ENTREPRENEUR BIZ TIPS: Entrepreneurship in healthcare: Ruchi Dass at TEDxGachibowli
ENTREPRENEUR BIZ TIPS: Entrepreneurship in healthcare: Ruchi Dass at TEDxGachibowli
Here’s Great Tip: Entrepreneurship in healthcare: Ruchi Dass at TEDxGachibowli
Here is Something You Should See…
Dr. Ruchi Dass is an award winning Physician with a Post Graduate in Preventive and Promotional Healthcare. She runs a consulting firm, HealthCursor and is working with major telecom operators and healthcare providers in India to help them conceptualize and position the mHealth opportunity in diverse economies of scale.
46 Replies to “ENTREPRENEUR BIZ TIPS: Entrepreneurship in healthcare: Ruchi Dass at TEDxGachibowli”
Health care is a knowledge intense sector, constantly shifting in relation to new evidence and internal and external incentives. Thus, individuals, teams, and organisations adopting an entrepreneurial approach can facilitate health care improvements, including strategies for knowledge implementation in clinical practice.
Entrepreneurship in the Healthcare sector has received increased attention over the last two decades, both in terms of scholarly research and number of innovative enterprises. Entrepreneurial activities and innovations have emerged from and will continue to be driven by several actors along the healthcare value chain but especially from non-traditional healthcare players.
In an era where words like "innovation" and "disruption" are used to the point of exhaustion, some healthcare leaders stand out as true examples of entrepreneurial intelligence.
Dr Dass co-founded companies that have made a name for themselves in the healthcare industry. Some entrepreneurs were fueled by their personal experiences in healthcare, whereas others created their companies out of a growing demand for guidance and help. One powerhouse company today is Healthcursor that was once nothing more than a start-up with three part-time employees.she has used her unique experiences, insight and knowledge to produce valuable products or services that truly contribute to the goal of healthcare: To provide more effective, affordable medical care to patients.
People in many countries are living longer. This creates huge strains on healthcare systems, even as expectations of what "good quality" healthcare looks like continue to rise. Entrepreneurs have an enormous role to play in solving this problem for humanity. The rise of internet and data-driven solutions makes so much possible – but entrepreneurs need to be clever and persistent to bring what is possible through healthcare systems to the public.
Perhaps the biggest opportunity lies in consulting. The enormous length and complexity of the healthcare acts require advice and training. This is an opportunity for new content and delivery systems for evidence of best practices.
Value-driven business models are looking for efficiency-improving products and services requiring disruptive and entrepreneurial talent. Anything this transformational forces business-model innovation that traditional provider models cannot deliver.
Huge, complex, entrenched bureaucracies have long dominated the healthcare economy. But, new need and expectations are geared to the efficiencies and speed that only entrepreneurs can deliver. There's no use in waiting for all things to be equal. Entrepreneurs willing to take the risk and innovate products and services can define the direction of the healthcare future.
Accessing the available funds will remain challenging. While the Cures Act does not create a new bureaucracy, it poses mandates for existing departments and agencies to deliver. It will naturally take time for them to adapt and comply.
The new administration's stance on federally supported healthcare has been publicly negative. But, its ability to undo existing law is hobbled. The Cures Act, for example, has overwhelming bi-partisan support, and it serves the interests of many large corporations.
So, there is money to profit, needs to resolve and hunger for innovation. At the same time, those who have shovel-ready products and projects have a distinct edge in making inroads and money.
The country is in the midst of a major shift in the healthcare economy and there's lots of money to be had. Healthcare providers and better-informed customers want better quality products and services. And, thanks to an improved national economy and the passage of the 21st Century Cures Act, there will be billions flowing into research and care. It is a good time to be a healthcare entrepreneur, but it still isn't easy.
Robert H. Schuller: “Tough times never last, but tough people do.”The healthcare industry is booming. As technology has improved and become more widely available, many companies are moving into healthcare or healthcare-adjacent fields, driven by entrepreneurs who see the value of this emerging market. At the same time, healthcare companies are becoming more numerous and experiencing an unprecedented level of competition. Many are starting to embrace entrepreneurial habits as a means of survival.
Going forward, it appears that entrepreneurship and healthcare are linked and that they will continue to be connected for some time. Here are the three primary ways the two are connected, and why it matters.
Truly necessity is the mother of all inventions. We need to channel our creativity to create real value. In Healthcare it is so much more important as the entire human race depends on our quality medical systems.
Promoting innovation means being open to the ideas and changes that creative individuals are willing to bring to the table. When their knowledge and experience as a healthcare professional are combined with entrepreneurial skills, these individuals can bring out the best of both worlds – the doctorpreneur, in a nutshell. Agree with khan here.
