Healthcare
Big Data in Healthcare and Life Sciences
The focus of this blog post is to begin to place analytics as the key capability and business improvement for the Life Sciences and Healthcare industry. I will look to give other blog posts on database types as a prelude to the pending wave around the Internet of Things (#IoT). We all know the term #BigData, and if you do a search within LinkedIn you find many articles on the topic. I want to focus on the buyers of big data solutions to solve problems specific to Life Sciences and Healthcare companies. I’ll provide the background and the types of solutions you may need to discuss with this technology.
Big players look to improve their product offerings
A few days ago I had read with interest an article entitled “Big incumbents target big updates in big data bonanza.” The focus of the piece was how Oracle, HP and IBM were releasing updates around their big data portfolios. They include SQL, plus Hadoop, and NoSQL, and according to Dan Vesset from IDC there is no one technology that addresses all the analytics use cases. Why does this matter to Healthcare and Life Sciences?
Having a ‘unified’ data platform will be part of the industry’s analytics strategy. With so much data you need a plan that supports future search and analysis ability within your companies. IDC predicts that the overall market in 2015 to reach $125B. With Healthcare and Life Sciences to have a significant part of this market. IDC tells us that we have until 2017 to have this in place, with the Internet of Things (IoT) having a real influence when it comes to healthcare and new product innovation.
Winners and Losers in the Big Data wars
I recommend you read this great article by Brian Sommer (@Brianssommer) “The Big Data Wars – will your company prevail? Part1” and there is a “Part2.”
I would contend that if you read this blog post you are either involved in analytics or providing advice for clients on this topic. So it is helpful to know where you, and your company or client sits if you agree with the previous paragraph. While the article covers generalities I would like to propose the same viewpoint for Healthcare and Life Sciences companies.
Where do you land in the Big Data wars?
“Wasters – companies that have access to big, external data but don’t do enough with it.” In attempting to comply with US healthcare regulations there are hospital systems that have implemented IT systems to capture data (meaningful use compliance). Have these systems provided valuable feedback to help ‘improve’ healthcare? Can data from within a hospital room be leveraged to improve healthcare for the patient? Depending on the healthcare system it is debatable, and yet it can lead to competitive healthcare improvements.
Conversely, Medical Device companies have to store patient related data as per regulations – are you missing an opportunity to leverage long-term historical facts to give advice for new devices? Pharmaceuticals could be connecting clinical trials data with data from wearables (I would suggest this will happen sooner than later) or doctors notes to offer greater insights into the outcome of new and existing medicines.
“Losers – These firms couldn’t be bothered by the emergence of big data.” Yes there are small group of companies that see data as a nuisance. Their happy with the way their data works today so why bother with looking at more data. To be sure not to find you in this box look at both the technology and organizational change, yet I will leave that for another blog post.
“ERP Masters – Leveraging transactional data beyond the four walls of your company.” I like Brian’s diagram because I come from several years of working with enterprise systems big data forces us to look beyond the four wall of the back office. Yes it is all about ‘integrating’ external data for more insight for the business.
- Life Sciences companies would extend ERP systems into the clinical trial process to tie manufacturing quality and product traceability through to the delivery of the products to the patients and hospital storage locations.
- Hospitals that look to become more profitable will look to extend patient records to include ‘remote/home’ data as a necessary next step in providing ‘value’ in the recovery process. Today’s hospital systems have yet to extend this far into healthcare.
- The Internet of Things (IoT) will have a significant big data impact through the Life Sciences and Healthcare value chain. ERP systems are not designed to support data collection nor analysis of data.
“Winners – These firms know more, understand more and want more.” I’ve not referenced the payers in this discussion, and that is because they take full advantage of big data to help devise healthcare plans and payment plans. Big data should be viewed and planned as a competitive advantage. Do you feel you company or clients are using big data as a spirited market advantage? Brian said it best, “They know that insights mean money, market share and margin.”
Let me know what you think? Agree or disagree…
Thanks,
Jim
Can Technology solve the Big Data / Analytics skills gap?
