Final week’s ViVE convention in Los Angeles attracted tons of of digital well being startups, lots of which had been on the prowl for brand spanking new clients and/or financing.
Meaning the well being system executives and enterprise capital buyers in attendance confronted their fair proportion of pitches from these startups. I sat down with a few of these leaders in the course of the occasion to study extra about what their pet peeves are when listening to startups’ pitches. Beneath are six of the errors they advised me startups maintain making, thereby decreasing their possibilities of elevating capital or securing a well being system partnership.
Overselling
It’s a significant crimson flag when a digital well being firm’s pitch is “all about making the sale and never about fixing the issue,” mentioned Rebecca Kaul, chief of digital innovation and transformation at New York-based Northwell Well being.
“It’s a direct turn-off if each dialog about how you could possibly remedy an issue leads again to ‘Purchase me, pay me’ and you’ll inform there’s much less curiosity in studying in regards to the well being system,” she declared.
In her view, no digital well being startup goes to have the ability to come to Northwell with an answer that works out of the field. To ensure that a digital funding to achieve success, Northwell wants to interact in “mutual listening and studying” with the seller — and that studying course of must take priority over the startup’s need to land a sale, Kaul defined.
If she will be able to inform that an organization is extra concerned about creating wealth off a possible sale than doing the work wanted to make the deployment profitable, then she rapidly loses curiosity within the resolution at hand.
“There are some firms which can be desirous to work along with your well being system to the purpose the place they’ll go at-risk as a result of they imagine of their product — I like that,” Kaul remarked.
Weak plans for IT integration
Michael Kalishman, chief enterprise officer at Virginia-based Sentara Well being, mentioned that “the commonest mistake” digital well being startups make is underestimating the complexity and sources it takes to combine their product right into a hospital’s IT techniques.
Digital well being firms typically don’t have an IT professional on their workforce who can reply well being techniques’ particular questions on what integration would appear like, which is irritating, he famous.
“Startups are available in they usually actually don’t perceive the underlying information techniques that they should work with. Additionally they actually don’t perceive the interior IT processes {that a} well being system has to undergo for approvals — whether or not or not it’s architectural assessment, design or useful resource allocation. Quite a lot of them are available in considering it’s an easy course of, and that’s not the case,” Kalishman said.
Incapability to face out from rivals
There are a couple of corners of the digital well being market which can be getting oversaturated, with varied startups providing merchandise that appear to do the identical factor. Some examples of those areas inside the market embrace medical documentation scribes, care navigation platforms and psychological well being apps.
On condition that the market is getting so crowded, it’s baffling what number of startups are unable to reply the query “What makes you completely different out of your rivals?” identified Michelle Stansbury, vice chairman of innovation and IT purposes at Houston Methodist. In her opinion, it is a comparatively primary query that each one startups ought to be ready to reply.
Lack of cybersecurity issues
There may be additionally a “excessive share” of digital well being startups that may’t successfully reply questions on their merchandise’ cybersecurity, Stansbury declared.
“I can’t inform you what number of instances that we’ve needed to inform startups, ‘We are able to’t use you as a result of you haven’t put any safety into your product,’” she mentioned.
This consideration is particularly vital given the proliferation of cyberattacks within the healthcare business and the sector’s vulnerability to hackers, Stansbury defined.
Not sufficient deal with the medical worth
One of many worst slip-ups a digital well being startup could make just isn’t having the ability to “speak substantively” in regards to the medical fashions which can be related to their product, in accordance with Lynne Chou O’Keefe, founder and managing accomplice at Outline Ventures.
“We’ve seen decks the place there’s 30 pages, and there’s just one slide on the medical mannequin,” she said. “That’s a crimson flag for us as a result of in the long run, we’re right here to realize the triple goal.”
The “triple goal” O’Keefe referred to entails strengthening inhabitants well being, enhancing the care expertise and decreasing the price of care. To her, an organization’s capacity to ship medical worth is extra vital than its capacity to develop financially or change into worthwhile.
Lack of excellent utilization and engagement metrics
It’s “stunning” what number of startups don’t know tips on how to successfully spotlight their utilization and engagement metrics, identified Cathy Gao, a accomplice at Sapphire Ventures.
She famous that startups are normally keen to debate their high line progress numbers, equivalent to their annual recurring income (ARR). When an organization reveals that its ARR is rising, savvy buyers will “instantly” wish to unpack these metrics, Gao mentioned.
“If a startup is exhibiting dedicated ARR or bookings, buyers wish to know what share of that’s truly reside. It’s one factor to say, ‘We signed this contract,’ and it’s one other to say, ‘We’ve efficiently carried out, and persons are truly utilizing our product,’” she defined.
Gao would additionally prefer to see startups do a greater job of exhibiting how a lot their clients are using their merchandise. That is significantly related for digital well being firms promoting instruments for clinicians, she added.
She desires to see extra information on what number of clinicians use the product per week and month, how typically they use it, and in the event that they use it persistently over an extended time frame.
“A few of these contracts are within the thousands and thousands of {dollars} — if the docs and nurses aren’t utilizing the product, then the well being system just isn’t going to resume,” Gao declared.
Getty Photographs: erhui1979