Access to data is enabling us to better understand and address problems. Improving the amount of and access to higher-quality data will enable stakeholders across the health care ecosystem to work together to better understand the gaps and flaws in care. While we are only in the early days of the open data movement, innovative uses of data will empower new approaches to improving outcomes. The intelligent use of data will have a transformative influence on all points of care.
All of us know that you have to be a little crazy to be an entrepreneur. Launching, let alone sustaining, a new enterprise can be challenging along almost every dimension − mentally, emotionally, and often financially. Historically, this reality has been even more sobering in the health care sector, where the typical hardships experienced by any start-up have been amplified by numerous industry-specific challenges: Extensive regulation, entrenched players with a strong grip on the status quo, confusing paths to entry, and an even more opaque path to payment have made health care a particularly treacherous territory for entrepreneurs.
But ongoing changes in policy, technology, and industry culture are now creating unprecedented opportunities for those with just the right kind of crazy. In our group at Merck, we are witnessing this opportunity firsthand as we collaborate with start-ups in the areas of digital health, big data, and health IT.
Implementations of EHR systems have increased dramatically in the past few years since the inception of the HITECH Act in 2009, which introduced the EHR meaningful use program. Physicians and hospitals that prove their use of government-certified EHR systems meets meaningful use criteria — created and overseen by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) — are eligible to receive incentive payments. Meaningful use is changing to a new value-based reimbursement system under a law passed by Congress in 2015 called MACRA, the Medicare Access and CHIP (Children's Health Insurance Plan) Reauthorization Act. However, ONC continues to certify approved health IT technology used under federal reimbursement programs.
Hi Dr. Anil. Innovating healthcare often requires challenging the status quo and involves various changes in systems, processes and attitude. Promoting innovation means being open to the ideas and changes that creative individuals are willing to bring to the table. When their knowledge and experience as a healthcare professional are combined with entrepreneurial skills, these individuals can bring out the best of both worlds – the doctorpreneur, in a nutshell.
The existence of this collaboration between doctors and professionals with different backgrounds e.g. engineers, programmers, educators etcetera will foster a dynamic and creative environment for these professionals to come up with feasible solutions for different problems permeating the healthcare industry.
The fusion of healthcare and entrepreneurship in a doctorpreneur should not be seen as something that would create conflicting interests. Rather, entrepreneurship should be seen as an informed, open-minded approach to driving healthcare transformation and innovation forward.
Doctors are motivated to venture into the area of entrepreneurship by various reasons. Some choose to pursue this new course in their medical career for the purpose of acquiring greater independence and financial freedom. However, many doctorpreneurs are individuals who are interested in healthcare reform and innovation, the driving force behind their choice to take the leap and break out of the status quo and typical routine as a doctor
Healthcare innovation has been given a lot of emphasis in the local region. For instance, a recent agreement signed during the Malaysia Telemedicine Conference 2016 included the formation of a CREST-Microsoft Health Innovation Hub. The hub is intended to be a platform that provides the necessary ecosystem for developers and start-ups to conceptualise, create and even commercialise healthcare innovation solutions
One concern we hear over and over in the Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee from our nation's 27 million small businesses – the businesses that employ more than half America's workforce – is healthcare. Seventy-eight percent of small businesses recently reported that having access to stable, affordable, quality health insurance is their number one concern.
Skyrocketing premiums are crushing these businesses as they face yearly premium increases of as much as 20 percent for the past four years. These high costs have forced many small business owners to drop coverage altogether causing small business employers, employees and their families to make up nearly 23 million of American's 45 million uninsured. Most small business owners want to offer health insurance to their workers. But for small firms faced with the choice of cutting employees or cutting health insurance, the insurance is the first to go. And unfortunately, those who can afford to pay the least are today paying the most, and they're getting less bang for their buck. Small firms pay 18 percent more than large employers for health insurance.
The Healthcare industry remains one of the biggest opportunities for entrepreneurs and investors. Innovative start-ups are utilizing new technologies to offer solutions that improve quality, lower costs, and streamline access to healthcare services. The core market for Healthcare does not work like other markets. Because Healthcare costs are usually paid for by a third party (insurance, government), patients are not price-sensitive and providers may not feel the need to compete for their business. Lack of competition results in a highly artificial market plagued by problems of high costs, inconsistent quality and poor access. But in Healthcare markets where patients pay directly for all or most of their care, providers almost always compete on the basis of price and quality.
We are the generation who will do that. The computing power and technology infrastructure are in place, as is an enormous appetite for it at every level — from regulators to VC’s to incubator founders and healthcare leadership. And it is a phenomenally exciting space to be in. Interested?
