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Exploring New Research on Marketing in the Healthcare Sector

Hayoung Cheon and Nah Lee

As the world faces a pandemic of a magnitude not witnessed for over 100 years, we are reminded of healthcare’s fundamental role in our interconnected world. Marketing as a discipline has not lived up to its potential contributions to this important aspect of our lives. The Journal of Marketing Special Issue on “ Marketing in the Healthcare Sector ” is dedicated to promoting research on healthcare marketing. Thirteen scholars from across the marketing discipline shared their views on unanswered questions facing marketing in the healthcare sector during a special session at the 2020 AMA Summer Academic Conference. A summary and video clip of their individual presentations follows.

Leonard Berry | University Distinguished Professor of Marketing, M.B. Zale Chair in Retailing and Marketing Leadership, Mays Business School, Texas A&M University

Underuse of Palliative Care and Hospice Services

One of healthcare’s most important jobs is to help people with advanced illnesses live as comfortably as possible until they die. Yet, many patients do not die how they wish, which is to be as pain-free as possible and at home surrounded by family. Two services are available in the U.S. for patients with advanced illness— palliative care and hospice . Both services provide comfort care (such as pain control) and emotional support for patients and their families.

However, palliative care and hospice services are grossly underutilized in the U.S. About 60% of patients who could benefit from palliative care do not receive it and 25% of hospice patients die within three days of enrollment even though insurance covers it for six months. How can marketing help improve the utilization of these valuable services that can help people live better at the end of life?

Poverty and Health

Another important topic is the impact of social determinants on health. Factors such as quality of housing and education, income levels, physical activity, and social support are far more influential in overall health and length of life than medical care. For example, life expectancy in a low-income Chicago area drops 16 years compared to an affluent neighborhood. Poverty’s links to health may seem an impossibly big and complex topic for marketing academics to tackle, but research teams can break this big puzzle into manageable pieces and make extraordinary contributions. Consider, for example, the opportunity for marketing to reimagine housing for low-income people such as being done in designing “purpose-built communities” such as Villages of East Lake in Atlanta, GA. Think of “purpose-built communities” as a complex new product to serve the needs of its customers and other stakeholders. We in marketing have the expertise to make these “products” much better.

Punam Keller | Senior Associate Dean of Innovation and Growth, Charles Henry Jones Third Century Professor of Management, Tuck School of Business, Dartmouth University

Ecosystem goal: The Role of Business and Marketing in the BIG Picture

Multiple factors determine health outcomes. As the current pandemic shows, health outcomes are the result of interactions across global and social elements, technology, governments, and organizations. Thus, to tackle health problems, marketing should work more with the parties that it has not done so very often in the past. For example, collaborative work with global organizations such as WHO, WTO, and COP can be advantageous.

Individual Behavioral Goal: Message-Behavior Tailoring Using Technology and AI

Switching the focus from the ecosystem level to the individual level, marketing should note that technology can be readily adapted to encourage behavioral changes that promote better health outcomes. For example, smartphones can be powerful if combined with tailored messages alerting patients when to take their medications. We can study the efficacy of the types of text messages across segments of patients to understand which types of message are most successful at promoting positive behavioral changes.

Irina Kozlenkova | Assistant Professor of Marketing, University of Virginia

Mitigating the Effects of Physician Turnover through Relationships

Relationships have an important role in healthcare marketing. Among many players in the healthcare ecosystem (which includes payers, purchasers, suppliers/distributors, and regulators), the physician-patient relationship is central to healthcare and is also related to other entities in the ecosystem.

One problem that has not been understood well is mitigating the effects of physician turnover. In 2017, healthcare jobs experienced 21% turnover, which is second only to the hospitality sector’s turnover rate. It is costly to replace health professionals ($100,000 to replace a registered nurse, $1,000,000 to replace a physician) and doing so negatively affects patients and organizations. It has been shown that typical retention initiatives that work in other industries do not work well in healthcare.

Relational mitigation strategies may be key to mitigating the negative impact of turnovers. We conducted qualitative interviews with employees from all levels of a big healthcare organization (from high level executives, physicians, nurses, to receptionists) and a patient survey, which we later matched with turnover data and patient health data. The data revealed a big variance between various departments in terms of staff structure – some had consistent structures, while others were more ad-hoc. We learned that it is important to pay attention not only to physician turnover, but also to other parties (RNs, MAs, PAs). Continuity of care with the other parties improves patient outcomes, such as retention by 45–75%. While often the most attention is paid to the central relationship between a physician and a patient, we found that to many patients, their relationships with other members of the healthcare team (e.g., nurses, medical assistants) were as or more important as the relationship with their physician. Proactive communication with recommendations for a replacement of a leaving party has also been shown to improve outcomes (41–91%).

Off-Labeling Prescribing

Another important problem to address is off-label prescribing. It is legal in many countries to prescribe drugs for conditions for which they have not been approved. This is a very common practice (over 20% of prescriptions are off-label), yet patients are often unaware of it because doctors are not required to tell them. Since drugs are used for conditions for which they have not been tested and approved, it can be risky, and sometimes deadly. Some populations (e.g., children, pregnant women) may disproportionally receive off-label prescriptions. Research shows that over 70% of off-label uses have little to no scientific support.

Two important research questions surrounding this issue are how to regulate off-label prescribing without stifling innovation and understanding how physicians make off-label prescribing decisions. Our preliminary research findings from a field conjoint study, matched with the actual prescription data, show that physicians are more likely to prescribe an off-label drug when they are similar to the patient (in gender or experiencing the same “issue”) and when they have more experience in the specialty. Also, higher prices of the approved drug tend to diminish the use of the cheaper off-label drug.

Cait Lamberton | Alberto I. Duran Distinguished Presidential Professor in Marketing, Wharton School of Business, University of Pennsylvania

Micro: Biases Specific to Care Choices?

While we have done quite a lot of work to show that well-established biases exist in healthcare (as they do in any context), we also have a lot to learn about specific biases that may arise in healthcare choice making. One example is anti-community bias. Health outcomes are superior closer to home, given that closer-to-home facilities offer better accessibility and a closer relationship with doctors. With no other information, patients seem to prefer to stay close to home. However, when given a choice, patients tend to reject community hospitals in favor of more distant university-based hospitals, which do not necessarily lead to better outcomes for many standard procedures. Moreover, in rural areas (where 20% of the U.S. population resides) such biases may have long-lasting negative effects, as we see the increasing closures of community hospitals in rural areas. Given this tension between rural and community hospitals versus urban and university-based hospitals, understanding how patients make choices weighing different factors across these two types of hospitals and contemplating how and when marketing should tip the scales become crucial.

Macro: Satisfaction (with Healthcare)?

At the macro-level, marketing can focus on hospital satisfaction measurement. HCAHPS (Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems) measures patient experience including communication, pain management, and the quietness of the hospital environment. It is a widely used measure, freely available and, more importantly offers a huge opportunity to conduct interesting research. For example, an interesting area of research is the difference in the mode of delivery where more positive responses are attained through mobile devices than through computers. Researchers can also investigate the role of pain and the way it may be framed to help consumers deal with it in the most healthy manner, what types of advertising work well for healthcare facilities and providers, and how we can more accurately capture patient satisfaction as fully-conceptualized, and likely to be rooted in different, healthcare-specific experiences like empathy and respect for dignity, than might drive satisfaction with other goods and services.

John Lynch | University of Colorado Distinguished Professor, University of Colorado-Boulder

Health Care System Infomediaries

Healthcare expenses have experienced a six-fold increase in inflation-adjusted dollars since 1970. One major factor contributing to this increase is the absence of consumer price sensitivity. Insurers, the payers of this expense, cap the maximum out-of-pocket costs for the consumer. Even when patients are paying, they are often willing to pay all they can for a few more months of expected life. Furthermore, prices are opaque, even to doctors. This means that doctors do not know how much patients will be charged for a given procedure. They view it as impossible to know because it is dependent on insurance and not their job to know. How can marketing help incorporate price sensitivity in healthcare? Can we design pricing infomediary models to help doctors be better price shoppers for their patients?

Health Privacy & Quality of Care

Another interesting topic is health privacy and quality of care. HIPPA regulations govern the uses and disclosures of personal health information. Patients have rights over their health information and can authorize certain health records to be disclosed. How many consumers know who has what records and how does this affect the transmission of health history information that could benefit care?

Utilizing health data is analogous to the literature on customer identification in advertising, pricing, and personalized recommendations. Sharing information has benefits, but there are also risks of exploitation. Can we develop models for patient ownership and sharing of personal health information that promote better health outcomes?

Detelina Marinova | Sam Walton Distinguished Professor of Marketing, University of Missouri

Physician-Patient Digital Communications for Improved Health Outcomes

Provider-patient interactions are crucial in healthcare and we see a shift of the mode of communication from in-person to digital platforms, especially during the pandemic. However, research has just started to address digital communication in healthcare. Digital communication can be beneficial because it reduces office visits, which can improve efficiency. However, it can also increase physician workload in other ways and digital communication bears a risk of miscommunication. Thus, it is important to understand why and under what conditions digital communication between patients and providers contributes to patient compliance, engagement, and improved health outcomes.

Managing Frontline Interactions for Patient Well-Being and Hospital Revenue

Hospital spending constitutes 30% of national health expenditures, yet it is challenging to deliver high quality and cost-efficient health outcomes. With this tension, there are trade-off s between hospital revenue and patient well-being. One crucial aspect affecting both hospital spending and health outcomes is frontline interactions, which includes proactive actions by physicians and nurses and reactive actions by staffs. These often shape patients’ behavioral approach to medical conditions and treatments, thereby influencing the patients’ well-being. Moreover, it can be either a revenue source or a high-cost factor for hospitals. Therefore, one potential research question is how proactive and reactive actions of frontline agents contribute to or alleviate the trade-offs from the dual-emphasis on hospital revenues and patient well-being.

Vikas Mittal | J. Hugh Liedtke Professor of Marketing, Jones Graduate School of Business, Rice University

Health Care & Marketing

Conducting successful research in healthcare has a few issues that are uncommon in other sectors. First, problem-solving and practical relevance is critical in healthcare. Collaborators in health systems may not be interested in laborious “theory.” Hence, it is important to focus on relevant problems with basic rigor rather than thin-slicing or engaging in complicated quantitative analyses.

Second, research modesty is important for successful collaboration. A marketing perspective can contribute to solving healthcare problems, which is a much better approach than trying to solve a marketing problem with healthcare only as a “context.” For example, problem-oriented research questions may be: 1. How can a pharmacy chain manage its segmentation in different locations? and 2. How can nursing homes improve employee retention to improve healthcare outcomes?

Third, it is important to learn the differences in process as well as in incentive structures. In healthcare, grants are more critical than publications, so learning how to contribute to the grant-writing process is vital. Regarding publications, in medical journals, authorship and authorship order follow a pre-defined structure. Lastly, data privacy and data integrity issues are paramount and often university-level permissions are needed, which can be time-consuming.

Despite the unique characteristics of the field, there are many marketing research opportunities to gain a deeper understanding of medical and healthcare problems and teaching opportunities for training health professionals for rewarding careers.

Maura Scott | Madeline Duncan Rolland Professor of Marketing, Florida State University

Stigma and Vulnerability in Healthcare: Solutions through Technology?!

Stigmatized consumers experience a distinct healthcare journey relative to other consumers. Stigmatization can aversely influence the quality of care that patients receive from healthcare providers. Stigmatization in healthcare can limit patients’ willingness to engage in their treatment, thereby potentially further harming their health outcomes. Sources of stigma include certain patients’ characteristics such as race, ethnicity, and body type. Some diseases may be stigmatized based on the perceptions of visibility, controllability, permanence, or contagion associated with the disease. Vulnerable populations (e.g., underrepresented minority groups) may face these two sources of stigmatization at the same time, further affecting their well-being. Identifying interventions that help encourage stigmatized patients overcome the reluctance to engage in their healthcare (e.g., via online healthcare communities) is crucial. More research should identify policies that create an inclusive, equitable, and accessible healthcare system.

Technology in Healthcare: Tensions and Solutions

One potential way to tackle low engagement from stigmatized patients is to leverage relevant technology in healthcare. There are concerns and tensions to consider when developing such solutions. First, technology can reduce stigmatization because it can reduce human interaction; however, technology programmed with inherent bias could increase stigmatization. Second, technology could lower costs and increase accessibility for vulnerable patients. Yet, income level can make a difference in healthcare service quality, for example by separating ‘premium’ in-person service for the wealthy, which might lead back to the current status quo. Third, technology can influence patients’ anxiety levels, which suggests the need for healthcare interventions to help reduce anxiety triggered by technology. More research is needed to identify how to leverage technology in healthcare to increase accessibility and inclusivity of high quality, low-cost healthcare for all patients. 

Steven Shugan | McKethan-Matherly Eminent Scholar Chair and Professor, Warrington College of Business, University of Florida

Changes in Healthcare Markets

Marketing can address several interesting issues in changing healthcare markets. Service mix has been addressed in recent work, highlighting the fact that services offered by non-profit hospitals differ from those offered by for-profit hospitals. More research on service mix is needed. Websites hosted by hospitals and other healthcare providers can serve multiple roles—information provision (education) and selling (referrals). Research on multiple role healthcare websites would be valuable. New product launches are also an interesting problem in healthcare, with many new devices facing complications when being brought to market because of licensing issues and multiple players (including regulators, competitors with patents and courts).

Block-chain is a new encryption technology that may enable the storage of sensitive healthcare data. Marketing research can address the interaction of these databases with multiple parties also with privacy concerns. The interaction of these databases with consumers is a typical marketing communications issue. Artificial intelligence also has made its way into healthcare integration, from reading x-rays to making diagnoses, yet the AI-consumer interface is a marketing issue with many unanswered questions.

Other changes in healthcare markets that merit further research include the effect of changes in government regulation of the healthcare industry, the impact of for-profit entry in the existing market, and the implications of declining patient co-pays. Marketing communication in a heavily regulated environment with both business-to-business and business-to-consumer issues provides many research topics.

Healthcare Data Sources

There are many publicly available data sources in healthcare. Links for these data sources appear in the attached slide. Many of these datasets can be integrated based on geography (e.g., zip codes, FIPS, states, counties, etc.). My slides indicate many sources of free healthcare data. I and coauthors have also purchased data from American Hospital Directory and combined that data with data from free sources.

