Background

• Client had built a strong business providing mobile vision centers for employee eye exams, competing on basis of patient convenience and clinical quality

• When the COVID-19 pandemic arrived, customers’ offices closed and Client’s business came to a halt

• Serendipitously, Client was approached by pharmaceutical companies desperate to keep clinical trials operating when traditional medical offices were shut down.

• Client successfully adapted its offering to serve clinical trials and executed multiple trials successfully.

• Some pharmaceutical sponsors expressed a willingness to continue using Client for clinical trial support post-pandemic, but this had not translated into strong bookings.

Client request

• Provide expertise and data to help Client determine whether to invest in clinical trial business for the long term.

Key issues for consulting team to address

• Market demand

  • How would the life sciences industry approach decentralized clinical trials after the pandemic?

  • How many ophthalmology trials were planned? To what extent would non-ophthalmology trials require ophthalmology endpoints?

  • Would traditional, fixed clinical trial sites view Client as a threat or potential collaborator? How would this affect trial sponsors?

  • To what extent would new demands for diversity and equity in clinical trials translate into change by trial sponsors? Would decentralized trials be viewed as a solution?

• Client capabilities

  • Did existing Client capabilities meet the needs of trial sponsors?

  • Would Client’s patient-centric approach provide an advantage for trials?

  • What was the Client’s cost position compared with traditional sites?

• Competitive landscape

  • Who else provided similar services for ophthalmology clinical trials? What value proposition did they offer?

  • Were competitors typically focused on ophthalmology or a broader array of therapeutic areas?

  • How did Client compare on key capabilities important to sponsors?

• Synergies/dyssynergies with Client’s core business

  • Would clinical trials business complement or interfere with employer eye exam model?

  • Could the same mobile vision centers be used for both businesses, or would separate infrastructure be required?

• Investment requirements

  • What investments would be needed to win?

  • Over what time frame would investment be required?

  • Would this business likely attract external capital?

Health Business Group approach

• Health Business Group worked closely with a management team --that had little prior experience with clinical trials-- to define the key questions and outline the workplan

• Compiled data on ophthalmology clinical trial market participants and market trends

• Conducted one-on-one interviews

  • Existing Client customers and additional clinical trial sponsors from the HBG network

  • Experts and competitors

• Synthesized findings

  • Created a fact base to address the questions systematically

  • Conducted workshops to discuss findings and implications

  • Made recommendations on whether and how to proceed

Outcomes

• Developed a high-level business plan for market entry

• Created an interactive tool to use with customers to quantify Client’s value proposition

• Facilitated board understanding and consensus on a topic that was outside their area of expertise

Background

• Client had achieved outstanding growth in its core business since receiving investment from private equity sponsor 18 months earlier

• Sponsor and company were concerned about whether growth was sustainable, because interoperability would likely reduce the need for Client’s offering

• Client had strong operations, technology, management, and relationships that were potentially transferable to other customer segments and solutions

Client request

• Determine how new interoperability initiatives would impact Client’s business

• Research and recommend opportunities for Client to leverage capabilities and relationships to grow in adjacent areas

• Collaborate with investment banker to evaluate acquisitions to bolster growth strategy

Key issues for consulting team to address

• What was the potential of established and newly introduced products and services for existing and new hospital system customers?

• Would drive for interoperability erode demand? How much? How quickly?

• What were the needs of payers and life sciences companies and could Client serve them?

• What was the potential to leverage data that Client generated or processed for customers?

• What companies should be on Client’s radar and vice versa as competitors, partners, acquisition targets or acquirers?

Health Business Group approach

• Health Business Group worked closely with a management team that had little prior experience outside the hospital space to define key questions and outline the workplan

• Performed internal company assessment in conjunction with management team to outline capabilities and gaps, and to analyze the product development roadmap

• Conducted secondary data gathering, leveraging HBG knowledge base and market reports for

  • Market size, segmentation and growth

  • Identification and profiling of competitors and potential partners

  • Trend assessment, such as impact of COVID-19, impact of interoperability policy changes

• Conducted more than 50 interviews to obtain greater specificity on topics explored in the secondary data gathering

  • Exploratory discussions with existing customers and partners to test potential offerings and validate assumptions

  • Interviews with executives from prospective customers within health plans and life sciences companies

  • Interviews with market participants, including existing and prospective partners and competitors

• Synthesized findings

  • Created a fact base to enable team to efficiently consider a well-organized set of data and insights about the opportunities