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.
Consumers, in fact, believe in the usefulness of wearable healthcare tech, even as demand for digital options is predicted to grow across all age groups. Providers recognize this potential market, too: Nearly three-quarters of healthcare executives surveyed have said they anticipate a positive return on their investments in personalized healthcare technology.
The technology and infrastructure we need to meet these challenges exists. What we need next are innovative partners who can help providers empower and inform their patients and clinicians.
First, with both patients and stakeholders investing in our healthcare system, we’re all on the same team: We all want to see more positive outcomes for our loved ones and improvements in the health of our nation, both literally and financially.
Second, this industry is unbelievably ripe for innovation. Innovation and entrepreneurship in healthcare are bringing truly unbridled potential to the table. By creating actionable intelligence that can improve care outcomes through analytics and applications, we are empowering individuals to make better choices about their own health.
Technology is also gaining bigger roles as decision-making tools within the healthcare industry get a foothold, be it a wearable technology that documents patient experiences or websites that allow patients to access their own lab work. There is also the need for integrated data solutions now that so much data is available about patient histories, lab work, hereditary issues, and treatment successes that a systematic solution to support decision-making is practically required.
Entrepreneurship and health care are linked, and the bonds between the two are growing deeper as business practices drive the healthcare industry into a wellness industry. In turn, value-oriented payment models reward that focus and technology perpetuates the cycle. In the end, entrepreneurship is moving health care forward, and the industry has to evolve to keep pace.
Traditional clinical models like the fee-for-service models health care employed over recent decades, making money on how many patients are seen, are rapidly disappearing. New population management models reward healthcare providers for keeping patients healthy, as opposed to allowing them to make money off only sick people. Changing this focus changes the scope of treatment. Now preventing illness is key, and avoiding unnecessary treatment is the rule. Entrepreneurial healthcare workers are using this shift to introduce health-preserving measures, techniques, systems, and novelties, like wearable technologies and fitness apps. This creates a universe of highly profitable products and services adjacent to healthcare that are not under the sole direction of medical professionals, health insurance companies, or treatment centers.
The healthcare industry is booming. As technology has improved and become more widely available, many companies are moving into health care or healthcare-adjacent fields, driven by entrepreneurs who see the value of this emerging market. At the same time, healthcare companies are becoming more numerous and experiencing an unprecedented level of competition. Many are starting to embrace entrepreneurial habits as a means of survival.
Going forward, it appears that entrepreneurship and health care are linked and that they will continue to be connected for some time. Here are the three primary ways the two are connected, and why it matters.
Health care startups have boomed over the last several years, as evidenced by the number of venture funding deals, which grew some 200% between 2010 and 2014. The boom is driven by health reforms that are disrupting business models, an aging population that's demanding more (and better) care, and the adoption of technology — such as wearables and video chat — into the medical mainstream. Add to that boom the fact that it’s a golden age for entrepreneurship, where the declining cost of technology means more entrepreneurs than ever have the tools to build new companies, and you have all the ingredients for a startup revolution in health care.
Being an entrepreneur in healthcare looks a lot like being an entrepreneur in any industry, there’s just a lot more at stake. With lives in the balance every day, this is an industry that simultaneously encourages innovation, and operates in a risk-averse environment. With these two contradictory goals in place, it takes some serious creativity to succeed.
Being an entrepreneur in healthcare looks a lot like being an entrepreneur in any industry, there’s just a lot more at stake. With lives in the balance every day, this is an industry that simultaneously encourages innovation, and operates in a risk-averse environment. With these two contradictory goals in place, it takes some serious creativity to succeed.
The big Boomer cohort is retiring, and many are fairly IT savvy. Older people want intensely to stay at home as long as possible, and avoiding institutionalization saves cost. A whole spectrum of products and services could enable this. It’s why I’m bullish on the driverless car: it will give old folks mobility and dignity when they can/should stop driving.
Self health measurement is proliferating, and this will increase when the Apple and Google mobile health data platforms roll out starting in the fall, but “quantified self” is mostly disconnected from medical practice. There is need for products that produce information that doctors consider clinically valid, and for solutions that integrate health status data with medical provider processes and the doctor-patient relationship.
As we head to the beach to recharge the batteries, it’s a good time to reflect on what has changed in U.S. healthcare since last summer, and what opportunities lie ahead for entrepreneurs and investors. [Disclosure: New Atlantic Ventures, in which I am a partner, has an investment in Qliance, one of many companies mentioned in this post.]