Jagdip Singh | AT&T Professor, Case Western Reserve University

Frontlines in Hyper-Markets

The pandemic has underscored the importance of getting ahead of the healthcare curve in uncertain and fast-changing healthcare markets. Research opportunities lie in the study of “outside-in” and “inside-out” frontline capabilities in healthcare organizations for demand anticipation and response agility that yield effective outcomes.  These capabilities require an integration of ground-level experience with data-based analytics at speed.  Several research contributions in Marketing can be useful to facilitate understanding of these capabilities including adaptive foresight, strategic flexibility, velocity and marketing excellence.  Some potential ways to seed research is to leverage public data such as ‘Red Dawn’ emails or data from wearable-sensor technology. 

Temporary Organizing for Public Health

The uncertain nature of healthcare markets can sometimes stem from public health and humanitarian crises such as climate change, war, disease, migration, and other conflicts. Many different organizations, such as the Red Cross, NGOs, and Doctors Without Borders, come together to address these crises. The challenges involved collaboration, coalition, and conflict in temporary meta-organizations to yield effective outcomes. Several research contributions in Marketing can be useful to facilitate understanding of these challenges including cause-driven marketing, mega-marketing and temporary marketing organizations.  Potential for funding projects and data comes from Gates Foundation grants, Business Roundtable priorities, and community data.

Hari Sridhar | Joe B. Foster’56 Chair in Business Leadership Professor of Marketing, Mays Business School, Texas A&M University

Marketing in the Healthcare Sector: Improving Cancer Outreach Effectiveness

Marketing research in the healthcare sector can complement and embellish medical research. It is important to recognize that not all patients are created equal. We can leverage more than 60 years of marketing research on customer needs and the latest developments in machine learning. Using predictive models, we can also demonstrate the social and financial impact of healthcare interventions. Doing so can help the field of marketing become a value-added support arm to healthcare.

In our study 1 of cancer outreach effectiveness, we use patient data and predictive models to improve returns on cancer outreach efforts. Only 4-8% of the general population undergoes regular cancer screening, despite massive spending on preventive outreach campaigns. In an National Institute of Health (NIH) supported study in partnership with UT-Southwestern, we conduct a large scale randomized field experiment to study how cancer screening visits are impacted by different types of cancer outreach efforts. Using a smorgasbord of variables concatenated from medical histories, geographical information, and the outreach program CRM data, we apply causal forests to estimate the causal effect of outreach efforts for every individual patient. We find that patient response to cancer screening varies dramatically across the population, enabling the dream of personalized outreach programs. By targeting the right people with the right intervention, we show that cancer outreach programs can save money and improve yield (over 74% in returns) in preventive cancer screening. Can marketing save lives and money? Our answer is a resounding yes.

It is also critical to understand the innards of the healthcare value chain and move beyond just the study of patient-physician and patient-facility interfaces. Other marketing scholars are now addressing issues surrounding multiple players in designing care facilities and improving quality of care, the complexities of hospital purchasing contracts, and the impact of regulatory interventions on payment disclosures. The field is ripe with other relevant questions and we are merely scratching the surface.

Featured in JM Webinar: https://www.ama.org/events/webinar/jm-webinar-series-insights-for-managers/

S Sriram | Professor of Marketing, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

Technology has the potential to have a significant impact on the healthcare ecosystem. More importantly, the impact is likely to be felt by all stakeholders in the ecosystem. I consider two examples here.

The Internet of Health Things

In recent years, there has been a considerable increase in the use of wearable devices and apps by consumers, who use these devices for monitoring various markers of physiological and psychological well being. Broadly, these hardware devices and software applications come under the realm of Internet of Things (IoT). Do these devices, which are supposed to monitor health actually lead to better health outcomes and well being? Extant literature has documented mixed results because of several reasons. First, purchasing a device or downloading an app does not necessarily translate into repeat usage. Researchers have documented that consumers routinely lose interest after a few months. Second, even in instances where interest does not wane over time, routinely monitoring markers of health can lead to excessive obsession, which can be detrimental to overall well being. Third, even if we can establish a positive effect of these devices on health outcomes and overall well-being using observational data, one needs to be careful to control for patient self-selection – purchasers of these devices are likely to be different from those who chose not to purchase them.

The effect of these devices and apps can extend beyond patients. In this regard, how an individual’s health monitoring efforts can benefit other stakeholders in the whole ecosystem can be studied. For example, providers might see the reduced hospital readmission rate as shown in some literature and can potentially ensure adherence to medication taken outside hospitals. Drug manufacturers can increase the speed of drug development faster with regularly monitored data, as opposed to relying on self-reported measures. Of course, the downside is that such regular monitoring can be intrusive and raise concerns about loss of privacy. A careful quantification of the benefits of monitoring patient health information can help in assessing whether the benefits of sharing consumer data outweigh the risks associated with the violation of privacy.

Telemedicine

Although the idea of telemedicine has been around for a few years, COVID-19 has made it a reality for many consumers of healthcare. The promise of telemedicine lies in its potential to relax wealth, accessibility, time, and skills constraints. This, in turn, can democratize healthcare. However, there are several important questions that need to be answered in order to assess whether and how this promise is realized. First, is the actual and perceived quality of a telemedicine service as good as in-person visits? Are there any particular risks of misdiagnosis from telemedicine? Second, the benefits delivered by telemedicine might not be evenly distributed across different stakeholders. For example, what benefits do patients and other stakeholders such as providers, payers, and telemedicine platforms derive from the new mode of healthcare delivery? How are these benefits distributed among the various stakeholders? How does the relaxation of the aforementioned constraints benefit patients? Does the benefit vary across patients’ socioeconomic status? Lastly, one can study the challenges that telemedicine might face in building a stable platform.

Richard Staelin | Gregory Mario and Jeremy Mario Professor of Business Administration, Fuqua School of Business, Duke University

Patient Experience Questions

Patient experience data has been collected for decades. However, until recently, most of these data came from standard surveys given to patients after they received treatment. Over the last few years free-form texts, such as reviews, have become increasing available. This new source of input from the patients may provide additional information to more traditional “rating-only” surveys. Do patient reviews of doctors differ substantially from customer reviews in other sectors? Do these reviews provide new information over the standard surveys?

There may be distinct segments of patients that vary in terms of their ability to judge the quality of service received. What is the size of the sophisticated market segment and can it influence the behavior of medical professionals? It would also be interesting to understand whether patients’ view of the quality of care differs across venues of service (e.g., emergency room, hospital, clinic). How is the perceived quality different from the objective quality measures currently used by medical practitioners?

Organizational Reaction to Patient Experience Data

Patient experience data are relevant to hospital management and insurance companies. Do they pay more attention to some databases over others depending on the source? How much should they weigh patient experience data compared to objective or clinical measures of quality? What are the profit implications for the hospital/company? The reaction of the medical staff is also a critical factor in understanding the impact of patient feedback data. Are providers receptive to such feedback by the patients and, if so, do their ability to adapt to feedback depend on the type of information? For example, patient feedback may be regarding bedside manners, receiving faulty advice, or being overcharged. Medical professionals may try to improve bedside manners and avoid billing mistakes, but it may be very difficult (or costly) to alter diagnostic practices.

Learn more about the Journal of Marketing Special Issue on “ Marketing in the Healthcare Sector ” and note that for those interested, submissions  must be made between July 1, 2021 and November 1, 2021.

Doctoral student at University of Michigan

Doctoral Student at Duke University

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How to Conduct Healthcare Market Research Like a Pro

Healthcare market research is essential to providing optimal patient care, which is much needed in an industry hailed as people-centric , especially in a world rife with a pandemic. 

Market research allows healthcare industry professionals to gain a deep understanding of the needs and behaviors of their patients — the kind they otherwise wouldn’t have. Additionally, it allows practice providers to expand their patient network, and increase their patient retention rates by helping them provide products and services tailor-made to the needs of their patients.

This article expounds on how to conduct healthcare market research for healthcare market researchers.

Defining Healthcare Market Research

Market research is the process of researching the viability of a new product or service through both primary and secondary sources. Primary sources use techniques like in-depth interviews, focus groups, and ethnographic studies to understand how products are used, how they can be improved, and how they can be streamlined. 

Secondary sources involve a wide variety of research that has already been conducted such as statistics publications, scientific journal articles, and market research articles. 

Healthcare market research applies the concept of market research to the healthcare industry. Instead of gauging how products are used, healthcare industry professionals use market research to learn about how their services can better benefit patients (and how they can reach and retain more patients).

The Importance of  Conducting Healthcare Market Research

While the healthcare industry relies on services and products to keep patients healthy, market research specific to this industry is seldom conducted. 

Healthcare market research needs to be prioritized because it creates a path to better care, and this is what the healthcare industry is fundamentally all about. The best way for healthcare providers to succeed in the industry is to form a clear understanding of this target market through market research methodologies. 

Gaining access to the proper research can be a gateway to building a strong reputation, attracting more patients, garnering good reviews, and being a community go-to. As you learn more about your patients’ wants and needs, your quality of care will increase and you’ll build patient trust. 

The Makeup of Healthcare Market Research

When conducting healthcare market research, you’ll need to conduct both primary and secondary research for a holistic market research campaign. Combining these methods yields powerful insights with the potential to transform patient care.

Primary Healthcare Market Research

Primary market research in the healthcare industry involves communicating directly to existing or potential patients. You do this to learn about your target market, which gives you the ability to perform market segmentation. Dividing your patient base into narrow market segments allows you to address a specific sector of your target audience. 

You can conduct primary research using these methods: 

• Surveys include questionnaires and screeners that you can deploy to your target market via an online survey tool.
• A 3-minute survey will yield more responses than a 5-minute survey, so try to get the information you need in as few questions as possible.
• With online surveys, you can reach a specific segment of your target audience while saving time and maximizing responses. 
• In-depth interviews are one-on-one interviews that can happen over the phone or in person. 
• Time estimates range from 20 minutes to over an hour. 
• This intimacy and time-frame allow the researcher to get detailed feedback, as healthcare can be a sensitive topic. 
• Personal interviews make it easy to gather information without privacy concerns. An average study might interview 10-50 participants. 
• Ethnographies are field studies that use observation and interviews to study how people use products, interact with technology, and find/use services.
• Ethnographic research allows the researcher to record behavior in addition to participant feedback.
• It can be performed in-person or by software.
• While recall methods rely on participant’s memories, this real-time observational method is more reliable.
• Customer journey mapping can be integrated into this technique to see how patients interact with a healthcare provider’s website and how they locate services from providers through phone referrals or word of mouth.
• Focus groups are a great technique for healthcare market research, especially when a product or service is new. 
• The group-brainstorming format stimulates ideas and feedback that you might not be able to get out of an individual.
• A great healthcare marketing research method is a hybrid of focus groups and ethnography studies.
• This lets you observe your consumers in their natural setting before bringing them together for a brainstorming session.

Secondary market research is the process of gathering already published data. You can speed up this process by purchasing high-quality market research reports. They provide in-depth data, statistics, and results that reveal areas and topics that need to be explored through primary research. 

Here are some secondary market research sources for the healthcare industry:

• Published market research reports are a great source of information. The healthcare market research section of marketresearch.com is a great place to get started.
• Consumer reports and industry reports are a perfect starting point for researching target markets and trends. Visit Statista for reliable reports relevant to the healthcare industry.
• Healthcare provider websites , i.e., those of your competitors are often a natural starting point for market research. You can find relevant annual reports, presentations made for investors, and other information that shows you where you’re positioned in your field and what areas you need to focus on with your primary market research.
• NCBI is full of secondary research information pertaining to patient care. 
• UpToDate is a medical resource providing clinical decision support that’s been proven to improve patient care . 
• BMC Health Services Research offers a collection of journal articles on topics relating to healthcare practices like policy, the health workforce, health services research methodology, protocol, and more. 
• Census data can also be helpful in exploring demographic information.

Tips for Healthcare Market Research Surveys 

Healthcare market research surveys are nothing without responses. Follow these tips to boost your response rates:

• Target Your Population: Choose a target population relevant to your survey goals. If this population is hard to reach, consider using software to find survey takers who meet your criteria.
• Prioritize Question Clarity: Keep your questions simple with the least number of steps possible. The easier your survey, the more responses you’ll get.
• Shoot for between 5 and 15 minutes. You can make it even more manageable by using skip logic to let respondents only answer the questions most relevant to them. 
• Offer Incentives: you can boost your survey response rate by offering extrinsic survey incentives like discounts, coupons, gift cards, or even cash rewards. 

Healthcare Market Research Use Cases 

The above techniques are only helpful if you know how to use them, so let’s dive into use cases. Here are some ways you can use healthcare market research to expand the reach and improve the overall patient experience:

• Evaluate healthcare access: you can investigate benefits and barriers to healthcare among groups with limited access (for example, low-income and senior citizens). You can target populations in rural areas and inner cities for the best results.
• Improve business operations: this gauges the effectiveness of your business processes. It allows you to discover where you need more support and where systems could use some tweaking.
• Healthcare feedback questionnaire: this survey helps you find out if your patients are satisfied with their care if they were taken care of in a timely manner and if their needs were met. 
• Women’s health research: This allows you to monitor the healthcare female patients received, which includes their opinions, concerns and fears. This is especially important for gynecologists and those who provide health services targeted at women.
• Healthy lifestyle programs: This divulges whether patients are interested in secondary health programs such as health and wellness classes, smoking addiction aid, stress relief, weight management, mental health support, pain management, etc. 
• Teen health survey: this gives teens a confidential place to provide info on teen health habits, tobacco, drug, and alcohol abuse, bullying, and family issues. You can use this info to tailor-make special programs to aid your teen patients.

Upgrade your Patient Care with Healthcare Market Research

Healthcare market research can help you understand your patients and what they need to feel healthy and happy with their patient care. Staying on top of your healthcare practice isn’t limited to the day-to-day — it also involves the need to monitor patient satisfaction to keep your practice’s online perception in check. Surveys can come to your rescue on this matter.

Healthcare market research is important, but it shouldn’t take time away from patient care. That’s why you need a robust online survey platform to aid your in healthcare market research efforts . With an online survey platform, you can collect the data you need to better your practice . Plus, online surveys are one of the only kinds of primary market research where you don’t have to meet with someone in person (making them pandemic-proof). They’re the best way to listen to your patients’ needs and improve your practice accordingly.

Frequently asked questions

What is healthcare market research.

Healthcare market research is research that helps healthcare industry professionals understand the needs of their patients, expand their patient network, and increase their patient retention rates.

Why should you conduct healthcare market research?

Healthcare market research is important because using it to guide your practice improves patient care, strengthens your practice’s reputation, attracts patients, garners good reviews and establishes your practice as a trusted one in your community.

What are some primary healthcare market research methods?