Recent articles and tweets emphasize that Big Data, or Analytics, would improve the bottom line for a company as long as they are prepared to take advantage of this benefit. Some Life Sciences (those that offer pharmaceuticals and medical devices products) and Healthcare companies have a need for new tools if they are going to take full advantage of Big Data. Today companies have enterprise systems that need IT people to give the requisite report or summary analysis. Newer analytics tools like Tableau Software compliment the installed base of enterprise software with the added benefit of an intuitive way of doing user analysis that focuses more on collaboration and portability.
Backdrop
The key benefits from Big Data for Healthcare (and I will include Life Sciences in this because of the connection to pricing/payments) includes*:
- Improvements in Drug Trial Safety
- Disease surveillance
- Prescribed treatments
- Patient Outcomes
Today we still have data stored like this:
Companies have enterprise systems with data cubes and traditional spreadsheets that need IT to extract the data:
So how can I prioritize?
I agree with the opinion of Dr. Rado Kotorov in his article “The CIOs Top 3 priorities for 2015”:
- The CIO role will transform from a technology leader to a business leader
- Manage data as the enterprise’s most valuable strategic asset
- Make Business Intelligence (BI) pervasive and ubiquitous
Consider the following
Change is imminent so consider a tool that your users can easily leverage to do key analysis, and I don’t mean Excel spreadsheets or Access database. Yesterday I went through a demo of the Tableau software (rank high in terms of “Ability to Execute” and as a “Leader” in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for BI and Analytics). In summary they have solved the problem of connecting to multiple source systems. The product is also easy to set-up and more importantly provides a means to allow for collaboration with others.
In my opinion, reaping the benefit of Big Data means finding ways to turn IT systems to supporting the users to help the business. As leaders in the industry you need to find ways to allow users to unleash their creativity and help the organization analyze and solve business problems. This may mean an additional cost in the short-term. Alternatively you can wait for the right resources or invest in replacing key parts of your enterprise landscape – either choice may not be as appealing as selecting tools to make data analysis easier. I would recommend Tableau Software…
Would you agree I am open to your opinion, so tell me what you think?
Thanks,
Jim
Did you remember your Device today?
In December of 2011 I started using the Fitbit Ultra, a wearable wireless device, to help me watch my daily fitness (or lack of exercise).
I do not claim to be an athlete, my personal goals are to live a more active and healthy life. So this month’s blog post is all around the use of these devices.
The Fitbit Ultra is one of a few devices now on the market (refer to 3 New Fitness Gadgets).
These devices look to answer three things, in my opinion:
- A monitor for your health and activity
- Provide feedback if you ‘are exercising enough’
- Single source of ‘personal data’
My background
I offer IT services consulting advice within the Life Sciences and Healthcare industry. So I have an interest in this area. My daily routine changes, as is the case, between travel and office work – team projects (request for proposal (RFP) activity and orals presentation preparation) to new client meetings. Like any consultant or sales rep a life on the road and in the office. Not to mention finding time for this blog and added social media activity. As an early adopter of this technology I was debating between the Up from Jawbone or the Fitbit Ultra. With Jawbone having manufacturing difficulty I settled on the Fitbit Ultra. Not a bad choice in my opinion.
A monitor for your health and activity
This ‘wearable’ device is small and compact. All you need to do is to remember to wear the device as part of your daily and evening routine. The Fitbit is not waterproof nor does it contain a GPS device. I like the fact that the Fitbit can be worn while you sleep and offers you feedback on your sleeping patterns.
Are you exercising enough?
I am not an athlete yet I want to make a healthy lifestyle. The value in monitoring my daily routine is so that I can ‘change it up’ to include some form of exercise. When I’m working from home I can go for a jog or do some yoga. Of course when you’re traveling this can disrupt your routine, and I find myself to easily distracted and may forget to run or do some yoga. For the serious runners out there you may want to supplement the Fitbit with apps like RunKeeper which uses the GPS found in the iPhone to give exact distance and time recordings.
Single source of data
The biggest draw for me with the Fitbit is that you can enter daily information via your smartphone or from your laptop. The device requires that you synchronize the content of the data from the Fitbit to your account via a USB connected sensor. The Fitbit will keep up to three days worth of data. Here is a snapshot of a standard report that summarizes my activities:
The Future of Medicine?
