drug makers, device manufacturers, IT systems, and so on -- while their customers are seeking over-arching solutions to address increasingly complex care pathways, pay-for-performance incentives, and patient self-management. Successful healthcare innovation means taking that customer-centric view and investing in the cross-functional solutions that drive improved outcomes and lower costs.
As companies rethink their healthcare strategies, they may find that while they have historically focused on the U.S., there is fertile ground overseas. Competencies developed in the world's richest healthcare market have real potential in other advanced economies and rapidly-developing countries. Of course, companies have to adjust their approaches in new environments, but many have cause for optimism about where expansion overseas could lead.

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CAPABILITIES IN HEALTHCARE

We bring extensive experience in healthcare consulting, a new perspective, and a unique approach to healthcare market research and analysis.
New Markets Advisors is one of very few preeminent boutique healthcare consulting firms with extensive experience in healthcare innovation. For instance, our founder was a key colleague of Harvard Professor Clayton Christensen as he put together his healthcare book, The Innovator’s Prescription. We continue to see an urgent need for companies to think freshly about their approach to healthcare strategies. Change is happening fast, and companies need to be nimbler than ever in their approaches to commercialization.
Our project teams excel at helping companies expand into adjacencies, design forward-thinking strategies and portfolio plans, and evaluate the potential of new offerings or business models. We also help adapt proven innovation processes for the unique challenges and constraints of the healthcare industry. We have experience in healthcare strategy consulting for a wide range of clients, including pharmaceutical companies, device manufacturers, a wide range of providers, health IT companies, and payers.

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HEALTHCARE CASE STUDY

A large business services company -- which had limited experience with healthcare -- was eyeing a potential opportunity in the healthcare IT market. Before it invested too much into the idea, however, the company wanted to plot out the gaps in healthcare IT and make sure that its ideas were rooted in real unaddressed needs.

To better understand the market opportunity, New Markets Advisors conducted Jobs to be Done research with providers around their IT priorities. What pain points still existed? What manual processes were silently wasting time and money? What jobs do healthcare providers have around IT?

Providers were often preoccupied with updating their IT systems to comply with changing government regulations. They also had several other jobs to be done, including

• Better coordinating patient care
• Improving the flow of information within health systems
• Making sense of the vast amount of data within health systems
• Finding new revenue streams in a changing healthcare policy landscape

 Result: Detailed roadmaps for a new opportunity space

The research found several areas of opportunity for healthcare innovation, some of which overlapped with the company’s original ideas, and others which were new and surprising. The opportunities ranged in investment and potential impact, and several would work especially well if bundled. For each of these ideas, New Markets Advisors developed financial models and detailed roadmaps, taking into account how changing policies could accelerate or stagnate each scenario. That way the client knew exactly what the potential was, what was at stake, and what information it needed to consider before making a decision going forward.

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