For primary healthcare research, use surveys via an online survey tool, focus groups, phone calls and ethnographic (field) research.

What are some secondary healthcare market research resources?

For secondary healthcare market research, look for resources like published market research reports, consumer reports and industry reports, healthcare provider websites (like your competitors), NCBI for patient care research, UpToDate for clinical decision support, BMC Health Services Research for healthcare best practices and census data for exploring your demographic information.

What are some tips for healthcare market research surveys?

For the best healthcare market research surveys, target your population well, prioritize question clarity, keep your survey length to a minimum and offer incentives to up your survey participation.

Do you want to distribute your survey? Pollfish offers you access to millions of targeted consumers to get survey responses from $0.95 per complete. Launch your survey today.

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• v.18(Suppl 3); 2018

Target marketing in the health services industry: the value of journeying off the beaten path

James k. elrod.

1 Willis-Knighton Health System, 2600 Greenwood Road, Shreveport, LA 71103 USA

John L. Fortenberry, Jr.

2 LSU Shreveport, 1 University Place, Shreveport, LA 71115 USA

Associated Data

Not applicable.

Target marketing, a practice used to more effectively address the wants and needs of customers, involves three interrelated activities: market segmentation, targeting, and product positioning. The practice follows a perfectly logical process. For a given offering, healthcare institutions select a desired group to pursue and arrange service characteristics and related attributes in a manner to entice that particular group to forward patronage and become customers. Pursuits often focus on heavily-traveled routes teeming with competitors, but occasionally an off the beaten path can be identified to amplify target marketing efforts.

In an earlier chapter of its history, Willis-Knighton Health System identified and pursued an off the beaten path in its bid to capture market share in pediatric healthcare services. The direct route—targeting current and prospective parents—was heavily pursued by competitors, prompting the institution to seek a unique approach; a road less traveled which would reach the same audiences but do so via a different route. Children, as direct care recipients, supplied one such route, and while their ability to influence associated parental decisions was unclear, the institution viewed developing a bond with them to have great potential. Painstaking efforts yielded Willis-Knighton Health System’s Pediatric Orientation Program, fostering an affinity between the institution and children, which in turn influenced parents, affording opportunities for enhanced patronage in pediatric medicine and beyond.

Conclusions

Willis-Knighton Health System’s decision to look off the beaten path for an avenue capable of amplifying its target marketing initiatives resulted in a novel pursuit which distinguished the institution from its competitors and set the stage for achieving its goal of providing healthcare services for a greater percentage of children in the marketplace. Additional spillover effects bolstering share in other areas also were afforded. This unique initiative addressed desires to pursue an increasingly important road less traveled to reach prime audiences. When roads less traveled can be identified, opportunities abound for better connecting with customer groups, warranting investigation and pursuit.

Healthcare establishments, especially comprehensive medical centers, offer myriad health and wellness services, affording communities with access to a wide array of offerings that address injury and illness [ 1 , 2 ]. By providing such broad collections of services, health and medical institutions can make a case for employing a mass marketing approach to advance their organizations [ 3 , 4 ]. With such an approach, available offerings are marketed broadly to the populace without regard for individual tastes and preferences [ 3 , 5 , 6 ]. These appeals are general in nature, designed to address the masses as a whole, hence the name mass marketing. Such one-size-fits-all strategies have their place, but very often, marketing results can be improved by engaging in what is known as target marketing, an approach which tailors services and their associated attributes to appeal to particular audiences sharing like characteristics and qualities [ 3 , 6 – 9 ].

Emerging out of desires to more appropriately address the various wants and needs of different customer groups, target marketing involves three interrelated activities: market segmentation (i.e., dividing a market into groups exhibiting common characteristics), targeting (i.e., selecting attractive segments on which to focus), and product positioning (i.e., assembling service-related attributes in a manner to entice targeted audiences to extend their patronage) [ 3 , 10 ]. The customized approach resulting from target marketing tends to resonate more powerfully with audiences than that afforded by mass marketing, permitting greater opportunities to convert prospects into customers [ 3 , 4 , 10 ]. Further, it improves customer satisfaction and also allows for better use of promotions resources by directing tailored communications to desired populations, minimizing wasted circulation [ 3 , 4 ].

Target marketing makes sense; the practice follows a perfectly logical process. For a given offering, healthcare institutions select a desired group to pursue and arrange service characteristics and related attributes in a manner to entice that particular group to forward patronage and become customers. In many cases, health and medical services have fairly obvious targets. Women of childbearing age, for example, have potential needs for maternity services. Parents, courtesy of their infants and young children, have needs for pediatric medical care. Employers, due to their workforces, have needs for occupational health services. By focusing on the specific wants and needs of market segments, healthcare institutions can deliver services and support specifically designed and suited for the associated groups [ 3 , 4 ].

Pathways leading directly to obvious target audiences for given offerings, however, are typically heavily traversed, with associated routes teeming with competitors eager to gain the affections and associated patronage of the designated groups. In essence, many establishments are using the same approaches directed toward the same audiences [ 11 – 15 ]. Such activity limits opportunities for market share gains, especially for those institutions not in market leadership positions, as the dominance of more powerful parties generally affords advantages over contender entities pursuing parallel strategies. In such cases, it is helpful to explore possible alternatives; roads less traveled that lead to the same target audiences, but do so via an indirect route, amplifying efforts to engage and attract desired groups [ 4 , 11 , 14 ].

With market competitiveness in the healthcare industry at all-time highs [ 3 , 16 – 18 ], roads less traveled (i.e., novel approaches for addressing circumstances and situations which are known to and used by few, if any, rivals) are highly desirable, as they provide institutions with opportunities to differentiate themselves from competitors, increasing the likelihood of success in attracting prospects and encouraging exchange [ 3 , 11 – 14 ]. Target marketing researchers in recent years have blazed new trails which reveal advantages associated with pursuing opportunities off the beaten path. For example, Kim and Mauborgne, in Blue Ocean Strategy , communicated the value of looking beyond the boundaries of established markets, directing attention toward uncontested market space for growth opportunities [ 3 , 10 – 13 ]. Kotler and Trias de Bes, in Lateral Marketing , recommended that markets be viewed broadly in an effort to identify opportunities to serve customer groups that have previously been overlooked [ 3 , 10 , 14 ]. These perspectives essentially are suggesting that institutions forgo “follow the herd” mentalities or at least complement these pursuits with opportunities which set a new course and direction on roads less traveled. In similar fashion and illustrative of these modern thoughts on target marketing, Willis-Knighton Health System, in an earlier period of its history, discovered and followed a road less traveled in pursuit of a particular market share goal in a most challenging environment [ 19 ].

Willis-Knighton Health System and market share growth ambitions

Willis-Knighton Health System is a nongovernmental, not-for-profit healthcare provider delivering comprehensive health and wellness services through multiple hospitals, numerous general and specialty medical clinics, an all-inclusive retirement community, and more. Based in Shreveport, Louisiana, the system holds market leadership in its served region, centered in the heart of an area known as the Ark-La-Tex, where the states of Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas converge. Willis-Knighton Health System’s extensive service array can accommodate virtually any medical care want or need, regardless of one’s age. This, combined with its market leadership, attracts patient populations from across the region, fueled further by the institution’s acceptance of most health insurances and, notably, its provision of substantial amounts of charity care for those unable to pay for services. The system’s origins date to 1924 with the establishment of Tri-State Sanitarium, founded to address the healthcare needs of the burgeoning population of west Shreveport. Sold in 1929 to Drs. James Willis and Joseph Knighton, the establishment continued operations and, in 1952, it was renamed in honor of Drs. Willis and Knighton. For the first several decades of its existence, the establishment played an important but relatively small role in delivering the region’s healthcare. In the 1970s, however, Willis-Knighton Health System embarked on an ambitious growth campaign to expand its footprint beyond west Shreveport, effecting a number of strategies [ 20 – 22 ], notably including pursuit of market share in the ultra-competitive area of pediatric medical services.

During this period, the greater Shreveport marketplace was burgeoning with young families, making pediatric care a very lucrative service line for healthcare establishments capable of attracting associated patronage. In the area of labor and delivery services, the gateway to provision of years of pediatric care as newborns grow older, Willis-Knighton Health System possessed less than 10% of the available share in the market [ 19 ]. Share improvements were needed, especially as success in this area would likely generate spillover effects with the potential to bolster share in other areas. Achieving this, however, would be anything but easy, as the market featured a number of competitors, including one possessing market leadership in pediatrics and virtually all other categories of care. Competitive assessments revealed that all were targeting current and prospective parents—the direct and obvious target market—in their bids to maintain or grow market share in pediatric medicine. Realizing that the upside potential associated with mirroring competitive approaches would be limited—something confirmed by the institution’s own prior efforts to build market share using like practices—executives decided to search for a unique approach; a road less traveled which would reach the same audiences but do so via a different route. The intention was for this to complement, rather than replace, Willis-Knighton Health System’s existing target marketing efforts directed toward current and prospective parents.

A comprehensive evaluation of the pediatric healthcare patronage process ensued. As evidenced by the target marketing pursuits of competitors, parents represented the obvious target for pediatric medical services, as they occupied the all-important role of decider. Once parents had selected providers, children certainly played a role in customer retention, but in the context of target marketing, the operative question concerned their ability to influence the initial patronage decisions of their parents. There certainly was evidence from other industries that confirmed the influencing capability of children on the purchase decisions of parents [ 23 – 27 ], with retail (e.g., toys, foods) supplying perhaps the best example of this. Assuming that an affinity between institution and child could be nurtured, executives believed that the same would be observed in the area of healthcare services. Willis-Knighton Health System possessed a long-standing commitment to education, regularly holding seminars focused on things such as healthy eating, physical fitness, smoking cessation, and similar initiatives, prompting the notion that something in the area of children’s health education could provide an avenue for developing a bond with youth which, in turn, would influence their parents. Painstaking efforts yielded Willis-Knighton Health System’s Pediatric Orientation Program.

Willis-Knighton Health System’s Pediatric Orientation Program

Initiated in 1979 and now in its 39th year of operation, Willis-Knighton Health System’s Pediatric Orientation Program introduces first graders to hospitals and healthcare via an onsite tour and orientation session conducted at one of Willis-Knighton Health System’s institutions. Available to first grade classes at all schools in Caddo and Bossier parishes, students, accompanied by their teachers, are bused from their learning institutions to designated hospitals where they engage in a variety of health education activities. These informative field trips offer first graders the opportunity to learn about hospital operations, the roles played by various healthcare professionals, and the process of healthcare delivery from admission to discharge, all in a manner easily understood by young children. First graders are typically 6–7 years old and are embarking on their first year of elementary school, making for an excellent time to introduce them to matters of health and wellness. Among other learning experiences, students engage in role playing exercises—presenting as physicians, nurses, and patients, dressing in costumes fitting given roles—where they address health events which they themselves might encounter, such as a broken arm or tonsillitis. They also learn about healthy habits, including proper hygiene, nutrition, and physical fitness. Overall, the learning experience helps to acclimate students to hospitals and healthcare experiences, reducing or eliminating associated fears and allowing them greater comfort when facing their own illnesses and injuries or those experienced by family members and friends. Each child completing the orientation session receives a stethoscope and a hat featuring the Willis-Knighton Health System logo and the designation “Future Nurse” or “Future Doctor.”

For the educational benefit alone, Willis-Knighton Health System’s Pediatric Orientation Program was well worth its development, implementation, and investment. Over the course of its 39-year history, thousands of first graders have come to understand that hospitals and healthcare providers are there to benefit them, reducing fear and anxiety that otherwise might persist and negatively impact their willingness to welcome receipt of care. But the benefit of the program extends also to target marketing, something which initially prompted its development. Through these orientation sessions and the positive experiences that they provide, children gain familiarity with Willis-Knighton Health System. Such positive exposures have long-term benefits, as these children will eventually grow into adults with families of their own and associated healthcare needs, with these formative experiences likely influencing provider selections. In the nearer term, however, the parents of children completing the orientation program also gain exposure to the institution, indirectly but powerfully, potentially impacting their current pediatric care selections and possibly even influencing selections in other areas of care, including those pertaining to their own medical needs.

Parents must be informed of field trips and grant permission for their children to partake in them, bringing Willis-Knighton Health System to their attention as they consider and sign approval forms. Further, Willis-Knighton Health System invites parents to accompany their children during the Pediatric Orientation Program, providing another exposure opportunity. And even if parents choose not to attend, following the session, their children undoubtedly will share associated experiences with their mothers and fathers, offering yet another opportunity for parents to learn about Willis-Knighton Health System. Going forward, the children potentially will reflect on their enjoyable Willis-Knighton Health System experiences when matters of health and wellness come up, supplying additional opportunities for the institution to enter family discussions.

Essentially, through children and their experiences attending Willis-Knighton Health System’s Pediatric Orientation Program, parents gain exposure to the institution, opening the door for patronage consideration. Paired with target marketing initiatives that directly appeal to parents—the pathway traversed by most every competitor—this program added a road less traveled, creating dual streams of influence aimed at patronage deciders. Over time, this target marketing innovation, combined with other initiatives aimed at increasing pediatric medicine market share (e.g., recruitment of renowned pediatricians, construction of kid-friendly servicescapes, initiation of unique branding initiatives), resulted in Willis-Knighton Health System’s acquisition of market leadership in the category. Successes on the pediatric medicine front presented opportunities for share gains on other fronts, eventually leading the institution to market leadership in the region [ 19 ]. While this growth cannot be solely attributed to the innovative target marketing strategy introduced in the late 1970s, Willis-Knighton Health System’s Pediatric Orientation Program is believed to have played a meaningful role in the advancements achieved. From its origins to present day, this unique target marketing approach has not been copied by any of Willis-Knighton Health System’s competitors, creating a lasting competitive advantage.

Willis-Knighton Health System’s decision to look off the beaten path for an avenue capable of amplifying its target marketing initiatives seeking pediatric medicine market share gains resulted in a novel pursuit—its Pediatric Orientation Program—which distinguished the institution from its competitors and set the stage for achieving its goal of providing healthcare services for a greater percentage of children in the marketplace. Additional spillover effects bolstering share in other areas also were afforded. This unique initiative addressed desires to pursue an increasingly important road less traveled to reach prime audiences, but beyond target marketing matters, it also afforded opportunities to address in positive fashion the health education needs of children in the region. Unique routes off the beaten path are not always available, but when they can be identified, opportunities abound for better connecting with desired audiences, courtesy of resulting energized target marketing efforts. Given associated benefits, healthcare institutions in search of enhancing market share would do well to actively explore target marketing possibilities situated off the beaten path.