Our $3 trillion health care economy is morphing as we watch, driven by intolerable cost levels, consumer activism, digital technology, and health care reform. The past year brought some of the biggest milestones:
• The public exchanges launched. It was a classic government FUBAR, but the federal exchange eventually worked, and some state exchanges actually worked well. Eight million people signed up, exceeding the goal (1).
• More quietly, private exchanges have become significant: online benefits purchasing sites sponsored by employers or health insurers.
• Medicaid expansion happened, in about half the country anyway. The number of people without health insurance in the U.S. declined by 20%-25%, due largely to Medicaid expansion plus the exchanges. I doubt this expansion will be rolled back, and I expect that over time the “red” states will come to the table in one way or another. Managed Medicaid is expanding rapidly, and while the impact of this is not yet clear from national studies, insiders tell me that the opportunity to both save cost and improve health status is large.
• Providers have come to realize they are risk-bearers. At conferences this year I repeatedly heard leaders from the provider side say that bearing risk is the future and it is here now. This takes many forms: ACOs, penalties for readmission of Medicare patients, risk-sharing agreements with insurers, bundled payments direct from self-insured employers, etc. This has profound consequences for health insurance markets: why channel everything through insurers, when the providers bear much of the risk, and many employers bear risk too?
• Quantified self is now a major meme: FitBit and Pebble are doing well. Apple AAPL -0.22% and Google GOOGL -0.04% announced enhancements to their mobile OS products that support gathering and processing of health information.
• Primary care medicine is born again. Concierge medicine (OneMedical) and Direct Primary Care (Qliance, Iora) are booming. Major drug chains (CVS, Walgreens) are offering basic primary care in-store, and CVS showed it is a serious healthcare company by stopping sales of tobacco products. Nurse Practitioners and Physician’s Assistants are stepping up to fill the primary care provider shortage.
• And some key, established trends continue: consumers continue to be more exposed to the cost of their health care: e.g., the number of people with “high-deductible” health plans grew to 17.4 million. Healthcare data is finally becoming electronic, and a healthcare “data cloud” is emerging slowly. Health systems continue to consolidate and purchase physician practices at the regional level. Medical service prices continue to rise, but utilization has been down in recent years, keeping the growth of overall spending in check.
What does this mean for entrepreneurs and investors? Obviously there are more opportunities than I can describe.
But even as the telemedicine scenario in India is seeing significant developments, challenges still remain.The greatest challenge is getting enough medical specialists to see patients in remote locations and also to get the patients to trust the opinion by the doctors, virtually.
A major driver of telemedicine in India is the dismal state of health care in the country. India’s government spending on health as a proportion of the GDP – currently at around 1% of the GDP – is among the lowest in the world. Even in other Asian countries, it is higher. The corresponding amount is 1.8% in Sri Lanka, 2.3% in China and 3.3% in Thailand. Despite the launch of the National Rural Health Mission in 2005, India continues to grapple with a 33% shortage of rural hospitals, which are called Community Health Centers (CHCs). Even in the ones present, there is an acute shortage of staff. According to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, there is a shortage of 50-70% of physicians, specialists, lab technicians and radiographers at the CHCs. And around 10-15% of them lack even basic amenities such as water supply and electricity.
“Hospitals have kind of understood how remote healthcare can give them better ROI [return on investment]. The telemedicine centre that cost you 125,000 rupees ($2,120) can give you 25 percent margins by the end of the year,” said Ruchi Dass, Founder & CEO at HealthCursor Consulting Group.
Several state governments such as Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh have launched free medical helplines. There also are private companies, such as Mediphone. Started in 2011, the paid service has more than 1,000 phone calls each day seeking medical advice, with 33 percent of the calls coming from Bihar, one of India’s most underdeveloped states.
Mr Eduardo, I second you. Having direct interaction with a specialist is nearly impossible for many patients since most specialist doctors live in cities, while 70 percent of India’s population lives in rural areas.
Even in cities, health workers say hectic lifestyles and longer commutes make it tough to visit the doctor.
But with nearly 900 million mobile phone connections and over 200 million internet users, experts say wireless technology can be harnessed to decentralize India’s healthcare industry, which is expected to touch $250 billion by 2020.
Medanta is one of several e-health providers that say they want to change how healthcare is delivered in India, and address the industry’s two biggest problems: accessibility and lack of manpower.
India has 0.7 physicians per 1,000 people — BRIC peers Russia (5), Brazil (1.5) and China (1.5) have better ratios — and most Indians travel about 20 kilometres to reach a hospital, according to a 2012 report by accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).
India faces the challenge of providing health care for both urban and rural settings and to populations that often do not carry health insurance. While streamlining the health care system to work more efficiently is a major focus, so are supporting technologies, such as mobile health and telemedicine.