  • Incorporated findings from collaboration with investment banker

  • Conducted workshops to discuss findings and implications

• Developed and evaluated strategic options

  • Developed multiple, distinct options and provided supporting data on their pros and cons

  • Developed criteria, scored each option, gained consensus

  • Refined options and made recommendations

  • Outlined high-level implementation plan

Outcomes

• Developed a framework and input tools to measure and monitor impact of interoperability, while providing assurance that downside was limited in the medium term

• Helped position company as an interoperability solutions provider, turning a vulnerability into a strength

• Identified attractive, unexpected opportunity in adjacent market that was synergistic with core offering

• Guided M&A approach to ensure acquisitions were a strategic fit

Background

• Client was a leader in traditional retail, but struggled to keep up with online pioneers

• Client relied on traditional, physical footprint and capabilities to enter healthcare, but knew a digital offering was required to provide a full solution

• Innovation group was tasked with incubating digital health offering, and required consulting support from digital health experts

Client request

• Validate Client’s hypothesis that it should offer an umbrella app to integrate with best of breed solutions and connect with customers’ health profiles

• Identify additional opportunities consistent with Client’s entry into health

Key issues for consulting team to address

• Healthcare environment

  • Impact of changes to payer and provider structure, technology, workforce, payment model

  • Issues specific to Client’s customer population, e.g., geography, health conditions, finances, current use patterns

• Digital health ecosystem

  • Definition of relevant categories

  • Identification of leading and emerging players by segment

  • Intersection of digital health, bricks and mortar, and devices

  • Lessons learned from previous successes and failures

• Competitive landscape

  • Strategic intent and activity of major traditional, online, and hybrid competitors

  • Best practices of emerging innovators

Health Business Group approach

• Health Business Group leveraged its existing knowledge base, Client information, and external data to compile a robust set of information, challenge the hypotheses, and devise new solutions.

• Secondary data sources included the HBG knowledge base, market research and analyst reports, government statistics, trade journals, company websites, blogs and other Internet resources.

• Primary sources included interviews with Client’s own benefits and wellness staff, industry participants (e.g., digital health companies, competitors, experts, policymakers), product demos, and attendance and networking at health-IT conferences, trade shows and webinars.

• Devised three novel concepts, and created interactive, multimedia demonstrations to illustrate how the concepts could be implanted

• Developed a short presentation for the Client’s board, which had little healthcare experience

Outcomes

• Develop three innovative business concepts that meshed with Client’s overall healthcare strategy and leveraged its strengths

• Built a robust fact base that persuaded Client to deviate from its original, sub-optimal plan

• Provided follow-on support to identify and introduce appropriate partners for one of the concepts, and to develop an incubation plan for a second concept

Background

• Client was growing its RPM business by marketing to physician offices. The approach was working but limited the pace of expansion

• Client believed its core RPM solution could be attractive as a concierge/self-pay model and that the consumer business could help accelerate physician uptake

Client request

• Research the market landscape, competitive environment, and regulatory issues

• Develop a consumer segmentation

• Create packages of solutions and obtain feedback from consumers on attractiveness and willingness to pay for each

• Make a go/no-go recommendation

• Outline a go to market plan

Key issues for consulting team to address

• Customer demand

  • Market segmentation by patient characteristics and geography

  • Evolution of consumer preferences and expectations

  • What benefits consumer are seeking that can be addressed by RPM

• Competitive environment

  • Identification of direct and indirect competitors. Lessons learned from their approaches to DTC messaging, solutions offered, pricing

  • Case studies of companies leveraging consumers to increase physician adoption

  • Opportunities to partner or acquire

• Reimbursement and regulatory

  • Interaction between self-pay and insurance models, e.g., can patients obtain reimbursement, differences by insurance type

  • How Client can leverage customer pull to generate new physician office business, transition patients from self-pay to insurance

  • Impact of new regulations on healthcare interoperability and patient access to data

Health Business Group approach

• Health Business Group leveraged two decades of knowledge of RPM to outline initial issues, develop hypotheses, and identify data sources

• Secondary data sources included the HBG knowledge base, industry and trade journals, surveys and reports on consumer adoption of digital health and wearables, government data, and analyst reports on public companies

• Primary sources included interviews with companies offering traditional personal emergency response systems (PERS), voice-enabled PERS, fall detection, medication adherence, and medical condition monitoring. Health Business Group also interviewed industry associations and experts