Acknowledgments

A special note of thanks is extended to Rhonda MacIsaac, Kierstin Whitten, and the greater Willis-Knighton Health System family for their helpful assistance throughout the development and publication of this article.

Article processing charges were funded by Willis-Knighton Health System.

Availability of data and materials

About this supplement.

This article has been published as part of BMC Health Services Research Volume 18 Supplement 3, 2018: Engaging patients, enhancing patient experiences: insights, innovations, and applications. The full contents of the supplement are available online at https://bmchealthservres.biomedcentral.com/articles/supplements/volume-18-supplement-3 .

Authors’ contributions

The authors jointly developed the submitted manuscript, with each performing critical roles from early conceptualization through to the production of the full manuscript. The manuscript resulted from a collaborative effort. Both authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Authors’ information

JKE is President and Chief Executive Officer of Shreveport, Louisiana-based Willis-Knighton Health System, the region’s largest provider of healthcare services. With over 53 years of service at the helm of the institution, JKE is America’s longest-tenured hospital administrator. A fellow in the American College of Healthcare Executives and honoree as a Louisiana Legend by Friends of Louisiana Public Broadcasting, he holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Baylor University, a master’s degree in hospital administration from Washington University School of Medicine, and an honorary doctorate of science and humane letters from Northwestern State University of Louisiana. He is the author of Breadcrumbs to Cheesecake , a book which chronicles the history of Willis-Knighton Health System.

JLF Jr. is Chair of the James K. Elrod Department of Health Administration, James K. Elrod Professor of Health Administration, and Professor of Marketing in the School of Business at LSU Shreveport where he teaches a variety of courses in both health administration and marketing. He holds a BBA in marketing from the University of Mississippi; an MBA from Mississippi College; a PhD in public administration and public policy, with concentrations in health administration, human resource management, and organization theory, from Auburn University; and a PhD in business administration, with a major in marketing, from the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom. He is the author of six books, including Health Care Marketing: Tools and Techniques , 3rd Edition, published by Jones and Bartlett Learning. JLF Jr. also serves as Vice President of Marketing Strategy and Planning at Willis-Knighton Health System.

Ethics approval and consent to participate

Consent for publication, competing interests.

JKE and JLF Jr. are both employed with Willis-Knighton Health System.

Publisher’s Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

How to Conduct Market Research in Healthcare | IntelliSurvey

Healthcare is a fast-growing and changing industry. Legislative changes, regulatory changes, technological developments, and consumer behavior impact how healthcare develops and evolves.

Market research is a crucial strategy component in any field, including healthcare. However, in the medical industry, the stakes are much higher. When it comes to healthcare, generating sales and earning a profit is a smaller piece of the pie. In many cases, healthcare can impact a person’s standard of living or save their lives.

Companies in the healthcare sector have to take great care to conduct their market research accurately and ethically. Accurate data is imperative when creating new ways to care for patients, regardless of the product. Learn more about what market research in the healthcare industry looks like and why it is important below.

What Is Healthcare Market Research?

Healthcare market research determines the viability of new medical products or services through primary and secondary sources. Primary sources consist of interviews, focus groups, and ethnographic studies that strive to understand how consumers use products. Interviews and focus groups will likely include both patients and medical professionals. For example, a company creating a new medical device might want to know what would make a primary care provider’s life easier or make a patient more comfortable during their visit.

Secondary resources refer to a wide variety of research that is generally available. It includes any data collected by another credible party, such as a university, as well as scientific journals, statistics publications, and market research articles.

Healthcare market research helps organizations gain a better understanding of patient needs, perceptions, and motivations. It also helps researchers understand the needs of healthcare workers and other professionals in the medical field. Healthcare market research aims to understand all the different areas of healthcare. To gain a thorough understanding of all the moving parts of the medical market, researchers analyze everything from participants, audiences, methodologies, tools, and challenges in the field.

Why Is Market Research Important to Healthcare?

In any industry, market research is critical for creating innovative products and standing out among the competition. For companies in the healthcare industry, market research goes beyond driving sales and trying to turn a profit; it strives to close gaps in service delivery methods and improve patient care across the board.

Standing Out Among the Competition

The healthcare sector has become increasingly competitive thanks to disruptive technologies and venture capital investors looking into high-risk and high-reward business models. However, several major enterprises continue to dominate the healthcare and medical industries at large.

Patients and healthcare professionals may see this as a positive change because it leads to competitive pricing and more choices when it comes to care and treatment methods; however, it also makes it challenging for startups in healthcare to find their footing. 

Market research helps offset significant risks for new startups because it gives them the information and tools they need to stand out and create an actionable plan. For healthcare startups, that plan includes the audience they need to engage, why they need to reach them, and how they will accomplish that.

Development Insights for Innovative Products and Services

Even the most successful healthcare companies cannot afford to rest on their laurels when it comes to product development and customer acquisition. Since healthcare providers and other customers have more suppliers to choose from, even well-established organizations have to stay on their toes to stay ahead of the market. If patients and healthcare professionals can’t find what they need with your company, they will look elsewhere and likely find a solution.

Healthcare market research helps companies in the medical industry stay innovative and identify new ways to help patients and practitioners alike. When healthcare companies remain innovative, everyone wins. New products and services engage new customers and ensure that patients are receiving the care they deserve while making sure that the business stays profitable.

Close Gaps in Service Delivery Methods

Healthcare solutions are often sophisticated and require a service delivery model instead of a basic transactional approach. For example, companies that provide medical testing equipment to labs might rely on firms to help them track patient care satisfaction. Healthcare market research helps these firms identify if there are any gaps in service delivery models and find new opportunities to improve satisfaction among all parties.

What are the Primary Audiences for Healthcare Market Research?

Healthcare market research focuses on care delivery in hospitals, clinics, and other medical facilities, as well as medical procedures, patient satisfaction, and medical equipment acquisition and use within healthcare facilities. The healthcare industry’s market research audiences include:

• Primary care practitioners (Medical Specialists - Physicians)
• Secondary care practitioners (Allied Health Professionals - Nurses, Nurse Practitioners, Physician Assistants, etc.)
• Healthcare administrators - (Hospital/Lab Personnel - Pharmacy Directors, Medical Directors, Administrators)
• Patients and other healthcare consumers

Healthcare Market Research Methods and Tools

Healthcare companies must determine the methods and tools they want to use to gather accurate data. Depending on what information an organization needs, it can employ different techniques to collect quantitative or qualitative data. Researchers should ensure that the methods and tools they use align with their client’s or organizations’ resources and goals. Below are a few healthcare market research methods and tools that researchers may employ.

Online Surveys

Online surveys leverage questionnaires and screeners for an organization’s target market. For example, healthcare surveys are simple 10 to 30-minute surveys that help researchers get responses quickly. Online satisfaction surveys can reach a specific segment while saving time and encouraging more responses.

In-depth Interviews (IDIs)

In-depth interviews, or IDIs, can be time-consuming but often give researchers more information than other techniques. IDIs are typically held in person or over the phone between one respondent and a trained moderator. Since healthcare is a sensitive topic, 1-on-1 interviews make it easier to get detailed feedback if the interviewee feels comfortable.

Focus Groups

Focus groups are extremely effective during healthcare market research for developing new products and services. Focus groups are a group-brainstorming format that stimulates ideas and feedback that researchers might not be able to receive from a survey or 1-on-1 interview. Group-brainstorming sessions are commonly conducted in person or through a web call.

Ethnographic Research

Ethnographic research refers to field studies that leverage observation, interviews, and more to study how people use products and services and interact with different technologies.

Challenges in Healthcare Market Research

Since the healthcare industry is strictly regulated, researchers face additional challenges when conducting market research. Companies in the healthcare industry must ensure that their practices are within any regulations and laws. Researchers must ensure that patient information remains private and protected when collecting data. Healthcare market research’s primary challenges include:

• Limited availability of research respondents
• Difficulty recruiting respondents (since healthcare is a sensitive topic)
• Ensuring strict adherence to healthcare data protection laws and compliance with ethical guidelines.

Examples of Market Research in Healthcare

Patient chart survey: how do dermatologists treat psoriatic arthritis, niche audience research: how do you reach engineers responsible for consumer safety protocols in the pharmaceutical manufacturing industry .

Going beyond generic online panels is necessary to find validated sources and ensure quality response data for this niche audience. Using a blended panel approach , we sourced panelists from multiple vetted vendors to optimize the number of responses, field speed, and budget requirements. To meet the parameters, we delivered 61.2% of respondents recruited and interviewed by phone from our CATI partner and 38.8% from an expert network that provided responses via an online survey. 

How IntelliSurvey Can Help

IntelliSurvey has a variety of market research , survey programming , and field management services to help companies in the healthcare industry create an effective market research plan with performance trackers and advanced analytics. With help from IntelliSurvey, your organization can better understand what factors are impairing or improving your brand’s overall customer experience, what new healthcare solutions you should bring to market, or other healthcare-related research activities.

IntelliSurvey’s in-house research team can help your organization review and help draft materials for your market research plan. Our research team features world-class programmers to help ensure that your surveys and other materials are user-friendly and compliant with all ethical guidelines and regulations. IntelliSurvey’s experienced project consultants will ensure that fieldwork runs as smoothly as possible, so you can focus on things like data analysis and other projects.

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Strategic expansion: Canadian companies' roadmap to US capital success

Our latest guide will give you direct-application tools to help tap into the US funding market.

A brief guide: Healthcare market research tactics

Healthtech startups offer unique challenges when it comes to scoping out their markets. The healthcare industry is notoriously complex, and most ventures will run into regulatory and reimbursement barriers when bringing their products to market. However, a little market research know-how will do wonders for easing your growing pains.

What is healthcare market research?

Unlike traditional market research , healthcare market research uses epidemiology and medical data to size your market. Healthcare market research focuses on the latest health trends and examines factors like patient comfort and education to identify market opportunities and penetration. It also accounts for healthcare’s unique customer landscape, where patient pools drive the overall market size, and where healthcare providers (HCPs) can influence product sales more than consumers. Healthcare market research provides an understanding of the number of potential patients that could be treated with your product, which products HCPs prefer to treat them with, and the accessibility of the market.

Primary vs. secondary research approach

What questions can secondary healthcare market research answer.

This guide will highlight several reputable free resources and tips to help you conduct secondary healthcare market research. The public resources identified in this guide can be used to:

• Estimate your patient pool
• Define potential reimbursement
• Map the competitive landscape
• Identify technological trends

Key secondary resources for healthcare market research

While there are many general market research resources available for the U.S . and Canada , these public resources can help you to understand the potential market for your therapy by providing in-depth, healthcare-specific data on epidemiology, patient demographics, healthcare spending, and more.

Calculating your market size/penetration

Using epidemiological data and patient demographics provided by resources like WHO and expenditure data from CIHI, HCUP or OECD, you will be able to directly size your market or estimate market penetration. However, if you cannot locate the information you are looking for, you can estimate your patient pool by crossing population data with prevalence or incidence data sourced from academic journals, or expand your research into other free databases .

Mapping the competitive landscape

If you want to understand where your therapeutic market is headed, it is important to research your competitors. A public competitor’s annual report can offer a wealth of information beyond their revenue. Many corporations break their financial statements into geography, brand or therapeutic levels and accompany their data with commentary and analyses. This information can illustrate useful market trends, such as which geographies are experiencing the fastest growth or which technological trends are expected to transform the market. Of course, even the most spartan annual reports can be used to puzzle out market growth through year-over-year calculations , or estimate market size simply by adding up the annual revenue of the other players.

Emerging startups should keep an eye on their competitors’ annual reports and press releases, especially since mergers and acquisitions can signal landscape upheavals or major technological trends. Due to the technological and regulatory barriers inherent to healthcare, fragmented markets are rare and any change in the landscape can have a far-reaching impact.

International resources

For ventures that are interested in marketing their products outside of the U.S. or Canada, market research can be more difficult. Resources like OECD and WHO provide important high-level health data, but other websites can help you understand international healthcare systems . If you are interested in the European market, many countries host extensive government healthcare databases. The National Health Service (NHS) and Destatis offer rich data sources on procedural volumes, epidemiology, and healthcare policies in England and the European Union, which you can use to build your market model.

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Healthcare Market Research: 10+ Trends & Real-Life Examples in '24

Cem is the principal analyst at AIMultiple since 2017. AIMultiple informs hundreds of thousands of businesses (as per Similarweb) including 60% of Fortune 500 every month.

Cem's work has been cited by leading global publications including Business Insider, Forbes, Washington Post, global firms like Deloitte, HPE, NGOs like World Economic Forum and supranational organizations like European Commission. You can see more reputable companies and media that referenced AIMultiple.

Figure 1. Popularity of the keyword “healthcare market research” on Google search engine between 2017-2023

Research shows that there are four major areas that patients care most about but are still dissatisfied with 1 :

• obtaining coverage
• understanding benefits
• finding care
• managing care costs.

Market research is crucial for healthcare companies to address consumer dissatisfaction in these areas. By understanding consumer experiences and expectations through market research, businesses can improve these journeys, enhancing overall satisfaction and trust in healthcare services. This approach can lead to tailored solutions that effectively meet consumer needs and streamline their healthcare experiences.

This article explains the benefits of conducting healthcare market research, core market research solutions, and some real-life examples.

If you are looking for a market research software , check out our vendor guide and a list of top providers.

Why should healthcare providers conduct market research?

1- improve healthcare operations and services.

Market research gathers essential feedback from physicians, frontline clinicians, and patients, guiding healthcare providers in making changes that are seen as beneficial enhancements rather than impersonal or disruptive. This patient and employee input is vital for tailoring healthcare services to actual needs and expectations, leading to better patient outcomes and more efficient healthcare delivery.

2- Understand patient satisfaction & sentiment

Market research is crucial in healthcare to understand patient satisfaction and sentiment. The American Customer Satisfaction Index in 2023 rated hospitals 74 out of 100, highlighting the need for improvement. 2 Market research provides critical insights into patient experiences, identifying areas needing enhancement and guiding healthcare providers in implementing changes that truly resonate with patients. This research is key to elevating patient satisfaction levels and ensuring that healthcare services align more closely with patient expectations and needs.

To learn more about the applications of sentiment analysis in healthcare , check out our article.

3- Develop new products

With more than 75% of health consumers expecting more accessible, personalized care, market research is invaluable in guiding the development of new healthcare products and services. 3 This research helps in understanding patient preferences and emerging health trends, ensuring that new offerings are well-tailored to meet the specific needs of patients.

For more on personalized care , feel free to check out our comprehensive article.

