Question

Topic: Strategy

How To Sell Software To Doctors And Hospitals?

Posted by Anonymous on 12/30/2009 at 11:47 PM ET 250 Points
Hey everyone,

I'm doing a feasibility study for a medical software and I'm having trouble figuring out the best way to sell it to doctors and hospitals. Because it's rather specialized, here's a little more background on my study:

The problem:
Many patients who seek health care in North America don't speak English (especially in large cities) and human translator services are also often not available, thus creating a language barrier between doctor and patient. This can be frustrating at best and downright dangerous at worst if misinterpretations occur.

The product:
The software has a mechanism to provide ACCURATE vital translation between patient and doctor when a translator is not present. It still falls far short of having a real translator, but it will reduce and eliminate important misinterpretations from occurring.

I've done my research and this is a huge problem in NA (pops up in the news all the time) and there's very few competitors serving the medical community. My dilemma is in the marketing:

1) How do I reach doctors and hospitals, since they'll be the main target?

2) More importantly, how do I pitch this product? My biggest worry is that since this product won't directly increase a doctor/hospital's profits, they won't have the incentive to purchase it.

Any help is greatly appreciated! Thanks!
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RESPONSES

  • Posted on 12/31/2009 at 7:16 AM Accepted
    I'm FAR from an expert, but I think one of the values of the product you should be pushing is that it can potentially help save lives. It might lower the insurance premium for doctors, maybe you should look into that and include it in your sales pitch?
  • Posted by CarolBlaha on 12/31/2009 at 7:51 AM Accepted
    I think Phil is right. Doc's and hospitals love studies and white papers. I know hospitals must have interpreters. And patients tend to go to docs of their same ethinticity when they can. I have a friend who was sent to a doc by her insurance co and she's complaining his english was so bad -- the role here was reversed. So don't make the assumption all docs are local citizens and speak wonderful english.

    There are other software co's that have medical as a niche. Fusion market with them. They already have the contacts. Research those hospitals you say you've seen in the news having an issue with this. I'd get in front of them. Another way to pull thru sales is via insurance co's. If these mistakes are being made, the insurance co is paying. They have a vested interest in saving lives- and your software can do this.
  • Posted on 12/31/2009 at 10:14 AM Author
    THANK YOU everyone those are great ideas to get things started! Interesting point on insurance companies wanting to save lives... but what's the best way to get in front of those guys and get their attention?

    Again THANKS SO MUCH!
  • Posted on 12/31/2009 at 11:38 AM Accepted
    Phil's suggestion to enlist a receptive hospital in a trial--so you can point to results--is on target. No doctor or hospital will adopt something unproven. An insurance company is also a good target--as they have to foot the bill for mis-diagnoses. A final potential client/partner would be the medical information providers--like Medscape.com or Wolters Kluwer's Ovid. These companies have been providing textbooks and journals--and now online medical info--to hospitals and doctors for decades and are very trusted.

    Carol is right about selling. The companies you want selling the product are VARs--value-added-resellers--who specialize in serving the medical industry. Your target audience is not going to buy software from an unknown source. You can locate the leading ones in health care by searching the VAR 500. Here's the link:

    https://www.crn.com/var/main/2009vb500.jhtml;jsessionid=YUTUM5ORPZU35QE1GHP...

    And as I mentioned before, do think about Medscape or Ovid. A translation app might be something they could sell as well. Both VARs and the info providers have long, deep relationships with hospitals. Oh, and a final point, sometimes doctors get access to expensive medical information and services through an affiliated hospital, or the insurance provider. Selling directly to doctors is tough and pretty slow.
  • Posted on 12/31/2009 at 3:56 PM Accepted
    Several considerations and challenges you will need to overcome related to my work with an insurance company and sharing patient information they collect

    1. You need to find out who provides translators today. My wife is a provider and I believe she said the translators were provided by a community program. This may vary by hospital/clinic.
    2. You need to identify who would sponsor and buy this. If there is a community program (or insurance company) who would pay for this the clinic/hospital would still need to accept and sponsor its use.
    3. You need to determine how this would be implement to gain acceptance. Doctors only have a couple minutes in the room with a patient and only need translation capabilities infrequently. They are going to be reluctant to learn a new system that slows them down.

    You may look to see how companies such as ones providing remote blood sugar monitoring are marketing to doctors. I did work with one such company and they had similar challenges.
  • Posted by CarolBlaha on 1/1/2010 at 3:03 PM Accepted
    You're looking for some magical words that will automatcially get you in front of the doc. Well, there isn't. Your going to have to sell the appointment first - the product 2nd.

    You are going to also change the belief that this software doesn't create revenue for the doc. Less issues like you have means more $ to their bottom line. The less claims they have the lower the malpractice insurance.

    When you approach the insurance co's, you may be able to negotiate the docs a further discount if they use your software. A friend took on a new service doing floor safety audits. If a facility has an audit conducted they get an insurance discount. Now, does her service provide revenue to the facility? No. But the insurance co recognizes that eliminating slip/fall claims is of value.
    And they reward the facility for being proactive about this issue. As they should reward the facility to assure proper communication.
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