46 Replies to “ENTREPRENEUR BIZ TIPS: Entrepreneurship in healthcare: Ruchi Dass at TEDxGachibowli”
Health care is a knowledge intense sector, constantly shifting in relation to new evidence and internal and external incentives. Thus, individuals, teams, and organisations adopting an entrepreneurial approach can facilitate health care improvements, including strategies for knowledge implementation in clinical practice.
Entrepreneurship in the Healthcare sector has received increased attention over the last two decades, both in terms of scholarly research and number of innovative enterprises. Entrepreneurial activities and innovations have emerged from and will continue to be driven by several actors along the healthcare value chain but especially from non-traditional healthcare players.
In an era where words like "innovation" and "disruption" are used to the point of exhaustion, some healthcare leaders stand out as true examples of entrepreneurial intelligence.
Dr Dass co-founded companies that have made a name for themselves in the healthcare industry. Some entrepreneurs were fueled by their personal experiences in healthcare, whereas others created their companies out of a growing demand for guidance and help. One powerhouse company today is Healthcursor that was once nothing more than a start-up with three part-time employees.she has used her unique experiences, insight and knowledge to produce valuable products or services that truly contribute to the goal of healthcare: To provide more effective, affordable medical care to patients.
People in many countries are living longer. This creates huge strains on healthcare systems, even as expectations of what "good quality" healthcare looks like continue to rise. Entrepreneurs have an enormous role to play in solving this problem for humanity. The rise of internet and data-driven solutions makes so much possible – but entrepreneurs need to be clever and persistent to bring what is possible through healthcare systems to the public.
Perhaps the biggest opportunity lies in consulting. The enormous length and complexity of the healthcare acts require advice and training. This is an opportunity for new content and delivery systems for evidence of best practices.
Value-driven business models are looking for efficiency-improving products and services requiring disruptive and entrepreneurial talent. Anything this transformational forces business-model innovation that traditional provider models cannot deliver.
Huge, complex, entrenched bureaucracies have long dominated the healthcare economy. But, new need and expectations are geared to the efficiencies and speed that only entrepreneurs can deliver. There's no use in waiting for all things to be equal. Entrepreneurs willing to take the risk and innovate products and services can define the direction of the healthcare future.
Accessing the available funds will remain challenging. While the Cures Act does not create a new bureaucracy, it poses mandates for existing departments and agencies to deliver. It will naturally take time for them to adapt and comply.
The new administration's stance on federally supported healthcare has been publicly negative. But, its ability to undo existing law is hobbled. The Cures Act, for example, has overwhelming bi-partisan support, and it serves the interests of many large corporations.
So, there is money to profit, needs to resolve and hunger for innovation. At the same time, those who have shovel-ready products and projects have a distinct edge in making inroads and money.
The country is in the midst of a major shift in the healthcare economy and there's lots of money to be had. Healthcare providers and better-informed customers want better quality products and services. And, thanks to an improved national economy and the passage of the 21st Century Cures Act, there will be billions flowing into research and care. It is a good time to be a healthcare entrepreneur, but it still isn't easy.
Robert H. Schuller: “Tough times never last, but tough people do.”The healthcare industry is booming. As technology has improved and become more widely available, many companies are moving into healthcare or healthcare-adjacent fields, driven by entrepreneurs who see the value of this emerging market. At the same time, healthcare companies are becoming more numerous and experiencing an unprecedented level of competition. Many are starting to embrace entrepreneurial habits as a means of survival.
Going forward, it appears that entrepreneurship and healthcare are linked and that they will continue to be connected for some time. Here are the three primary ways the two are connected, and why it matters.
Our chief want in life, is someone who shall make us do what we can. This is the service of a friend. With him, we are easily great.
“All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them.” – Walt Disney
Boring
I like it when she goes British when she stresses a point.
Truly necessity is the mother of all inventions. We need to channel our creativity to create real value. In Healthcare it is so much more important as the entire human race depends on our quality medical systems.
Promoting innovation means being open to the ideas and changes that creative individuals are willing to bring to the table. When their knowledge and experience as a healthcare professional are combined with entrepreneurial skills, these individuals can bring out the best of both worlds – the doctorpreneur, in a nutshell. Agree with khan here.
Why are almost all Healthcare entrepreneurs from india ? In Europe the people all far older
Access to data is enabling us to better understand and address problems. Improving the amount of and access to higher-quality data will enable stakeholders across the health care ecosystem to work together to better understand the gaps and flaws in care. While we are only in the early days of the open data movement, innovative uses of data will empower new approaches to improving outcomes. The intelligent use of data will have a transformative influence on all points of care.