In the latest product announcement for Nike and their Fuel device “By 2017: 170M wearable wireless health and fitness devices. Monitoring your health with mobile devices will be the next improvement in healthcare for all of us. We will see the next iterations of these devices as they get smaller and provide more connectivity via apps that can combine your personal data. I like using this device and for now it meets my health goals.
Thanks,
Jim
Social Media and Life Sciences
While there has been a lot of discussion about the FDA’s view of Social Media I wrote last month about Gearing up IT for Future Growth. IT must become more relevant in supporting
the business and this new way of ‘collaboration.’ In last month’s blog post I spoke of how IT can be a catalyst for the business. There is a conflict in all this since IT budgets are constrained between maintaining the current IT landscape and investing in these new areas.
To get a better view on this dilemma I suggest you read this blog post on The Next Wave of Technology Led Business Gains written by a colleague of mine. His blog post is entitled Sadagopan’s Weblog, January 8th, 2012. In this article he describes the issues that benefit the business and yet prove challenging for IT.
Being a ‘social enterprise’ to me is all about the connections between your end customers and the products you sell. Within Pharmaceuticals and Medical Devices investments have been made in the areas of customer relationship management (CRM) solutions to help business process improvements and adoption for example: sales reps taking orders and processing quotes. Technology is providing opportunities to improve the ways in which companies can rapidly gain insight into the use of a medication or device.
Integration is the key in all this since the business is using social media tools to quickly gather up this data and transforming this into relevant information. Today I am working with several companies that are looking to improve their business processes via upgrades and ‘smarter’ deployment of this technology. The challenge is to ‘connect’ the output of social media for improved clinical trials or insight into existing device performance (via call center data and complaint tracking).
We are not quite there yet in ‘integrating’ social media with back office systems. Tools are being introduced to ease the ‘listening’ and ‘gathering’ of this data. I believe that Life Sciences companies would benefit from a better ‘collaboration’ with their patients and consumers of their products. As I see this progressing in the market I will offer an update to this blog post.
Thanks,
Jim
Drug shortages will impact Healthcare…
Most of us are excited about the changes occurring in healthcare around mobile applications, electronic health records and the advent of social media just to name a few examples. Yet there is a mounting concern with the rise of drug shortages now reported at “178 a 3x rise since 2005!” A look at the FDA web site for drug shortages shows a list of both generics and branded products with the reasons for the shortages (including manufacturing delays, increase in demand, etc.). We’ll look at the background of the industry, the traditional view of supply chain, current factors facing the industry, and what companies can do to ‘improve’ their operations. Recognizing the need to convert your improve your existing operations will be good business and the consequences will directly impact you and I.
Key facts about the industry
According to IMS Health pharmaceuticals sales in 2011 is expected to reach 880 to 890Billion USD, which is a growth of 5 to 7%, and is 1% higher than the 2010 expectations. The current view of the supply chain includes:
- In the US market the top 10 pharmaceutical companies give some 60% of the total US sales.
- As products come off patent Generics control the prices of these products.
- The wholesalers may also negotiate prices between the manufacturers and the Pharmacies.
The traditional view of the supply chain
The driver for any supply chain is to offer:
- Product at a ‘reduced’ cost
- Faster to market
- Delivered at a high quality
Apply this to the previous diagram and you can see the challenges that face healthcare. As the view of the patient and pricing for these products are disconnected. This diagram gives you the full view of the Healthcare supply chain:
Current factors influencing the industry and the Healthcare supply chain
The following factors have influenced the market:
- Mergers and Acquisitions – have reduced the number of manufacturers as companies have consolidated to make up for the loss in patent expiry and look to increase market share (Merck and Shering Plough, Pfizer and Wyeth, and Teva and Barr Labs are just a few examples)
- Regulatory issues – it is harder for manufacturing sites to recover from an FDA violation. This delay can lead to drug delivery delays.
- Government control over pricing – as the cost of healthcare rises many governments are dictating the price of drugs (Spain, Canada, Turkey and Greece). This puts the supplier at a disadvantage to be able to deliver products at these ‘reduced’ prices given the cost for raw materials.
- Globalization – in response to some of these factors many companies have already moved their operations to off-shore locations. India for API manufacturing.
- Risk Management – having the ability to ‘view’ any of these problems can lead to drug shortages. Supply chain operations must therefore give this visibility so the right changes can be made.
