By using this site, you agree to the Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
Accept
Health Works CollectiveHealth Works CollectiveHealth Works Collective
  • Health
    • Mental Health
    Health
    Healthcare organizations are operating on slimmer profit margins than ever. One report in August showed that they are even lower than the beginning of the…
    Show More
    Top News
    improving patient experience
    6 Ways to Improve Patient Satisfaction Within Hospitals
    December 1, 2021
    degree for healthcare job
    What Are The Health Benefits Of Having A Degree?
    March 9, 2022
    custom software development is changing healthcare
    Digital Customer Journey Mapping and its Importance for Healthcare
    July 21, 2022
    Latest News
    Grounded Healing: A Natural Ally for Sustainable Healthcare Systems
    May 16, 2025
    Learn how to Renew your Medical Card in West Virginia
    May 16, 2025
    Choosing the Right Supplement Manufacturer for Your Brand
    May 1, 2025
    Engineering Temporary Hospitals for Extreme Weather
    April 24, 2025
  • Policy and Law
    • Global Healthcare
    • Medical Ethics
    Policy and Law
    Get the latest updates about Insurance policies and Laws in the Healthcare industry for different geographical locations.
    Show More
    Top News
    Can Thinking Younger Make You Live Longer?
    April 20, 2011
    Image
    Obesity’s Outlook Unchanged
    June 13, 2011
    When It’s An Emergency Elderly Not Treated As Well in Hospitals
    July 16, 2011
    Latest News
    Building Smarter Care Teams: Aligning Roles, Structure, and Clinical Expertise
    May 18, 2025
    The Critical Role of Healthcare in Personal Injury Recovery: A Comprehensive Guide for Victims
    May 14, 2025
    The Backbone of Successful Trials: Clinical Data Management
    April 28, 2025
    Advancing Your Healthcare Career through Education and Specialization
    April 16, 2025
  • Medical Innovations
  • News
  • Wellness
  • Tech
Search
© 2023 HealthWorks Collective. All Rights Reserved.
Reading: 2 Medical Entrepreneurs Taking Marketing by Storm
Share
Notification Show More
Font ResizerAa
Health Works CollectiveHealth Works Collective
Font ResizerAa
Search
Follow US
  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy
© 2023 HealthWorks Collective. All Rights Reserved.
Health Works Collective > Business > 2 Medical Entrepreneurs Taking Marketing by Storm
BusinesseHealthTechnology

2 Medical Entrepreneurs Taking Marketing by Storm

Dennis Hung
Last updated: April 30, 2016 12:00 pm
Dennis Hung
Share
8 Min Read
SHARE

For decades, the medical market was a relatively steady place. Patients would visit their family doctors, with two or even three generations sometimes visiting the same physician over the course of several years. Doctors owned their own practices and made the bulk of their patients’ healthcare decisions, and patients simply trusted that those decisions were right.

Contents
Sean DuffyLuke Kervin

For decades, the medical market was a relatively steady place. Patients would visit their family doctors, with two or even three generations sometimes visiting the same physician over the course of several years. Doctors owned their own practices and made the bulk of their patients’ healthcare decisions, and patients simply trusted that those decisions were right.

In recent years, however, the healthcare marketplace has begun evolving at a rapid pace.  Hospitals are buying physician practices to create integrated systems and coordinate care among physicians, hospitals, and other healthcare providers, transferring the final purchasing decisions for medical services and products from the doctor’s hands into the hands of a committee that oversees hospital purchasing decisions. Between 2012 and 2014, the percentage of primary care physicians who were employed by hospitals doubled from 10% to 20%. Meanwhile, patients are doing their homework beforehand and taking a more active role in their healthcare, with 72% of internet users reporting that they looked online for health information over a 12-month period and one in four patients saying they read consumer-generated reviews online before booking an appointment with a physician.

In order to keep up with this shifting market, medical providers must shift their marketing techniques accordingly. As new technologies and services hit the marketplace, they bring with them new ideas for how to reach the financial decision makers in this new environment. Entrepreneurs in the medical industry become pioneers and exemplars in medical marketing as well. Below, we will take a look at some examples of success in this evolving environment.