4- Evaluate access to healthcare

Given that research shows one-third of adults have chronic conditions requiring regular healthcare, it’s crucial for providers to understand and improve access to medical services. 4 Medical market research practices can highlight barriers to access, such as geographic, financial, or informational challenges, and guide providers in making their services more accessible and inclusive for all patient groups.

Emerging trends in healthcare services

1- generative ai & digital transformation.

Source: Deloitte 5

Generative AI is significantly impacting the digital transformation in healthcare, fundamentally changing how data is processed and utilized. Its proficiency in handling unstructured medical data is leading to more efficient and accurate clinical operations. AI technology in healthcare enhances patient care and streamlines administrative tasks, marking a vital shift towards more advanced, data-driven healthcare services.

If interested, check out our article on generative AI in healthcare .

You can also check out the AI use cases in the healthcare industry .

If interested, you can also watch the video below:

2- Mergers & acquisitions (M&A)

Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) is an emerging trend in the healthcare industry and it refers to the process of healthcare organizations joining forces or one entity acquiring another. This trend in healthcare is driven by objectives such as improving service quality, expanding patient access to care, and achieving cost efficiencies. Through M&A, healthcare providers can pool resources, share expertise, and enhance their capabilities to deliver more comprehensive and integrated care to their patients.

3- Wearable medical products

Wearables are revolutionizing patient monitoring and health management. These devices, ranging from fitness trackers to advanced medical wearables, enable continuous health monitoring, personalized care, and data-driven treatment approaches.

4- Remote healthcare services & medical devices

The concept of medical devices has broadened beyond traditional large-scale machinery to include everyday items like smartwatches, capable of gathering vital medical data. This trend complements the growing preference for virtual healthcare, evidenced by 50% having attended a virtual medical appointment in the last year. 6 These developments reflect an evolving healthcare landscape where technology enables continuous health monitoring and convenient access to medical services, reshaping how healthcare is delivered and experienced.

If interested, you can also watch the video about a mobile clinic:

5- Healthcare & well-being mobile apps

Survey across 19 countries shows that 85% of individuals state that their mental health is as important as their physical health. 7 Besides, one in four individuals experience mental illness during their lifetime. 8 Well-being apps are a cheap and accessible way of helping people to deal with these issues especially for those who cannot receive proper treatment.

Source:Statista 9

6- Cybersecurity developments

As healthcare increasingly adopts digital technologies, cybersecurity has become paramount. Research shows that more than 50% of customers express concerns about the security vulnerabilities of their smartphones and smart home devices, and 40% worry about data security on smartwatches and fitness trackers. 10 This trend underscores the need for robust cybersecurity measures to protect sensitive health data collected and transmitted by these devices, ensuring patient privacy and trust in digital healthcare solutions.

For a more comprehensive view on cybersecurity in healthcare , check out our article.

Essential methods for conducting healthcare market research

Online surveys.

Online surveys in healthcare market research are a versatile and efficient way to gather large amounts of data. They can be designed to capture both qualitative and quantitative information, allowing researchers to understand diverse aspects such as patient satisfaction, treatment effectiveness, and public health trends.

a) Qualitative research

Qualitative research in healthcare delves into the depth and complexity of patients’ experiences, beliefs, and motivations. This approach often provides rich, detailed data that help understand the ‘why’ behind patient behaviors and preferences.

b) Quantitative research

Quantitative research in healthcare focuses on numerical data to quantify behaviors, opinions, and other variables related to health and medicine. This method is crucial for statistical analysis, providing clear, objective data that can inform policy decisions and clinical practices.

If interested, here is our data-driven list of survey participant recruitment services and survey tools .

Focus groups

They involve small, diverse groups of people discussing specific health-related topics, guided by a skilled moderator. This setting is particularly effective in understanding the varied perspectives of patients, caregivers, and healthcare professionals on new treatments, health policies, or service delivery.

In depth interviews

Conducted one-on-one, these interviews allow for a comprehensive exploration of sensitive or complex topics, such as patient experiences with chronic illness, decision-making processes in treatment, or perceptions of healthcare quality.

5 real-life examples of market research in healthcare industry

Ai4healthcro.

AI4HealthCro, a collaborative initiative in Croatia, stands as a testament to the transformative power of AI in healthcare. 11 This consortium is pioneering AI solutions with ambitious goals: dramatically reducing healthcare costs by an estimated €212.4 billion, saving a substantial number of lives, up to 403,000, and significantly increasing operational efficiency by freeing thousands of man hours annually.

Apple collaboration with Zimmet Biomet

Zimmer Biomet’s collaboration with Apple, resulting in the mymobility™ app and accompanying clinical study, exemplifies how market research in healthcare can drive product development. 12 This initiative leverages Apple Watch and iPhone technology to enhance patient care for knee and hip replacements, demonstrating a response to market demands for more integrated and personalized healthcare solutions. The mymobility app aims to improve patient outcomes and reduce healthcare costs, illustrating the potential of market research in identifying patient needs and fostering innovative healthcare solutions.

Advanced – NHS Cyber Attack

The ransomware attack on Advanced, an NHS IT provider, highlights the critical need for robust cybersecurity measures and market research in healthcare. 13 Hackers took control of systems, posing potential data theft risks. The attack disrupted services like patient check-in and NHS 111, with recovery expected to take weeks. Healthcare companies need to ensure and understand evolving cyber threats and develop effective strategies to protect sensitive patient data and healthcare services. Market research can guide healthcare providers in implementing the latest cybersecurity solutions, ensuring resilience against such attacks.

Roni Jamesmeyer, senior healthcare manager at Five9, focuses on AI solutions like ChatGPT for ambulance services and highlights the importance of understanding customer needs through market research. 14 The findings from their FOI request to NHS Ambulance Trusts reveal a low usage of AI, despite its potential to manage high call volumes and improve patient routing. This underscores the need for comprehensive market research to educate and inform healthcare leaders about AI’s benefits, ensuring technology adoption aligns with actual service requirements and patient care needs.

Apple Health

Source: Apple 15

Apple’s collaboration with the medical community, as part of its health ecosystem, highlights the importance of market research in healthcare innovation. 16 Through ResearchKit and the Research app, Apple enables large-scale participant recruitment for studies, advancing scientific discovery. Tools like Health Records on iPhone strengthen the physician-patient relationship by providing meaningful health data. Apple’s partnerships in various health studies, such as those focusing on women’s health, heart health, and hearing, demonstrate how market research can drive significant advancements in public health and personalized care.

If interested, check out our data-driven list of market research tools .

You can reach out if you need help in market research:

External Links

• 1. “ Driving growth through consumer centricity in healthcare “. McKinsey. March 14, 2023. Retrieved December 13,2023.
• 2. “ Gold-standard benchmarks for quality care “. American Customer Satisfaction Index. Retrieved December 13,2023.
• 3. “ 2023 Global Health Care Outlook “. Deloitte. Retrieved December 13,2023.
• 4. “ 2023 Global Health Care Outlook “. Deloitte. Retrieved December 13,2023.
• 5. “ Trends in healthcare tech investments “. Deloitte. Retrieved December 13,2023.
• 6. “ 2022 Connectivity and Mobile Trends Survey “. Deloitte. Retrieved December 13,2023.
• 7. “ In sickness and in health: How health is perceived around the world ” McKinsey . July 21, 2022. Retrieved December 13, 2023.
• 8. “ 2023 Global Health Care Outlook “. Deloitte. Retrieved December 13,2023.
• 9. “ Leading health and meditation apps worldwide in May 2023, by downloads “. Statista. Retrieved December 13,2023.
• 10. “ 2022 Connectivity and Mobile Trends Survey “. Deloitte. Retrieved December 13,2023.
• 11. AI4HealthCro . Retrieved December 13,2023.
• 12. “ Zimmer Biomet and Apple Collaborate to Launch Major Clinical Study Detailing Patient Experience and Improving Joint Replacement Journey “ . Zimmer Biomet. October 15, 2018. Retrieved December 13,2023.
• 13. “ NHS IT supplier held to ransom by hackers “ . BBC. August 11, 2022. Retrieved December 13,2023.
• 14. “ Unlocking the power of AI for improved ambulance services “ . Healthcare. November 19, 2023. Retrieved December 13,2023.
• 15. “ How Apple is empowering people with their health information “ . Apple. July 20, 2022. Retrieved December 13,2023.
• 16. “ How Apple is empowering people with their health information “ . Apple. July 20, 2022. Retrieved December 13,2023.

Throughout his career, Cem served as a tech consultant, tech buyer and tech entrepreneur. He advised enterprises on their technology decisions at McKinsey & Company and Altman Solon for more than a decade. He also published a McKinsey report on digitalization.

He led technology strategy and procurement of a telco while reporting to the CEO. He has also led commercial growth of deep tech company Hypatos that reached a 7 digit annual recurring revenue and a 9 digit valuation from 0 within 2 years. Cem's work in Hypatos was covered by leading technology publications like TechCrunch and Business Insider.

Cem regularly speaks at international technology conferences. He graduated from Bogazici University as a computer engineer and holds an MBA from Columbia Business School.

AIMultiple.com Traffic Analytics, Ranking & Audience , Similarweb. Why Microsoft, IBM, and Google Are Ramping up Efforts on AI Ethics , Business Insider. Microsoft invests $1 billion in OpenAI to pursue artificial intelligence that’s smarter than we are , Washington Post. Data management barriers to AI success , Deloitte. Empowering AI Leadership: AI C-Suite Toolkit , World Economic Forum. Science, Research and Innovation Performance of the EU , European Commission. Public-sector digitization: The trillion-dollar challenge , McKinsey & Company. Hypatos gets $11.8M for a deep learning approach to document processing , TechCrunch. We got an exclusive look at the pitch deck AI startup Hypatos used to raise $11 million , Business Insider.

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How to conduct market research for healthcare

Find out how to conduct market research for healthcare so that you can provide better care and improved services for your patients.

Understanding healthcare market research

• Why is healthcare marketing research

Examples of healthcare market research

• How to make health market research

How to do healthcare and medical market research in 8 steps

• Tips for an effective healthcare market research

Market research shouldn’t only be done by what you’d consider typical commercial business. As it’s largely about people and what they want and need, other organizations—from governments to the healthcare industry—would definitely benefit from it.

Your local family doctor or nearest hospital will most likely not give you a survey with your prescription on your way out, but there are certainly ways in which the healthcare industry can gather valuable information about its ‘target audience’. 

In this guide we’ll highlight why market research is so important for the healthcare sector, how you can use it to improve your health systems and how to conduct your research in a way that’ll give you actionable insights.

Healthcare market research is done to learn how to improve health services for people, and how to get patients to pick your health care facility, service or product. In that sense, it’s less about selling, but more about providing the right information through the right channels, and having a really beneficial solution available to patients.

Why is healthcare marketing research so important? 

If you hear the words healthcare marketing research together, you might think that feels odd: healthcare isn’t typically something that needs to be marketed, it should be something people simply get when they need it. 

And that’s precisely why market research is so important for forward-thinking professionals in the healthcare industry. By finding out what people need and want from the healthcare industry, providers and brands will be able to give them services and products that are truly great. 

Below, we’ve listed some reasons why healthcare companies and patients benefit from market research.

Help people find the help they need

Even as patients, or especially as patients, people won’t simply ‘buy’ anything healthcare providers sell.

In other industries, it’s all about creating a demand or convincing people to choose your product or service. In healthcare, it should be about making sure that the people who need a certain service can easily find it. 

Think of it as inbound marketing, but with a shorter ‘sales funnel’. The healthcare industry is confusing enough as it is, and people want to see and know their options as quickly as possible. With healthcare marketing research, you can learn how to do that for them.

Patient satisfaction is crucial for improvements

For many patients, the barrier to go to see any healthcare professional, use a healthcare product or have some treatment can be very high. And this is totally understandable: they don’t know what to expect, and they’ve probably heard some horrific stories of others. 

Patient satisfaction should be taken very seriously by all healthcare companies. It’s not all about the treatment and whether that’s successful or not—even though that’s obviously the main objective. 

How easy was it for a patient to get help? How did they find the information they needed, and how clear was this? How were they treated?

By improving these ‘secondary’ factors, you won’t just improve the experience of patients, but also of the ones treating them. 

Improve business operations and services

What’s good for your patients and market, is also good for business. If you want to make informed decisions for your healthcare practice, don’t just perform internal investigations.

You can often give that knowledge a lot more context by talking to patients, suppliers and any other partners you work with. 

Improve healthcare—for everyone

A market analysis can also be used to simply start understanding your patients better. From specific research into women, minorities, teenagers, and senior citizens, for instance, will help you make your communications and the care you provide more inclusive, and therefore better. You can take away any possible barriers and start taking care of everyone equally well.

There are countless research topics worth diving into for medical professionals. Which healthcare practices need improvement according to patients, what’s possible in the world of medical devices, and how can a medical organization improve from a marketing perspective?

We’ll give you some examples of types of market research and key markets you can look into.

Market research aimed at patients

What’s the most obvious part of the market for the healthcare industry? The patients of course! You can learn so much more from them than just satisfaction stats.

• Test your branding and messaging on a specific market segmentation. How are senior citizens reacting to your brand, in comparison to young families, for instance?
• When developing a new product or service, find out what patients think about it with a new product development survey. Test your ideas with the people who will be using it. 
• Build strong consumer profiles to better cater to your patients’ needs. With qualitative interviews, focus groups and surveys, you can learn what every customer needs.
• Improve patient experience: what people experience asides from their treatment has a significant impact on how they perceive your organization and if they’d recommend it to others.
• ‘Buying’ journey research: how do people find you? What are important touchpoints and where could you improve the way you give people information?

How to make health market research data actionable?

If you want your research efforts to be worthwhile, you need to start every piece of research by defining what you want to do with it. Because this goes beyond nice-to-know or looks-great-in-a-powerpoint: you conduct market research to learn what you can do better, and how. 

We’ll dive into the steps to conduct healthcare market research below, but before you get started you need to have two things: 

• A clear objective
• Influential decision-makers involved

By having a historically-proven market research goal that’s connected to a practical reaction, it’ll be easier to select high-quality respondents and get actionable insights. 

And by having someone on board who is influential enough to take the newfound insights to the boardroom and make actual changes, you’ll know that your research and investments will be put to great use.

There’s no framework set in stone that dictates how you should exactly conduct healthcare market research, but there are some milestones that you shouldn’t miss, some boxes you should tick. 

We’ve put these in chronological order for you, although we do advise you to do your due diligence and see if you are still meeting previous standards when going through these steps. Here’s what you should do for successful market research in the healthcare sector.