Taking these factors into account and with a view of the ‘future’ of the healthcare supply chain from Gartner:
How can I ‘improve’ my operations?
I now work with a variety of companies that look for solutions to ‘improve’ their processes. We began his discussion trying to understand why there are so many drug shortages, and I would suggest the following as a means of enhancing your supply chain operations:
- Refocus business growth and performance across the entire healthcare supply chain. This includes both the patient as providers of healthcare with a C level sponsor that understands that the aspects of healthcare lie outside of your companies boundaries.
- Collaboration. Look to improve demand from both your suppliers as well as your customers. Provide visibility and metrics that you can mutually share.
- Leverage IT as an enabler to meet the first two points. Make investments that promote organizational visibility. Specifically analytics solutions that provides management with a view the business as a result of this investment.
- Governance. This process does not happen overnight. Change management is an ongoing process and you will need leadership and support to sustain these processes as they evolve over time.
- Invest in skills and talent within your organization. I’m in the IT services business and you would think this takes away from my opportunities. There is a tendency to think that these processes can be solved through off-shore support capability. While this is true I am taking about the need to enhance your folk’s ability to understand the entire healthcare supply chain.
I am convinced healthcare can improve yet the threat of drug shortages can impact any course of treatment if the right products are not available. What I hope to do with this blog post is a summary of the problem and possible solution. I welcome your suggestions or comments to improving this blog post.
Thanks,
Jim
Managing my data…
We are not at a point where we can effectively: total, safely protect, easily transport and access our health data. I read a great article by Margalit Gur-Arie entitled, “Trust your life records to an unnamed chain of software vendors” she uses an analogy of our current banking system to emphasize how far away we are from gaining the trust around our health records data. Great article and highly recommended. This got me thinking about how we manage our data today?
The current focus on the use of smartphones and tablets are mainly for the physicians and nurses. We have yet to discuss the needs of the patients? My personal experience in daily work routines, writing my blogs and using smartphones indicates we are still evolving. There are some models of storing data that could promote greater adoption of data management that would help accelerate the use of technology for managing healthcare data.
Unintended consequences
A few weeks ago I had accidentally dropped my laptop. You know those moments when you’re traveling for business and just happened to let your device slip from your hands. This damaged the LCD display rendering my laptop useless as I was not able to use my data. For the next week I struggled to work effectively, and yes I do keep up a back-up of my data. So I had to cart around my portable drive with my files to a desktop with Internet access, and rely more heavily on my smartphone.
Bottom line from this experience is that smartphones are still not the answer to managing my data. I still rely on apps to do my daily work routines. There needs to be alternatives to managing apps and data across several devices.
Managing your health records
My brother is a kidney transplant recipient. In my earlier blog “Fresh start in 2011” I mentioned how thankful I am for his life. Those of you that have a relative who has undergone these kinds of operations you know that there is a daily regimen of medications to keep the body from rejecting the foreign organ. Have you seen the amount of ‘paper’ data from all the specialists and physicians it takes to keep this all in balance? Even with a dedicated intern whose job it is to check and analyze this data still takes a few hours just to make a ‘minor’ medication adjustment!
There are some apps on the market that address specific medical data: heart monitoring, diabetes tracking, etc. I would be very interested in a personal health record (PHR) that can sum the data from multiple sources?
Smartphones and Tablets – we’re still developing
iPhone versus Android. The iPad versus the latest set of tablets. Earlier this week I posed several questions at the 2011 mHealth Trends (HIMSS Preview) webinar with Brian Dolan (@mobilehealth) and John Moore (@john_chilmark). These devices are still evolving in the market and while it is getting easier to check health data via individual apps we are not addressing the issue of managing the complete portfolio (or checkbook) of your health data?
Later this year the iPhone 5 will be out on the market. As well as an update to the popular iPad tablet. The market is evolving with devices that are easier to use and much more powerful. We have come a long way since the bag phone and netbooks.
How can we digest all of these changes – what is still missing?
There are ways to manage your data on multiple devices. Mobileme (www.apple.com/mobileme/) from Apple is a good example of how their devices can have data synched via the Internet for email, contacts and files. There are apps like SimpleNote (www.simplenoteapp.com) that allows you to support ideas using any smartphone and allow you to reach these ideas, in my case, via the laptop. The idea is that with a little effort I can avoid the unintended consequences of the loss on one device leveraging cloud computing as the repository for my data.