• Developed three packages to test with customers and conducted one-on-one sessions to gather feedback, and develop customer personas and preferences

• Synthesized findings into fact base to enable discussion and go/no go decision

• Outlined go to market plan, including target customer characteristics, pricing model and level, value proposition and sample messaging, differentiation from competition, distribution and marketing partners, resource requirements and timelines

Outcomes

• Validated Client hypothesis for consumer-pay RPM solution

• Enabled Client to launch the new offering within a few months of project conclusion

Background

• Ransomware and other devastating cyberattacks on hospitals had resulted in enormous payouts by cyberinsurance carriers, leading to tougher underwriting standards, non-renewal of coverage, and rapidly rising premiums

• Member hospitals asked their state hospital association, which already provided IT services, to develop a plan to assist

Client request

• Develop a business case for a service offering to enable members to maintain coverage and lower premiums

• Combine cybersecurity expertise, knowledge of hospitals, and business planning skills to craft a plan that CEOs would understand, technical staff would endorse, and Client could implement

• Develop a summary presentation for upcoming board meeting

Key issues for consulting team to address

• Context for cybersecurity

  • Hospitals’ common and unique roles within broader cybersecurity landscape

  • Insurance carrier requirements and opportunities to influence

• Case for collaboration

  • Role for statewide association v. individual hospitals v. national organizations

  • Insurance carrier perspectives on group initiatives

  • Governmental initiatives

  • Client core competencies in IT and security

• Best practices

  • Roles played by other statewide and national hospital and health care entities

  • Examples from more advanced industries, e.g., financial services

  • Vendor-led initiatives

• Potential offerings, e.g.,

  • Education and support

  • Technology and services

  • Captive insurance and pooled purchasing

Health Business Group approach

• Health Business Group leveraged its partner company, Atumcell for deep cybersecurity expertise to complement its healthcare knowledge

• Secondary data sources included the HBG and Atumcell knowledge base, insurance industry sourcebooks, government data and whitepapers

• Primary sources included interviews with state and national hospital associations, insurance brokers and carriers, cybersecurity experts, and vendors

• Laid out a series of robust offerings to address underlying cybersecurity risk while satisfying insurer requirements. Steered clear of mere “check the box” solutions

• Developed CEO-level presentation for association’s board

• Outlined next steps to gather member feedback, develop a formal business plan, begin implementation

Outcomes

• Took advantage of C-level attention caused by cyber insurance crisis to lay out a robust, long-term approach to reduce risks

• Established basis for Client to develop a new line of business with strong potential in local market and nationwide

Background

• Company was founded to commercialize an innovative, but highly complex technology platform

• A newly developed, simpler technology opened up possibilities for the company and had the potential to dramatically accelerate the development timeline

• Client’s board, scientific founder, and executive team had reached an impasse. They could not agree whether to continue with the original approach or switch to the newer technology

Client request

• Re-assess Client’s portfolio prioritization in light of the new technology

• Work with the board to structure the strategic choices for the company and make decisions

Key issues for consulting team to address

• Development path, pricing and reimbursement comparison of original and new technology

  • Approval timeline and development cost

  • Manufacturing standards

  • Cost of goods

  • Risks

  • Provider, payer, and patient perspectives

• Market size

  • Therapeutic pipeline for key indications

  • Underlying unmet diagnostic and therapeutic monitoring needs

• Company dynamics

  • Tensions between key stakeholders

  • Differing levels of scientific and clinical acumen on board

Health Business Group approach

• Health Business Group worked closely with the management team, founder and board to prepare for and facilitate a strategy offsite

• Conducted portfolio assessment

  • Leveraged HBG knowledgebase and market research reports

  • Performed competitive analysis

  • Interview KOLs to validate findings from secondary research and help settle controversial questions

• Conducted one-on-one interviews with board and management

  • Gathered perspective on strategic options from each interviewee

  • Reviewed choice structuring approach

• Synthesized findings

  • Laid out portfolio analysis and implications

  • Developed baseline fact base

  • Prepared board materials

• Facilitated board retreat

  • Presented baseline facts and interview feedback

  • Teed up strategic options and criteria to evaluate

  • Built consensus on best path forward

• Followed up

  • Prepared memo to recap results

  • Worked with management on implementation and communication plan

Outcomes

• Framed the key issues and brought relevant data to the table

• Facilitated board, management and founder agreement to enable company to make a clear decision and execute a unified approach