All of us know that you have to be a little crazy to be an entrepreneur. Launching, let alone sustaining, a new enterprise can be challenging along almost every dimension − mentally, emotionally, and often financially. Historically, this reality has been even more sobering in the health care sector, where the typical hardships experienced by any start-up have been amplified by numerous industry-specific challenges: Extensive regulation, entrenched players with a strong grip on the status quo, confusing paths to entry, and an even more opaque path to payment have made health care a particularly treacherous territory for entrepreneurs.
But ongoing changes in policy, technology, and industry culture are now creating unprecedented opportunities for those with just the right kind of crazy. In our group at Merck, we are witnessing this opportunity firsthand as we collaborate with start-ups in the areas of digital health, big data, and health IT.
Implementations of EHR systems have increased dramatically in the past few years since the inception of the HITECH Act in 2009, which introduced the EHR meaningful use program. Physicians and hospitals that prove their use of government-certified EHR systems meets meaningful use criteria — created and overseen by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) — are eligible to receive incentive payments. Meaningful use is changing to a new value-based reimbursement system under a law passed by Congress in 2015 called MACRA, the Medicare Access and CHIP (Children's Health Insurance Plan) Reauthorization Act. However, ONC continues to certify approved health IT technology used under federal reimbursement programs.
Hi Dr. Anil. Innovating healthcare often requires challenging the status quo and involves various changes in systems, processes and attitude. Promoting innovation means being open to the ideas and changes that creative individuals are willing to bring to the table. When their knowledge and experience as a healthcare professional are combined with entrepreneurial skills, these individuals can bring out the best of both worlds – the doctorpreneur, in a nutshell.
The existence of this collaboration between doctors and professionals with different backgrounds e.g. engineers, programmers, educators etcetera will foster a dynamic and creative environment for these professionals to come up with feasible solutions for different problems permeating the healthcare industry.
The fusion of healthcare and entrepreneurship in a doctorpreneur should not be seen as something that would create conflicting interests. Rather, entrepreneurship should be seen as an informed, open-minded approach to driving healthcare transformation and innovation forward.
Doctors are motivated to venture into the area of entrepreneurship by various reasons. Some choose to pursue this new course in their medical career for the purpose of acquiring greater independence and financial freedom. However, many doctorpreneurs are individuals who are interested in healthcare reform and innovation, the driving force behind their choice to take the leap and break out of the status quo and typical routine as a doctor
Healthcare innovation has been given a lot of emphasis in the local region. For instance, a recent agreement signed during the Malaysia Telemedicine Conference 2016 included the formation of a CREST-Microsoft Health Innovation Hub. The hub is intended to be a platform that provides the necessary ecosystem for developers and start-ups to conceptualise, create and even commercialise healthcare innovation solutions
One concern we hear over and over in the Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee from our nation's 27 million small businesses – the businesses that employ more than half America's workforce – is healthcare. Seventy-eight percent of small businesses recently reported that having access to stable, affordable, quality health insurance is their number one concern.
Skyrocketing premiums are crushing these businesses as they face yearly premium increases of as much as 20 percent for the past four years. These high costs have forced many small business owners to drop coverage altogether causing small business employers, employees and their families to make up nearly 23 million of American's 45 million uninsured. Most small business owners want to offer health insurance to their workers. But for small firms faced with the choice of cutting employees or cutting health insurance, the insurance is the first to go. And unfortunately, those who can afford to pay the least are today paying the most, and they're getting less bang for their buck. Small firms pay 18 percent more than large employers for health insurance.
The Healthcare industry remains one of the biggest opportunities for entrepreneurs and investors. Innovative start-ups are utilizing new technologies to offer solutions that improve quality, lower costs, and streamline access to healthcare services. The core market for Healthcare does not work like other markets. Because Healthcare costs are usually paid for by a third party (insurance, government), patients are not price-sensitive and providers may not feel the need to compete for their business. Lack of competition results in a highly artificial market plagued by problems of high costs, inconsistent quality and poor access. But in Healthcare markets where patients pay directly for all or most of their care, providers almost always compete on the basis of price and quality.
We are the generation who will do that. The computing power and technology infrastructure are in place, as is an enormous appetite for it at every level — from regulators to VC’s to incubator founders and healthcare leadership. And it is a phenomenally exciting space to be in. Interested?
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.
Consumers, in fact, believe in the usefulness of wearable healthcare tech, even as demand for digital options is predicted to grow across all age groups. Providers recognize this potential market, too: Nearly three-quarters of healthcare executives surveyed have said they anticipate a positive return on their investments in personalized healthcare technology.