We are still not there when it comes to health records. Since the sources of the data come from a variety of sources. Physicians will soon be using electronic health records. Now the challenge will be how do patients aggregate this data? Can’t say I have a good answer for this based on some of the personal health records I’ve tested.
I would be interested if someone has found a ‘true’ personal health record that can be maintained on multiple devices and allow me to summarize my results data. Once this is in place we can then address the issues of security and portability. In the meantime my daily work is in helping Life Sciences companies’ leverage how an individual can use, analyze and get this data via a variety of devices. I am optimistic that we will see a day when software vendors in the healthcare space act like banks and financial institutes. Though I can’t see how the ATMs fit in all this…..who knows?
Thanks,
Jim
Fresh start in 2011
By now everyone has gotten past their New Year’s resolutions and is picking up where they left off last year. So thinking about my
first blog post for 2011 I would like to cover the following areas:
- A look back at 2010
- Maintaining momentum in 2011
- The focus for the year
Reviewing 2010
The nice thing about blogging is that you can go back and see how you’ve progressed throughout the year. In last year’s blog post: Upgrading for 2010 I had worked on a business plan to startup a new Life Sciences practice for an IT services company. I covered the five focus areas last year by writing about the following topics:
- Social Media – from the use of these tools to deriving ‘value’
- Cloud Computing – producing a white paper for my employer
- Drug Development
- A three-part series on Aligning Life Sciences and IT – covering how to leverage information technology; Mobility and Innovation and the Business Process
- Innovation and Outsourcing
- A book review on ‘selling’
- Patent Expiry
Unfortunately the business plan was not approved, and I moved to another opportunity to do business development for an IT services company. This challenging role now has me advising clients on the best use of IT within Life Sciences and Healthcare. This opportunity came by way of my network, and for that I can thank Robert.
Maintaining Momentum in 2011
I continue to focus on the use of social media tools. So I am thankful for my LinkedIn network and my followers on Twitter. I have come across lots of folks with the same interests and challenges for the Life Sciences and Healthcare industry. There are tons of creative people with new ideas for solving today’s business problems. In 2011 I want to carry the momentum started in 2010.
The Focus for this year
I plan to enter 2011 by expanding on last year’s topics. How do I combine my interests with the tasks of being a business development executive? Here’s what I’ve come up with:
- Leveraging Twitter to cover the following areas:
#pharma – how is clinical development, social media, and regulations impacting this segment of Life Sciences?
#mHealth and #mobility – the use of mobile devices will impact healthcare throughout the world.
#hcsm – how to best leverage healthcare social media?
#healthit and #it – what is the impact of IT on the organization?
#personalizedmedicine and #genomics – will genomics have an impact on healthcare in our lifetime? (I’m currently waiting on results of my own genomics that has to do with ancestry.) - Business process improvements in the areas of Product Lifecycle Management (PLM); Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Supply Chain Management (SCM).
- Clinical Development and Analytics
- Cloud computing
- Mobility
- Mergers & Acquisitions
- Globalization
In case I forget to add Marketing and the use of Social Media to further drive IT services opportunities. I will be more involved in our website and the use of the social media tools.
I continue to have a personal interest in the Life Sciences and Healthcare industry. Last year I saw the impact of ‘personal health records’ for my brother who is a kidney transplant survivor. I’ve have friends succumb to diabetes, and parents who are aging. How will technology help to improve the lives of these people? Will this be something I will see in my lifetime?
So like the snow storms on the East coast of the US. As of January 2011 there are more storms this year than last year. We are starting 2011 with a lot of momentum.
Thanks,
Jim
5 Steps for IT to meet the Challenges of Patent Expiry
We have heard a lot about the ‘patent expiry’ problem within the industry. Here are 5 +1 steps your IT team can take to help improve a company’s position to meet this challenge. As revenues decline as a result of ‘patent expiry’ there is an associated ‘cost reduction’ that is taking place. This is not a surprise – especially from a financial perspective. This ‘cause and effect’ is now challenging IT to see how well they are supporting their organization.