Step 0: Have a goal

You know this one’s important because it’s step zero – it’s a no-brainer. 

We’ll repeat it because it’s such an important one. Make sure you don’t start your research based on a whim. Define your goal—what are you hoping to achieve with your market research? Include what you will be looking into, why, and think ahead on what might need changing based on the results you’ll find.  

Step 1: Bring decision-makers on board

Make sure everyone knows what the research is about, what the goal is, and have them prepare for making it all come true. There are a lot of stakeholders in any healthcare market research , so it’s important to have them all involved. Don’t just show up with the results at the end of the ride—make sure they tag along from day one.

Step 2: Select the audience

Now, this, of course, depends on the goal of your research. But we would like to remind you of the value you could bring on board by including extra related, target groups.

For instance, if you are investigating waiting times and patient satisfaction, it can help to not just survey patients—ask nurses who know what’s happening on the floor, so you can give more context to your data. 

Here are some examples of important audiences for health care market research.

• Patients and other people using health services. These could also be healthy people, like patients’ families, or people using health services that aren’t related to disease.
• Primary care practitioners, such as general practitioners, specialists, nurses, and pharmacists.
• Secondary care practitioners like consultants, caregivers, psychiatrists, clinical psychologists, and more
• Healthcare administrators, from board members to purchases and government officials.

Step 3: Take care of privacy

The way you handle data and take care of the privacy of your respondents is always important, but in this type of research, it’s all the more crucial. 

Make sure that any market research tools you use are compliant with the regulations that matter to you, and that everyone using them knows how to keep data and privacy in check. Also, communicate clearly to your respondents how you will be handling data.

Step 4: Choose the right research methods

If you conduct healthcare market research, you have several sources to choose from. Of course, primary sources will be more relevant than secondary ones (because you’ll end up with the data you originally needed, not second-hand data that was gathered for someone else’s use). But it doesn’t hurt to get your foundation right—especially in the early stages of your healthcare market research. 

If you talk directly to patients or providers, you’re doing primary market research. This can range from qualitative research like focus groups to more quantitative research like online surveys, to in-depth interviews. If you dive into existing reports and studies, you’re doing secondary market research. It’s always best to combine those, to give more context to the data you’re gathering. 

Step 5: Pick a platform

You’ll want to pick a platform and tool that has it all. That will make it easier to work with, and ensures that you have a grip on where all your data is being stored.

Using a platform like Attest gives you all that, and then some: we help you set up an airtight survey and make sure you can use the platform in the best way possible. As for privacy concerns, you can give the right people exclusive access so all data is safe—perfect for research, especially in healthcare settings. 

Launch your healthcare market research!

Reach 125m people in 58 countries to find out what products and services resonate with people

Step 6: Review the results

Time to look at the results! It’s key that you interpret these the right way—which all starts with asking the right questions. Get all stakeholders on board when reviewing the data, so you don’t miss any important angles. 

Step 7: Start implementing, stat!

This is the stage in which the magic happens. Translate your qualitative and quantitative market research services to action points. Make them SMART: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timely.

Step 8: Measure more than once

If you have your SMART goals in place and start implementing, it’s crucial that you also follow up. For instance, if you’re looking to improve patient satisfaction, make sure to measure again after a while to see if you’re on the right track.

Tips for an effective healthcare market research survey

Like with any other survey, a healthcare market survey shouldn’t be too difficult of a task for respondents, and there are some rules to keep in mind to make it a success. As healthcare is a specific category however, we’ve included some last top tips to make sure you make the most of it.

Use the right platform 

The platform you use for your market research is where it all comes together: privacy, survey results, patients, and researchers. It’s where you’ll read the results from, so it needs to be crystal clear. Take your time to choose one that’s right for you.

Keep your questions simple

Your respondents should not be the ones doing the hard work. Make sure your survey is easy to understand and easy to fill in. The right platform—something like Attest—will also help you with this.

Keep it short

If you’ve established a clear objective and topic for your research, and picked an audience with care, you can skip a lot of questions that are just fluff. If you find yourself asking for a lot of details about a demographic, ask yourself if you’ve defined your audience well enough.

Recruiting respondents

Are you struggling to find respondents for your survey? Make sure you are asking in the right way, and communicate clearly why you are doing this. People love being part of the solution, they just want to know upfront why they are sharing their experiences. 

Be clear about privacy

We can’t stress it enough: healthcare market research requires strict adherence to data protection standards. Check and then double check if the systems you’re looking to use live up to your standards. Also make sure that you can communicate clearly to respondents how their data is being used and stored.

The Experts’ Guide to Brand Tracking

How to look at the impact of things like audience reach, panel diversity, and survey design to help you decide whether your current brand tracker is up to scratch.

Customer Research Lead 

Nick joined Attest in 2021, with more than 10 years' experience in market research and consumer insights on both agency and brand sides. As part of the Customer Research Team team, Nick takes a hands-on role supporting customers uncover insights and opportunities for growth.

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What Is Healthcare Marketing?

August 17, 2021

View all blog posts under Articles | View all blog posts under Online Healthcare MBA

Working in healthcare is more than just a job; it’s a calling to help people guide themselves to a better life. This is where medical businesses differ from others: They crave more than profit. Healthcare professionals care about the patient, dedicating their professional careers to helping others.

Health professionals may have little business training, so it’s rare to find a practitioner who is knowledgeable about how to market their services. Their main concern is helping others and making an impression on the medical community.

Healthcare is a more competitive field than most people realize. However, with proper marketing conducted by a skilled healthcare marketing professional, practitioners can gain patients and attention for their practice. For individuals primarily tasked with developing healthcare marketing strategies for a hospital, clinic or physician, earning a Healthcare MBA can help them navigate the difficult task of balancing healthcare and business management.

Healthcare Marketing Strategies

Successful marketing strategies don’t just happen. They require careful planning, deft decision-making and knowing that different strategic initiatives are needed to achieve different goals. Understanding what healthcare marketing is and its features may spell the difference between a marketing strategy that works and one that falls flat.

Knowing the Demographic Is Not Enough

Marketing in business requires a lot of research. Marketers need to know the demographic they’re trying to reach and study its behaviors so they can target them appropriately. In the health field, the demographic is almost too broad. With so many health niches, it’s hard to pinpoint which group of people a healthcare marketer’s message is going to reach, especially if they work with a general practitioner. Demographics could include any age, not to mention the range of gender, sex and location-based metrics.

Healthcare businesses can measure their success through new patients, written subscription tallies and profits. Healthcare marketing is different from business marketing in that it is a specific niche with specific marketing needs, not always based on demographics.

The Need for SEO in a Whole New Light

Every business needs differentiation to succeed, but healthcare marketing varies since there are so many providers offering the same service. Medical marketing uses search engine optimization (SEO) in a brand-new way to target customers by practice rankings on Google and educational content with informative links to landing pages on websites.

While this is similar to business marketing, healthcare marketing targets a wider audience. Since everyone is in the market for a healthcare provider, it is much harder to differentiate a particular doctor or hospital. For this reason, practitioners are encouraged to tell compelling success stories and showcase remarkable results in their patients.

Healthcare Marketers Are Not Used Car Salespeople

Marketing in the health field is often seen as distasteful or unfavorable, making it more important to build friendships and bonds with other people in the industry. These relationships increase referrals from those doctors and health professionals without muddying the water with tacky marketing techniques.

Public relations is a plus in the healthcare field because networking opportunities are huge, allowing practitioners to showcase their accomplishments in less forcefully. The industry relies heavily on positive press, so healthcare marketing includes many press releases, newsletters and public events to gain brand awareness.

Discounts Aren’t the Answer for Drumming Up Business

Healthcare specialists are not likely to offer discounts to improve their business since this is often illegal. Occasionally, health professionals push free trial offers to get more clients, but many consider this a bit unethical. Medicare and other insurance policy guidelines are often the culprits here, since offering discounts would hinder subjectivity.

Even as healthcare providers focus on helping others, attention needs to be paid to improving business prospects. Marketing professionals working in the industry need to consider the tenets of healthcare marketing and how they are far different from those in other areas of business.

Marketing Implications

In the past several years, social issues have gathered more attention, with people voicing their concerns about subjects including LGBT rights, abortion and stem cell research. These and other controversial topics, including the Affordable Care Act (ACA), all have a bearing on the healthcare industry. They also can have a substantial impact on healthcare marketing strategies.

When healthcare decision-makers design marketing campaigns, it’s imperative that they demonstrate an awareness of these issues. At the same time, they need to be mindful of their target demographic. The marketing implications of sending the wrong message to a group via a poorly considered ad campaign could be severe. According to the 2020 Consumer Culture Report generated by 5W Public Relations, 71% of people prefer buying from companies that align with their personal values, whether these values connect with political or social beliefs. That same article reports that the percentage of millennials who feel this way is substantially higher than for baby boomers. This mindset could be considered by a healthcare marketer building a campaign, particularly if it’s targeted toward a specific type of patient such as older adults with chronic issues.

Marketing Regulations

Some state licensing boards have guidelines on marketing practices for medical professionals, and marketers must pay close attention to these regulations. Usually, this means that ads must be very clear about the services or practitioners they promote. The language should clearly and honestly represent the advertised product or service and may not make any sensational promises. It should also be straightforward and refrain from using overly technical language to avoid confusion or ambiguity.

The marketing regulations differ based on the product or service being marketed. This is partially due to the various governing boards that oversee different products associated with health. For instance, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulates pharmaceutical marketing, while physician marketing must remain compliant with regulations established through the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). Falling outside of these regulations could carry serious issues.

Some healthcare providers may be so afraid of being penalized by their state’s licensing board that they do not make any effort to market. If those responsible for marketing carefully review the board’s regulations, however, marketing is usually beneficial for a healthcare business.

It is also important for marketers to pay attention to insurance regulations. Since these regulations may affect the prices of medical services, ads generally shouldn’t make promises about the prices of certain medications or treatments.

Healthcare Marketing as a Teaching Tool

The passage of the ACA has led to a large influx of people with medical insurance. As a result, there are many consumers who may be confused about how insurance or healthcare works, and they may look for healthcare providers who are willing to take the time to educate them. Further, customers with high deductibles on their policies often search for healthcare providers who offer the best quality services for the lowest prices, so marketers may place more focus on the value of services rather than on the services themselves.

Healthcare Marketing: A Concept That Connects

Healthcare marketing is a challenge that requires marketers to adapt to changing times and regulations. It also requires a different approach to connecting with consumers than other marketing because a person’s health and a facility’s opportunity to provide care delivery is involved. However, by being alert to social issues and paying attention to consumers’ needs, marketers can rise to the occasion. When this occurs, the results do more than just attract new customers. They allow a healthcare facility or care-related entity to make a positive impact on patient lives.

George Washington University’s Healthcare Master of Business Administration program can provide you with the expertise needed to apply strong business knowledge and skills to a healthcare setting. The program curriculum is designed to immerse you in the crucial business concepts that allow a health facility to thrive and deliver optimal care, such as business administration, finance and ethics. Ultimately, the degree prepares you to be a leader in one of the world’s most critical industries.

Learn how the Healthcare MBA program can help prepare you to pursue your career goals in the business of healthcare.

Recommended Readings

Hot Topics in Health Tech

How Hospital Management Affects Patient Care

How to Become a Hospital CFO

5W Public Relations, Consumer Culture Report

Forbes , “The Unique Challenges of Health Care Marketing”

Healthcare Success, “Health Care Marketing: How Are Things Different for Health Care Organizations?”

HealthWorksCollective, “How Is Marketing a Healthcare Practice Different?”

Houston Chronicle , “Healthcare Marketing Laws”

PatientEngagementHIT, “How to Market Patient Education to Support Patient Experience”

Small Business Trends, “71% of Consumers Prefer Buying from companies Aligned with Their Values”

Square2, Our Story

Learn More About the Healthcare MBA Program at GW

22 Top Health Care Marketing Research Companies

A Quirk's resource guide covering the top companies that specialize in health care research.

Conducting health care research may be complicated due to the sensitivity of the data and the insights gathered. Applying research findings has immediate consequences for health care practitioners, patients, caregivers and many others.  

Companies specializing in health care research can offer the most effective and efficient research methods. They are familiar with the challenges in this sector and can ensure you remain compliant with information privacy regulations. If you need insights on patients, physicians or medical devices these companies can collaborate with you from start to finish to obtain high-quality findings. 

Founded 1990 | 160 employees

Phone 1-862-327-9667

www.aplusaresearch.com/aplusa-us/

Applied Marketing Science (AMS)  

Founded 1989 | 40 employees 

John Mitchell, President and Managing Principal  

Phone 1-781-250-6300  

ams-insights.com/insights-for-healthcare-markets/

Civicom® Marketing Research Services

Founded 2000 | 500+ worldwide employees

E-mail [email protected]

Phone 1-203-413-2423

www.CivicomMRS.com  

Clarity Pharma Research ® LLC

Founded 2008 | fewer than 100 employees

Susan Carroll, Managing Director

E-mail [email protected]

Phone 1-864-579-2115

www.claritypharma.com

Decision Analyst Inc.

Founded 1978 | 150 employees

Monisha Hatfield, Senior Vice President

Bonnie Janzen, Executive Vice President

Phone 1-817-640-6166

www.decisionanalyst.com/industry/medical/

Egg Strategy

Founded 2005 | 50 employees

Christopher Wilshire, CEO and Founder

Matthew Singer, President

Phone 1-303-546-9311

www.eggstrategy.com

Founded 1980 | 350+ employees

Steve Raebel, President

Phone 1-800-863-4353

www.fieldwork.com/market-research-services/

Focus Insite  

Founded 2015 | 40 employees 

Jim Jacobs, CEO

Liana Wood, VP of Operations

E-mail [email protected]  

Phone 1-888-836-2871 (888-8-FOCUS-1)

www.focusinsite.com

Holden Healthcare

Founded 2006 | 50 employees

Jeffrey Kelsch, Managing Partner

Phone (U.S.) 1-208-809-7117

www.holdendata.com

Founded 1991 | 900 employees

Kristof De Wulf, CEO

Phone 1-248-239-2300

www.wearehuman8.com

Founded 2014 | 270+ employees

Lisa Wilding-Brown, CEO

Phone 1-888-229-6664

www.innovatemr.com

Insights Opinion

Founded 2015 | 50 employees

Phone (U.S.) 1-646-475-7865 | (U.K.) +44 20 3239 5786 | (IN) +91 120 498 7860

www.insightsopinion.com

Ironwood Insights Group LLC

Founded 2017 | 300 employees

E-mail [email protected]  

Phone 1-602-661-0878 x2110

www.ironwoodinsights.com

Olson Research Group Inc.