The technology and infrastructure we need to meet these challenges exists. What we need next are innovative partners who can help providers empower and inform their patients and clinicians.
First, with both patients and stakeholders investing in our healthcare system, we’re all on the same team: We all want to see more positive outcomes for our loved ones and improvements in the health of our nation, both literally and financially.
Second, this industry is unbelievably ripe for innovation. Innovation and entrepreneurship in healthcare are bringing truly unbridled potential to the table. By creating actionable intelligence that can improve care outcomes through analytics and applications, we are empowering individuals to make better choices about their own health.
Technology is also gaining bigger roles as decision-making tools within the healthcare industry get a foothold, be it a wearable technology that documents patient experiences or websites that allow patients to access their own lab work. There is also the need for integrated data solutions now that so much data is available about patient histories, lab work, hereditary issues, and treatment successes that a systematic solution to support decision-making is practically required.
Entrepreneurship and health care are linked, and the bonds between the two are growing deeper as business practices drive the healthcare industry into a wellness industry. In turn, value-oriented payment models reward that focus and technology perpetuates the cycle. In the end, entrepreneurship is moving health care forward, and the industry has to evolve to keep pace.
Traditional clinical models like the fee-for-service models health care employed over recent decades, making money on how many patients are seen, are rapidly disappearing. New population management models reward healthcare providers for keeping patients healthy, as opposed to allowing them to make money off only sick people. Changing this focus changes the scope of treatment. Now preventing illness is key, and avoiding unnecessary treatment is the rule. Entrepreneurial healthcare workers are using this shift to introduce health-preserving measures, techniques, systems, and novelties, like wearable technologies and fitness apps. This creates a universe of highly profitable products and services adjacent to healthcare that are not under the sole direction of medical professionals, health insurance companies, or treatment centers.
The healthcare industry is booming. As technology has improved and become more widely available, many companies are moving into health care or healthcare-adjacent fields, driven by entrepreneurs who see the value of this emerging market. At the same time, healthcare companies are becoming more numerous and experiencing an unprecedented level of competition. Many are starting to embrace entrepreneurial habits as a means of survival.
Going forward, it appears that entrepreneurship and health care are linked and that they will continue to be connected for some time. Here are the three primary ways the two are connected, and why it matters.
Health care startups have boomed over the last several years, as evidenced by the number of venture funding deals, which grew some 200% between 2010 and 2014. The boom is driven by health reforms that are disrupting business models, an aging population that's demanding more (and better) care, and the adoption of technology — such as wearables and video chat — into the medical mainstream.
Add to that boom the fact that it’s a golden age for entrepreneurship, where the declining cost of technology means more entrepreneurs than ever have the tools to build new companies, and you have all the ingredients for a startup revolution in health care.
Being an entrepreneur in healthcare looks a lot like being an entrepreneur in any industry, there’s just a lot more at stake. With lives in the balance every day, this is an industry that simultaneously encourages innovation, and operates in a risk-averse environment. With these two contradictory goals in place, it takes some serious creativity to succeed.
Being an entrepreneur in healthcare looks a lot like being an entrepreneur in any industry, there’s just a lot more at stake. With lives in the balance every day, this is an industry that simultaneously encourages innovation, and operates in a risk-averse environment. With these two contradictory goals in place, it takes some serious creativity to succeed.
The big Boomer cohort is retiring, and many are fairly IT savvy. Older people want intensely to stay at home as long as possible, and avoiding institutionalization saves cost. A whole spectrum of products and services could enable this. It’s why I’m bullish on the driverless car: it will give old folks mobility and dignity when they can/should stop driving.
Self health measurement is proliferating, and this will increase when the Apple and Google mobile health data platforms roll out starting in the fall, but “quantified self” is mostly disconnected from medical practice. There is need for products that produce information that doctors consider clinically valid, and for solutions that integrate health status data with medical provider processes and the doctor-patient relationship.
As we head to the beach to recharge the batteries, it’s a good time to reflect on what has changed in U.S. healthcare since last summer, and what opportunities lie ahead for entrepreneurs and investors. [Disclosure: New Atlantic Ventures, in which I am a partner, has an investment in Qliance, one of many companies mentioned in this post.]
Our $3 trillion health care economy is morphing as we watch, driven by intolerable cost levels, consumer activism, digital technology, and health care reform. The past year brought some of the biggest milestones:
• The public exchanges launched. It was a classic government FUBAR, but the federal exchange eventually worked, and some state exchanges actually worked well. Eight million people signed up, exceeding the goal (1).
• More quietly, private exchanges have become significant: online benefits purchasing sites sponsored by employers or health insurers.