The problem
The current IT landscape within Life Sciences can be described as being ‘best-of-breed.’ There are many reasons why these systems have evolved into ‘silos’ of technology. Today there is an acute interest in the high cost of healthcare that is now ‘pushing’ the industry to act like other industry segments, and what comes to mind is the Consumer Products and High Tech segments. How products are consumed and delivered?
Over the past few years as significant dollars continue to be spent in R&D we have little in terms of new products being introduced into the market. These are products with significant revenue to help cushion the blow of patent expiry. This is why you will continue to see consolidation take place as companies are buying each other for their pipeline. As the industry prepares for the ‘patent expiry’ problem costs are being addressed in many ways :
- AZ not done with cost cuts article
- Drugmaker’s Acquisitions to Weigh on Credit Ratings article
- Galaxo sees more industry consolidation article
What else can be done?
Here are 5 possible solutions that IT can take to help organizations cope with the effects of patent expiry:
- Moving to low-cost options for your OS and database. – Many of today’s applications can also run on the Linux OS platform. You should also consider the maintenance cost of your database. Cost versus performance can help save some money in this area.
- Virtualization – An elegant solution that can help you run your applications on today’s servers. Push your hardware vendors to help give you a roadmap to leverage virtualization for all your applications. If not you may want to find another vendor. You can also seek help from your Infrastructure IT service providers.
- Cloud computing – There are just a few companies within the industry really leveraging this technology. There are lots of vendors who do offer these services. We are aware of the cost savings so I won’t go into that point. The issues of ‘validation’ and FDA compliance will need to be re-evaluated. It can be done ask if your IT service provider has this ability.
- Rationalize you software investments – I mentioned earlier that the current IT landscape is ‘inherited’ based on M&A. Take time to re-evaluate the dollars spent on applications that are seldom used.
- Outsourcing – Aside from the call center, application support; and infrastructure support how much has outsourcing provided in terms of real ‘value’ to the organization. IDC reports that…….
Let’s say you’ve done all these things (here’s the +1).
Then re-evaluate the business process you now support and ask if this really does make a difference to the organization. I’ve been focused on leveraging IT within the industry. With a background in software development and now as an IT service provider. There is no one software solution (transaction system) that can solve these problems. Rather it will take a combination of software applications ‘integrated’ into a business process to support the organization.
Some examples:
- Supply chain versus the value chain – rather than ‘push’ products into the market (now the highest cost savings area) where inventory justifications are based on never ‘running out of product.’ Consider how the Consumer Electronics industry approached their supply chain during the holiday season. Does your supply chain have a focus on the consumer – and the needs of your products?
- Change the way R&D creates new products – too many times I’ve heard that this is how we do things and that the FDA forces us to do it this way. The problem can be solved by combining IT applications into a business process. Re-think how you do portfolio management and clinical trials from a financial perspective.
- What is the value of your IP to your organization – IT service providers should be helping you to check how data is managed within your organization.
A comment on Twitter: a great thing about this social media tool is that it allows you the ability to store important comments made by others across a range of topics. This has helped me do a lot of ‘right-brain’ thinking about how best to push IT service providers to come up with the next advances for the industry. I also see the need to help companies ‘improve’ their processes and help impact the creation of new medicines and treatments for the market.
Thanks,
Jim
IT Innovation and Outsourcing
Cost pressures have forced companies to ‘outsource’ a variety of IT services. How much information technology (IT) to outsource depends on which industry you are in and to what extent IT plays a part in your end product or service. I will use several sources to describe the balance between IT innovation and outsourcing relative to the Life Sciences and Healthcare industry. I came from a background in software delivery and now I am active in IT services and solutions. Many of our clients have to balance this decision, and surprisingly there are advantages to outsourcing as it focuses an organization on IT innovation in support of the business goals.
I came across article Harvard Business Review (August 2, 2010 by Susan Cramm) which posed the statement: “with extensive outsourcing, over time, companies lose the ability to innovate IT.” The question is if an organization outsources many of its developmental projects how can these companies attract, develop, and keep IT smart leaders. The example used came from the banking industry where large-scale outsourcing limited that company’s ability to innovate IT. It seems to me that given the changes in technology and the impact of improving healthcare there should be a conscious effort to balance outsourcing and concentrate on IT innovations. The Harvard Business Review article points to the loss in jobs due to excessive outsourcing, yet within the Life Sciences industry it is IT innovations that will propel the advances we seek in healthcare.