Founded 1995 | 55 employees

Phone 1-267-487-5500

www.olsonresearchgroup.com    

Founded 2017 | 20+ employees

Jim Whaley, CEO

Phone 1-212-653-8750

www.ovationmr.com

PRC Corporation

Founded 1982 | 70 Employees

E-mail [email protected]

Phone 1-201-265-7500 (Main switchboard)

www.prcmarketresearch.com

Qessential Medical Market Research

Founded 1988 | 15 employees

E-mail [email protected]

Phone 1-603-775-9200

www.qessential.com

Rare Patient Voice LLC

Founded 2013 | 20 full-time, 20 part-time patient advocates

Wes Michael, President and Founder

Phone 1-443-986-1949 

www.rarepatientvoice.com

Founded 1995 | 1,000+ employees.

Lance Hoffman, EVP of Client Engagement

E-mail [email protected]

Phone 1-512-757-8120

www.reconmr.com

Schmidt Market Research

Founded 1986 | 40 employees

Phone 1-412-367-1226

www.schmidtmr.com

Symmetric, A Decision Analyst Company

Founded 2016 | 150+ employees

Jason Thomas, President of Symmetric

Phone 1-817-649-5243

www.symmetricsampling.com/panels/

WebMD/Medscape Market Research

Founded 1995 | 1,800 employees

Audrey Rosen, Vice President, Market Research

Phone 1-646-856-3860

www.MedscapeMarketResearch.com

Survey Monitor May/June 2024 Related Categories: Health Care (Healthcare), Research Industry, Health Care (Healthcare) Research Health Care (Healthcare), Research Industry, Health Care (Healthcare) Research, Grocery/Supermarkets, Restaurants/Food Service, Shopper Insights, Artificial Intelligence / AI, Beverage, Consumer Research, Consumers, Entertainment, Environmental, Media Research-Digital, Physicians, Transportation, Travel

Research looks at the role of pharmacists as retail and pharma continue to change Related Categories: Health Care (Healthcare), Research Industry, Health Care (Healthcare) Research, Patients , Research Industry – COVID-19 Health Care (Healthcare), Research Industry, Health Care (Healthcare) Research, Patients , Research Industry – COVID-19, Pharmacies/Drug Stores, Pharmacists, Pharmaceutical Products, Retailing

Segmentation in the pharma industry: How to create resilient strategies Related Categories: Health Care (Healthcare), Research Industry, Health Care (Healthcare) Research, Patients Health Care (Healthcare), Research Industry, Health Care (Healthcare) Research, Patients , Market Segmentation Studies, Segmentation Studies, Questionnaire Analysis, Sampling, Social Media Research, Survey Research

Survey Monitor March/April 2024 Related Categories: Health Care (Healthcare), Research Industry, Health Care (Healthcare) Research Health Care (Healthcare), Research Industry, Health Care (Healthcare) Research, Air Travelers, College Students, Education, Employees, Entrepreneurs/Small Business, Generation Baby Boomers, High-Tech, Higher Education, Shopper Insights, Travel

L iterature Reviews

Marketing of healthcare organizations: tools for attracting and retaining patients.

E.I. Aksyonova 1 , A.B. Zudin 2

1 Research Institute of Healthcare Organization and Medical Management, Moscow Healthcare Department, Moscow, Russian Federation 2 N.A. Semashko National Research Institute of Public Health, Moscow, Russian Federation

O bjective: To analyze marketing strategies and patient attraction instruments in medical organizations of the Russian medical services market.

M ethods: The analysis of marketing strategies and tools for attracting patients in medical organizations of the Russian medical services market was carried out on the basis of the study presented by EY during a three-step survey of the largest Russian private medical organizations operating in the commercial medicine market in the Russian healthcare system.

R esults: In the condition of growing competition in the medical service market, a significant factor in attracting and retaining patients is the high level of qualifications of doctors and medical personnel. Another factor is the doctor’s skill in finding contact with the patient, so far as consumers of medical service cannot always assess the quality of received medical aid and therefore very often form their impression of visiting a medical organization based on the communication and participation of the doctor.

C onclusion: The analysis of the research results allowed to make conclusions about the development of online advertising on the Internet as an effective marketing instrument for medical service.

K eywords: Marketing, healthcare, medical service market, marketing strategy, advertising.

R eferences

• Petrova NG, Dodonova IV, Pogosyan SG. Osnovy meditsinskogo menedzhmenta i marketinga [Fundamentals of medical management and marketing]. Moscow, RF: Foliant; 2018. 352 p.
• Notman OV, Antonova NL, Pimenova OI, Novgorodtseva AN. Marketing v sotsial’noy sfere [Marketing in the social sphere]. Ekaterinburg, RF: Izd-vo Ural. un-ta; 2017. 116 p.
• Vardanyan NB, Martirosov VYu, Levitskaya NA, Eroshenko AYu. Sayt meditsinskoy organizatsii – effektivnyy instrument prodvizheniya meditsinskikh uslug [Website of medical organization – an effective tool for the provision of medical services]. Menedzhment kachestva v meditsine. 2018;1:110-5.
• Smit BD. Brend-terapiya. 15 metodov dlya sozdaniya strategii brenda v industrii farmatsevtiki i meditsinskikh tekhnologiy [Brand therapy. 15 methods for creating a brand strategy in the pharmaceutical and medical technology industry]. Moscow, RF: Biblos; 2019. 239 p.
• Babenko AA. Spetsifika organizatsii marketingovoy deyatel’nosti v sfere platnykh meditsinskikh uslug [Specificity of the organization of marketing activities in the sphere of paid medical services]. Glavvrach. 2017;1:73-7.
• Issledovanie rynka kommercheskoy meditsny v Rossii 2018-2019 gody [Elektronnyj resurs]. [Data obrashcheniya 22.11.2020]. Available from: https://assets. ey.com/content/dam/ey-sites/ey-com/ru_ru/news/2020/03/ey_healthcare_ research_2018-2019_24032020.pdf.
• Sheresheva MYu, Kostanyan AA. Marketing otnosheniy v deyatel’nosti gosudarstvennikh meditsinskikh organizatsiy v izmenyayushchikhsya rynochnykh usloviyakh [Marketing relationship in public healthcare organizations in changing market conditions]. Gosudarstvennoe upravlenie. Elektronnyy vestnik. 2018;69:285-305.
• Abramov AYu, Kicha DI, Rukodaynyy OV. Kategoriya marketinga otnosheniy v meditsinskikh organizatsiyakh [Category of marketing of relations in medical organizations]. Vestnik Rossiyskogo universiteta druzhby narodov. Seriya: Meditsina. 2018;22(3):314-21. Available from: https://doi. org/10.22363/2313-0245-2018-22-3-314-321
• Mukhsinov BT. Modernizirovannye sistemy marketinga v meditsinskikh organizatsiyakh [Modernized marketing systems in medical organizations]. Biologiya i integrativnaya meditsina. 2017;7:150-5.
• Ivanov NP, Malkina LV. HR-marketing v sisteme menedzhmenta sovremennoy meditsinskoy organizatsii [HR-marketing in the management system of a modern medical organization]. Fundamental’nye issledovaniya. 2017;10- 2:351-7.
• Schwartz LM, Woloshin S. Medical marketing in the United States, 1997- 2016. JAMA. 2019;321(1):80-96. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1001/ jama.2018.19320
• Andriyanova AA, Andriyanova LS, Kornienko MV. Marketingovoe issledovanie sostoyaniya rynka meditsinskikh uslug: faktory i regional’nye osobennosti [The marketing study of medical services market: factors and regional characteristics]. Problemy sotsial’noy gigieny, zdravookhraneniya i istorii meditsiny. 2020;28(3):480-5. Available from: https://doi.org/10.32687/0869- 866X-2020-28-3-480-485
• Teschner M, Lenarz T. The marketing of healthcare services in ENT-clinics. Laryngorhinootologie. 2016;95(7):470-6. Available from: https://doi. org/10.1055/s-0041-110060
• Ananchenkova PI, Simonets NL, Tonkonog VV. Upravlenie reklamnymi kommunikatsiyami v meditsinskikh organizatsiyakh [Management of advertising communication in health care organizations]. Problemy sotsial’noy gigieny, zdravookhraneniya i istorii meditsiny. 2020;28(S):687-93. Available from: https://doi.org/10.32687/0869-866X-2020-28-s1-687-693
• Elrod JK, Fortenberry JLJr. Catalyzing marketing innovation and competitive advantage in the healthcare industry: the value of thinking like an outsider. BMC Health Serv Res. 2018;18(Suppl 3):922. Available from: https://doi. org/10.1186/s12913-018-3682-9

Authors' information:

Aksyonova Elena Ivanovna Doctor of Economic Sciences, Full Professor, Director of the Research Institute of Healthcare Organization and Medical Management, Moscow Healthcare Department ORCID ID: 0000-0003-1600-1641 SPIN: 1448-9797 Author ID: 667820 E-mail: [email protected]

Zudin Aleksandr Borisovich Doctor of Medical Sciences, Director of the N.A. Semashko National Research Institute of Public Health Scopus ID: 6508336453 ORCID ID: 0000-0002-6966-5559 SPIN: 5954-1170 Author ID: 878732 E-mail: [email protected]

Information about support in the form of grants, equipment, medications

The authors did not receive financial support from manufacturers of medicines and medical equipment

Conflicts of interest: No conflict

Address for correspondence:

Zudin Aleksandr Borisovich Doctor of Medical Sciences, Director of the N.A. Semashko National Research Institute of Public Health

105064, Russian Federation, Moscow, Vorontsovo pole str., 12, building 1

Tel.: +7 (968) 8613810

E-mail: [email protected]

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The health benefits and business potential of digital therapeutics

Around the world, the burden of chronic disease is increasing at a rapid pace. Unfortunately, most of these conditions are irreversible and need to be managed through lifelong medication use. However, many patients struggle with adhering to prescribed medications and implementing the behavioral and lifestyle changes that are needed to manage their diseases and stabilize their conditions. Often, physicians and other healthcare providers have little ability to monitor the extent to which patients are following their recommendations and maintaining treatment regimens. As a result, disease burdens at a population level are higher than they should be.

These challenges have created a need for compre­hensive disease management solutions that are best enabled by digital technologies. In 2021, global digital health funding grew 79 percent over the previous year to reach $57.2 billion. 1 State of digital health 2021 report , CB Insights, January 20, 2022. Much attention and funding have flowed toward digital therapeutics , which can include multiple points of intervention along the patient journey, including monitoring, medication adherence, behavioral engagement, person­alized coaching, and real-time custom health recommendations. Within digital health, funding for digital therapeutics (including solutions for mental health) has grown at an even faster pace—up 134 percent from the prior year to reach $8.9 billion in 2021. 2 Heather Landi, “Global digital health funding skyrockets to $57.2B with record cash for mental health, telehealth,” Fierce Healthcare,January 21, 2022.

The impact potential here is significant, both in terms of clinical outcomes and economic benefits for stakeholders and societies. For example, research has shown that digital disease management can drive a 45 percent reduction in the three-month rate of major adverse cardiovascular events (MACEs) and a 50 percent reduction in the 30-day readmission rates for patients after acute myocardial infarction (AMI). 3 Jerilyn K. Allen et al., “Digital health intervention in acute myocardial infarction,” Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes , July 15, 2021, Volume 14, Issue 7; Pawel Buszman et al., “Managed care after acute myocardial infarction (MC-AMI) reduces total mortality in 12-month follow-up—results from Poland’s National Health Fund Program of Comprehensive Post-MI Care—A population-wide analysis,” Journal of Clinical Medicine , 2020, Volume 9, Issue 10. Similarly, it can help lower hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) levels by one percentage point among patients with type 2 diabetes. 4 Marcy K. Abner et al., “A novel intervention including individualized nutritional recommendations reduces hemoglobin A1c level, medication use, and weight in type 2 diabetes,” JMIR Diabetes , 2017, Volume 2, Issue 1. These data points illustrate the extent to which digital disease manage­ment can help save lives while also keeping patients healthier, which reduces costs for many stake­holders, including the patients themselves.

Research has shown that digital disease management can drive a 45 percent reduction in the three-month rate of major adverse cardiovascular events (MACEs) and a 50 percent reduction in the 30-day readmission rates for patients.

Many players are trying to disrupt the disease management space and develop new innovative models to manage chronic diseases. New-age start-ups bring radical, unconstrained perspectives, while incumbents contribute a much more detailed understanding of the challenges and various stake­holders. Ultimately, both start-ups and incumbents have critical roles to play in disrupting the space and scaling up solutions.

Digital therapeutics can play an important role in chronic-disease management

The burden of chronic diseases has been increasing globally and is expected to continue. Chronic diseases (such as cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes, and respiratory disease) were causes or contributing factors in 75 percent of worldwide deaths in 2010 and 79 percent in 2020. By 2030, experts predict that chronic diseases will contribute to as much as 84 percent of total global mortality (exhibit).

Poor monitoring of and adherence to prescribed medications undermine the management of chronic diseases. According to a 2021 global study, compliance among patients with type 2 diabetes ranges from 69 to 79 percent. 5 Diagnosis-related groups (DRG) treatment data: compliance (medication possession ratio) among patients with type 2 diabetes ranges between 69 to 79 percent for top-20 type 2 diabetes drugs; compliance rates for cancers according to a study on 52,450 patients was 37 percent. Patients were found to be most compliant in the 50- to 59-year-old range (49 percent compliant), with decreased compliance at the extremes of age. See Joseph Blansfield et al., “Analyzing the impact of compliance with national guidelines for pancreatic cancer care using the National Cancer Database,” Journal of Gastrointestinal Surgery , August 2018, Volume 22, Issue 8; Nathan Levitan, “Industry Voices—Here’s how AI is impacting the delivery of cancer care right now,” Fierce Healthcare, June 28, 2019.

Of course, chronic diseases need to be managed not only by medication but also with regular monitoring and lifestyle changes. Hence, providers need better end-to-end solutions that proactively and comprehensively monitor patient health, as well as encourage behavioral changes to improve adherence to prescribed medications, diet, and lifestyles.

Digital technologies can play an important role in improving disease management by tackling these challenges. The potential for digital therapeutics to have a big impact is evidenced by the fact that almost two-thirds of the global population now has internet access.