• Medicaid expansion happened, in about half the country anyway. The number of people without health insurance in the U.S. declined by 20%-25%, due largely to Medicaid expansion plus the exchanges. I doubt this expansion will be rolled back, and I expect that over time the “red” states will come to the table in one way or another. Managed Medicaid is expanding rapidly, and while the impact of this is not yet clear from national studies, insiders tell me that the opportunity to both save cost and improve health status is large.
• Providers have come to realize they are risk-bearers. At conferences this year I repeatedly heard leaders from the provider side say that bearing risk is the future and it is here now. This takes many forms: ACOs, penalties for readmission of Medicare patients, risk-sharing agreements with insurers, bundled payments direct from self-insured employers, etc. This has profound consequences for health insurance markets: why channel everything through insurers, when the providers bear much of the risk, and many employers bear risk too?
• Quantified self is now a major meme: FitBit and Pebble are doing well. Apple AAPL -0.22% and Google GOOGL -0.04% announced enhancements to their mobile OS products that support gathering and processing of health information.
• Primary care medicine is born again. Concierge medicine (OneMedical) and Direct Primary Care (Qliance, Iora) are booming. Major drug chains (CVS, Walgreens) are offering basic primary care in-store, and CVS showed it is a serious healthcare company by stopping sales of tobacco products. Nurse Practitioners and Physician’s Assistants are stepping up to fill the primary care provider shortage.
• And some key, established trends continue: consumers continue to be more exposed to the cost of their health care: e.g., the number of people with “high-deductible” health plans grew to 17.4 million. Healthcare data is finally becoming electronic, and a healthcare “data cloud” is emerging slowly. Health systems continue to consolidate and purchase physician practices at the regional level. Medical service prices continue to rise, but utilization has been down in recent years, keeping the growth of overall spending in check.
What does this mean for entrepreneurs and investors? Obviously there are more opportunities than I can describe.
But even as the telemedicine scenario in India is seeing significant developments, challenges still remain.The greatest challenge is getting enough medical specialists to see patients in remote locations and also to get the patients to trust the opinion by the doctors, virtually.
A major driver of telemedicine in India is the dismal state of health care in the country. India’s government spending on health as a proportion of the GDP – currently at around 1% of the GDP – is among the lowest in the world. Even in other Asian countries, it is higher. The corresponding amount is 1.8% in Sri Lanka, 2.3% in China and 3.3% in Thailand. Despite the launch of the National Rural Health Mission in 2005, India continues to grapple with a 33% shortage of rural hospitals, which are called Community Health Centers (CHCs). Even in the ones present, there is an acute shortage of staff. According to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, there is a shortage of 50-70% of physicians, specialists, lab technicians and radiographers at the CHCs. And around 10-15% of them lack even basic amenities such as water supply and electricity.
Telemedicine, despite being an old subject, is presently receiving a huge push from government to address the healthcare inadequacy in India.
“Hospitals have kind of understood how remote healthcare can give them better ROI [return on investment]. The telemedicine centre that cost you 125,000 rupees ($2,120) can give you 25 percent margins by the end of the year,” said Ruchi Dass, Founder & CEO at HealthCursor Consulting Group.
Despite the benefits of telemedicine, some users don’t see neighbourhood physicians and hospitals shutting up shop any time soon. http://blogs.reuters.com/india/2014/06/04/telemedicine-in-india-might-be-just-what-the-doctor-ordered/
Several state governments such as Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh have launched free medical helplines. There also are private companies, such as Mediphone. Started in 2011, the paid service has more than 1,000 phone calls each day seeking medical advice, with 33 percent of the calls coming from Bihar, one of India’s most underdeveloped states.
Mr Eduardo, I second you. Having direct interaction with a specialist is nearly impossible for many patients since most specialist doctors live in cities, while 70 percent of India’s population lives in rural areas.
Even in cities, health workers say hectic lifestyles and longer commutes make it tough to visit the doctor.
But with nearly 900 million mobile phone connections and over 200 million internet users, experts say wireless technology can be harnessed to decentralize India’s healthcare industry, which is expected to touch $250 billion by 2020.
Medanta is one of several e-health providers that say they want to change how healthcare is delivered in India, and address the industry’s two biggest problems: accessibility and lack of manpower.
India has 0.7 physicians per 1,000 people — BRIC peers Russia (5), Brazil (1.5) and China (1.5) have better ratios — and most Indians travel about 20 kilometres to reach a hospital, according to a 2012 report by accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).
India faces the challenge of providing health care for both urban and rural settings and to populations that often do not carry health insurance. While streamlining the health care system to work more efficiently is a major focus, so are supporting technologies, such as mobile health and telemedicine.