Another driver in all this is the ability to create ‘value.’ In the article on “Six Fundamental Shifts in the Way We Work” competition has intensified and that the new centers of innovation are in China and India. So it seems to me that we need more of a balance, or as the article points out, a “collaboration curve” between outsourcing and IT innovation within Life Sciences and Healthcare. It is not that the US has lost its edge. We are still a nation of ideas and creativity. Outsourcing is one of those ‘shifts’ that we can use to our advantage. This drives the focus of our jobs and assignments to create ‘value’ by way of IT innovation. For example in a past posting I described the use of PDAs for doctors and nurses leading to IT efficiencies that improve healthcare. As the outsourcing vendor we provided off-shore development resources. Collaborating with our client we worked on all aspects of the design, prototyping, testing and delivery.
Outsourcing provides a means for Life Sciences companies to lower their operating costs. In the article on “Pharma contractors hiring fastest in sector” (August 17, 2010 by Tracy Staton) it describes how Pharmaceutical services and outsourcing firms are hiring (as high as 5 times as fast as drug companies themselves). The article goes on to describe the business reasons for going this route as oppose to full-time employees. We need to be aware that this shift to outsourcing has an effect on the current workforce. Which is why I felt compelled to post this blog. I cannot speak for some of the other industries, yet within Life Sciences outsourcing will remain a key driver for controlling costs. Where does this put you? Can you see yourself being the one directing new IT innovations with off-shore resources? How are you ready for this ‘shift’ in IT?
Thanks,
Jim
Deriving “value” in today’s world of Social Media
The focus on this article is to help you find “value” through the use of social media tools. The idea came to me when I read the Community Pharm post entitled Hindsight Is 20-20 But Foresight Is Critical. In this article, the main idea was on the Pharmaceutical brand manager’s focus on budgeting. I want to discuss ways in which this budget can be applied to activities that ultimately add ‘value,’ and how you can find ways to apply social media tools to drive revenue your products.
In setting the context for this discussion: I have the task of starting up a new business unit. So along with the usual business plan and strategic sessions that go into creating a new practice we need to find ways to promote our product and services. Most of us will also go through a process of creating a marketing plan. What I want our Marketing group to carry out is to:
- drive revenue and specifically top-line revenue
- create a positive image for our products and ultimately our company
- help us understand the market and our customers
We’ve elected to merge the use of social media tools into our plan, and began a search for how to do use these tools. One article that I found helpful was 12 Reasons to Use Social Media to Grow Your Business by Pam Dyer.
She provides both growth information as well as twelve compelling reasons to use social media to grow your business. I would also recommend bookmarking these sites:
- Social Media Today – a great source of information on this topic http://www.socialmediatoday.com/
- Blogging Innovation – another treasure trove of articles on marketing, innovation and social media http://www.business-strategy-innovation.com/wordpress/
So now you know the how to use social media. Now let’s get back to the brand manager and his budget. The obvious question is what business models to invest in when your focus is on Healthcare? A good friend of mine Andy De (http://www.andyde.com/) has an article entitled: Will Social Media find “Meaningful Usage” in a Healthcare Context.
He proposes a ‘strategy framework’ around six business model scenarios for social media and healthcare. Of the six models our company has embarked on the business model scenario E. You see we offer IT services and solutions for Life Sciences and Healthcare. We have a keen focus on the “mHealth” market (also called “telehealth”). What is your focus/business model?
Our next steps are to start with tools such as Twitter, and Blogging, along with LinkedIn to create awareness around a set of products and services within Life Sciences and Healthcare. Your plan will be different. Our goals are set-up to allow our company to get accustomed to the use of social media tools. So far taking small steps has helped us evolve our company as we break into new markets. We have allocated budget for this activity and the value will increase over time. Do you have a story to tell about the use of social media for you company? Community Pharm (http://cp.pharmalive.com/) is a site for sharing such ideas. Let us know if this article was of value and if you want us to present relevant topics.
Thanks,
Jim
Jim Sabogal's Blog 