Research has shown that digital solutions for disease management can drive better outcomes for patients living with chronic diseases. Examples include the following:

• A study of ten thousand patients by the Poland National Health Fund showed a 45 percent reduction in three-month MACE rate and a 40 percent reduction in 12-month mortality rate achieved through managed care after AMI. The study involved cardiac rehabilitation with physician guidance, counseling sessions on lifestyle modification, education on the associated risk factors, therapy, and in-person relaxation sessions. 6 “Managed care after acute myocardial infarction,” 2021.
• A study by the Mayo Clinic in partnership with Healarium showed a reduction in three-month rehospitalizations and emergency department visits of 40 percent for patients following AMI, a weight reduction of 4.0 kilograms, and a 10.8-millimeter reduction in systolic blood pressure. The study involved tracking of vitals, diet, and physical activity, setting reminders and goals, information on current health status, and educational courses for patients. 7 Thomas G. Allison et al., “Digital health intervention as an adjunct to cardiac rehabilitation reduces cardiovascular risk factors and rehospitalizations, Journal of Cardiovascular Translational Research , 2015, Volume 8, Issue 5.
• A US study of more than one thousand patients by Johns Hopkins and Corrie Health showed a 50 percent reduction in the 30-day readmission rate in patients following AMI attained through digital-health-based interventions. The study involved continuous monitoring of vitals with the help of connected devices; educational content on procedures, risk factors, and lifestyle modifications; medication management through reminders and tracking adherence; connection with the care team; mood tracking; and the ability to check the side effects of medication. 8 “Digital health intervention in acute myocardial infarction,” 2021.
• A one percentage-point reduction in HbA1c levels was shown in patients with type 2 diabetes who participated in an online patient community as part of Virta Health’s ten-week nonrandomized parallel arm study with 262 outpatients. The patients were given individualized nutritional recommendations through dedicated health coaches, continuous glucose monitoring kits, and online counseling with doctors. 9 “A novel intervention including individualized nutritional recommendations reduces hemoglobin A1c level,” 2017.

Eight key elements of impactful digital therapeutics solutions

Strong digital therapeutics solutions typically contain most or all of the following eight elements:

• Regular monitoring, measurement, and feedback through connected medical devices . Devices such as smart inhalers for respiratory conditions or continuous glucose monitors for diabetes can provide patients with nudges and alerts for out-of-range readings. For example, Boston-based Biofourmis applies digital therapeutics through the continuous monitoring of connected medical devices. The company offers a doctor-prescribed digital platform approved by the US Food and Drug Administration for patients suffering from chronic heart conditions. Its unique wearable devices offer specialty chronic heart care management, including automated medication management combined with a multidisciplinary remote clinical-care team. In 2022, the company was valued at $1.3 billion.
• Keeping payers and providers in the loop. When patients grant access to their vital statistics, insurance companies, caregivers, and employers can reward them for progress in stabilizing or improving chronic health conditions. For example, Livongo, a program from Teladoc Health, allows patients with diabetes to monitor their condition regularly and send alerts via Bluetooth to an app on their own and their caregiver’s phones if readings exceed normal ranges. Over time, patients enrolled with Livongo have achieved a 0.8 percentage-point drop in HbA1c for diabetics, a 10.0-millimeter hemoglobin drop in blood pressure for patients with hypertension, a 1.8-point drop in body mass index, and a 7.0 percent drop in weight. Livongo allows payers and providers to identify and reward good behavior, as well as deter or penalize poor adherence to health plans prescribed by providers.
• Personalized coaching and support . Patients can connect with specific coaches to obtain a personalized diet and exercise plan tailored to their chronic illnesses. This can be very effective from a therapeutic standpoint. A meta-analysis of digital health interventions on blood pressure management showed that digital counseling alongside antihypertensive medical therapy reduced systolic blood pressure by 50 percent relative to controls. 10 Ella Huszti et al., “Advancing digital health interventions as a clinically applied science for blood pressure reduction: A systematic review and meta-analysis,” Canadian Journal of Cardiology , May 2020, Volume 36, Issue 5. For example, Hinge Health has built a $6.2 billion business that offers wearable sensors combined with personalized exercise therapy and one-on-one health coaching.
• Gamified behavioral modification. Digital therapeutics solutions can include gamified challenges and incentives to track and drive adherence to prescribed diets, lifestyle practices, and medications. For example, Discovery, a South African health insurance company, encourages its members to make healthier choices through its Vitality behavioral change program that combines data analytics with rewards and incentives for healthier lifestyle choices.
• Building a thriving community . An active virtual patient community can drive adherence by challenging and motivating patients to live up to their own health goals. For instance, one study of seven thousand patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease, HIV, fibromyalgia, or mood disorders found that nearly 60 percent thought the PatientsLikeMe health network helped give them a better understanding of the side effects of medications. The study also found that nearly a quarter of patients with mood disorders needed less inpatient care thanks to their use of the PatientsLikeMe site. 11 “PatientsLikeMe,” Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, accessed January 2023.
• Health mall. A recent McKinsey survey found that 90 percent of healthcare leaders believe that patients interacting with digital health ecosystems want an integrated journey rather than point experiences or solutions. 12 Stefan Biesdorf, Ulrike Deetjen, and Basel Kayyali, “ Digital health ecosystems: Voices of key healthcare leaders ,” McKinsey, October 12, 2021. Healthcare companies can meet this desire for integration by offering digital health malls that include access to prescribed medications, health supplements, wellness products, and diagnostic tests at the click of a button.
• Patient education . Digital education materials can give patients and their family members information on disease conditions, treatment options, diet, and healthy lifestyle choices. For instance, the Midday app launched by Mayo Clinic and digital health start-up Lisa Health provides support, including educational content, to women experiencing menopause. 13 Tia R. Ford, “Lisa Health launches Midday, an app leveraging AI to personalize the menopause journey, in collaboration with Mayo Clinic,” Mayo Clinic, July 19, 2022.
• Advanced analytics to predict and prevent health events . Organizations are working now to build data algorithms that could identify and predict triggers for healthcare events. They could suggest when to take preventative action or where lifestyle and behavioral changes might forestall adverse events.

How incumbents can thrive in the digital therapeutics space

Digital therapeutics have tremendous potential to reduce disease burdens, deliver better clinical outcomes, help providers make more informed treatment decisions, and improve patients’ lives by offering better ways to manage chronic health conditions. Digital therapeutics also offer incumbents access to new sections of the healthcare value chain and a way to play in the much larger end-to-end healthcare market. Given these opportunities, healthcare and pharma incumbents may wish to explore ways to compete and win in this space.

Incumbents have certain inherent advantages in building digital therapeutics offerings. They already have direct access to patients, plus deep knowledge of the pain points in the disease management journey. They also fully understand the disease science that needs to be integrated into the digital health offering.

Still, incumbents also have some work to do to be competitive in digital therapeutics. To successfully launch and scale an offering, they may need to recruit or upskill employees with skills in product development, design, technology, medicine, data science, and strategic partnerships. Incumbents should plan to spend from three to five years building their digital capabilities and inculcating their new digital workforce with the culture, vision, mission, and values to compete successfully against nimble start-ups.

Incumbents that move quickly still have an opportunity to gain a first-mover advantage in the growing digital therapeutics sector, where promising start-ups can receive multibillion-dollar valuations. By developing their own digital therapeutics offerings, incumbents may also find themselves in a stronger position to protect their core businesses from being disrupted by others.

Chirag Adatia is a partner in McKinsey’s Gurugram office, where Samarth Shah is a consultant. Ralf Dreischmeier  is a senior partner in the London office.  Kirtika Sharma is a partner in the Mumbai office.

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CVS Health (CVS) Expands Food and Beverage Line With New Launch

CVS Health ’s ( CVS Quick Quote CVS - Free Report ) retail division — CVS Pharmacy — launched Well Market,  a new store brand consumables line featuring snacks, beverages and groceries. Products from Well Market can now be purchased on CVS.com and in CVS pharmacies across the United States.

The recent development will expand CVS Health’s food and beverage portfolio.

More on Well Market

Well Market provides a range of products with zero grams of trans fat and no artificial preservatives, sweeteners, or colors and products that reflect consumer preferences for certain trends and flavors. Well Market offers products to suit a wide range of wellness objectives and particular taste preferences, whether clients want to fulfill a yearning for something more decadent or have special dietary requirements or preferences like vegan, gluten-free, or keto.

The Well Market brand offers a blend of mouthwatering flavors and nutritious options, expertly crafted and taste-tested by food enthusiasts. Well Market's inventive flavors satisfy a wide range of palates, offering everything from strong and spicy to sweet and savory selections, such as Dark Chocolate Lightly Dipped Cashews and Sea Salt Rustic Plantain Chips.

With more than 9,000 CVS Pharmacy locations across the country, getting delectable snacks is quick and easy. The majority of the Well Market line's products range in price from $2.99 to $8.99 and are protected by our 100% money-back guarantee.

Benefits of New Launch

CVS Health aims to be the most consumer-centric healthcare solutions company. Through this repositioning and expansion of its food and beverage portfolio, CVS Health is offering new nutritious options to its customers.

With its first-to-market range of flavor-infused sprouted almonds that includes Salt & Vinegar, Zesty Dill Pickle and Maple Cinnamon, each flavor is injected during the sprouting process, the well-timed market launch is also altering the way flavors are introduced. Customers may enjoy more from every bite thanks to this launch, which not only improves taste and keeps hands clean but also suggests that sprouting may facilitate the body's easier digestion of the nutrients in almonds.

Industry Prospects

Per a report , the global health and wellness market was valued at $5,546.0 billion in 2023 and is expected to reach more than $9,245.8 billion by 2033, registering a CAGR of 5.2% from 2024 to 2033. The market is primarily driven by the increased consumer expenditure of a wide variety of health and wellness products and services across the globe.

Other Notable Highlights

Over the last few quarters, the Pharmacy & Consumer Wellness business registered revenue growth after several quarters of a drag. Amid the pandemic, this segment plays a crucial role in the company’s community-focused strategy. 

The company’s considerable expansion in the retail pharmacy has led to significant market share increases over time. This demonstrates the benefit the company offers to pharmacy patients and the investments made to enhance their experiences.

In December 2023, CVS Health unveiled its new CVS CostVantage model in the pharmacy and consumer wellness business. This model proactively addresses the persistent reimbursement pressures in the retail pharmacy industry. During the first quarter, the company signed CVS CostVantage agreements with multiple third-party discount card administrators that were effective on Apr 1 and represent more than 50% of all CVS discount card volume.

Price Performance

In the past six months, CVS’ shares have declined 15.5% compared with the industry ’s rise of 16.3%.

Zacks Rank and Key Picks

CVS Health currently carries a Zacks Rank #5 (Strong Sell).

Some better-ranked stocks from the broader medical space are Medpace ( MEDP Quick Quote MEDP - Free Report ) , ResMed ( RMD Quick Quote RMD - Free Report ) and Encompass Health Corporation ( EHC Quick Quote EHC - Free Report ) .

Medpace, sporting a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), reported a first-quarter 2024 EPS of $3.20, which beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 30.6%. Revenues of $511 million improved 17.7% from last year’s comparable figure. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

Medpace has an estimated 2024 earnings growth rate of 26.5% compared with the industry’s 12.3%. The company’s earnings surpassed estimates in each of the trailing four quarters, the average being 12.8%.

ResMed, sporting a Zacks Rank #1, reported a first-quarter 2024 EPS of $2.13, which topped the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 10.9%. Revenues of $1.20 billion surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 1.9%.

RMD has an estimated fiscal 2024 earnings growth rate of 17.9% compared to the industry’s 15.7%. In each of the trailing four quarters, the company delivered an average earnings surprise of 2.8%.

Encompass Health, carrying a Zacks Rank #2, reported a first-quarter 2024 adjusted EPS of $1.12, which surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 20.4%. Net operating revenues of $1.3 billion topped the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 3.6%.

EHC has an estimated long-term earnings growth rate of 15.6% compared with the industry’s 11.7% growth. The company’s earnings surpassed estimates in each of the trailing four quarters, the average surprise being 18.7%.

See More Zacks Research for These Tickers

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US Weekly Jobless Claims Fall Further as Labor Market Remains Strong

Signage for a job fair is seen on 5th Avenue after the release of the jobs report in Manhattan, New York City, U.S., September 3, 2021. REUTERS/Andrew Kelly/File Photo

By Lucia Mutikani

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits fell last week, pointing to underlying strength in the labor market that should continue to support the economy.

The second straight weekly decline in claims reported by the Labor Department on Thursday unwound most of the jump at the start of the month, which had lifted applications to a level last seen at the end of last August. Though job growth is slowing as a result of the cumulative impact of hefty Federal Reserve interest rate hikes in 2022 and 2023, layoffs remain very low.

"Claims settled down from the previous week, so the acceleration some had feared hasn't come to pass," said Robert Frick, corporate economist at Navy Federal Credit Union. "The labor market remains robust, and if claims are the canary in the coal mine for jobs, it has yet to develop a mild cough."

Initial claims for state unemployment benefits dropped 8,000 to a seasonally adjusted 215,000 for the week ended May 18. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast 220,000 claims in the latest week. Unadjusted claims decreased 5,663 to 192,017. There were notable declines in filings in California and Indiana.

Companies are generally holding on to their workers after experiencing difficulties finding labor during and after the COVID-19 pandemic.

The U.S. central bank has raised its policy rate by 525 basis points since March 2022 to slow demand in the economy.

Minutes of the Fed's April 30-May 1 policy meeting published on Wednesday showed officials assessed that "demand and supply in the labor market, on net, were continuing to come into better balance, though at a slower rate." But they also noted that conditions had "generally remained tight."

The Fed has kept its benchmark overnight interest rate in the current 5.25%-5.50% range since July. Financial markets expect the first rate cut will come in September. Labor market strength has helped the economy defy predictions of a recession.

The claims data covered the period during which the government surveyed employers for the nonfarm payrolls component of May's employment report. Claims rose slightly between the April and May survey weeks.

Data next week on the number of people receiving benefits after an initial week of aid, a proxy for hiring, could offer more clarity on the state of the labor market. The economy added 175,000 jobs in April.

The so-called continuing claims rose 8,000 to a seasonally adjusted 1.794 million during the week ending May 11, the claims report showed. Continuing claims are at historically low levels.

"There is absolutely no sign that the labor market is unraveling in a major way," said Christopher Rupkey, chief economist at FWDBONDS. "There is no reason for businesses to reduce the headcount at their firms any further because the economy continues to perform relatively well given the degree of monetary restraint the Fed has put in place to fight inflation."

(Reporting by Lucia Mutikani; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Paul Simao)

Copyright 2024 Thomson Reuters .

Tags: United States

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