More Read

How Google is Pushing Healthcare Innovation
Medicine Is a Profession, But Healthcare Is a Business
How A Healthcare Mobile App Can Help Reduce Hospital Management Cost
Physician Survey 2013 – Physician Burnout and Stress in Healthcare
Distracted Doctors – Living in an App World

Sean Duffy

After Sean Duffy walked away from both Harvard Medical School and his job at Google, he decided to combine his passions for medicine and technology to launch Omada Health. Omada promotes “digital therapeutics,” claiming to provide and enhance behavioral therapy through online channels, dynamic programs, and social networking. Omada’s Prevent program, a 16-week series of courses and physical therapy monitored around the clock by a personal health coach, offers a simple, guided path to wellness from the comfort of the participant’s own home. Through regular phone calls, the health coach offers encouragement and works with each participant individually to develop lifestyle changes to improve the participant’s health.

Meanwhile, the interactive curriculum guides patients through a series of courses that adapt to each patient’s particular needs, teaching them how to manage their social, physical, and psychological well-being and reinforcing these lessons with games and other activities. Omada matches participants with an online peer group as well. These peer groups work together through a custom social network where they offer each other encouragement and can report their progress to each other for additional accountability. After the initial 16 weeks, patients continue to receive support to ensure that they maintain their new, healthy habits. To round out the program, participants receive access to smart apps and technology to help them track their health. 

Originally marketing to individual patients, Mr. Duffy and his co-founders shifted their efforts to private companies and health insurance providers, bringing higher volumes of patients in with each contract. Since its inception, the Prevent program has received positive results from several third-party studies published in The Diabetes Educator, The Journal of Medical Internet Research and The Annals of Behavioral Medicine. By participating in these studies performed by well-established and unbiased experts, and then showcasing the positive results, Omada boosts its own credibility and positions its offerings as a proven solution to improve patient health.

Luke Kervin

Often, though they recognize the need for marketing, healthcare providers simply don’t have the expertise to devote to marketing. Luke Kervin is the founder and CEO of PatientPop, a tech startup that offers an all-in-one practice growth platform for healthcare providers. Most medical technology focuses on advancements that help doctors treat conditions, but technology is also helping physicians with the business side of their practices. Mr. Kervin’s web marketing platform gives doctors more quality time for their patients.

Early in his career, Kervin worked in eCommerce, building a digital marketing platform on which media publications could create an online marketplace to sell featured products. His work in eCommerce inspired him to create PatientPop, basing his business model on Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems to build relationships between patients and physicians and make patients the central object of care. The mission at PatientPop is to help medical practices grow by empowering physicians to spend more digital time with patients, forging stronger relationships with those patients and boosting the likelihood that those patients would return. This is made possible by a unique, multifunctional marketing platform that is distinctly designed for the healthcare industry. 

Before founding PatientPop, Kervin noticed a pattern among healthcare providers, independent of their specialties: every physician recognized that creating and maintaining an online marketing strategy was critical to success, but they were frustrated at the lack of customized solutions. Several individual software platforms existed to manage digital PR, website optimization, and SEO, and navigating the resulting smorgasbord to piece together a single working solution was extremely expensive and time consuming for healthcare providers. Kervin recognized a void in the market and created the first all-in-one business solution that included tools to drive patient acquisition, retention marketing, reputation management, and business metrics and analytics.

The healthcare market is changing, and it will continue to change. If a new company is unable to keep a close eye on the trajectory of market trends and fit their marketing to their audience, that company will not be around for long. By keeping an eye out for patterns in the market, however, fresh entrepreneurs entering the marketplace can target both their products and their marketing messages to the current demands of their potential customers and ensure that they will be around for a long time to come.


TAGGED:entrepeneurshiphealthcare marketing
Share This Article
Facebook Copy Link Print
Share

Stay Connected

1.5kFollowersLike
4.5kFollowersFollow
2.8kFollowersPin
136kSubscribersSubscribe

Latest News

Clinical Expertise
Building Smarter Care Teams: Aligning Roles, Structure, and Clinical Expertise
Health care
May 18, 2025
Grounded Healing: A Natural Ally for Sustainable Healthcare Systems
Grounded Healing: A Natural Ally for Sustainable Healthcare Systems
Health
May 15, 2025
Learn how to Renew your Medical Card in West Virginia
Learn how to Renew your Medical Card in West Virginia
Health
May 15, 2025
Dr. Klaus Rentrop Shares Acute Myocardial Infarction heart treatment
Dr. Klaus Rentrop Shares Acute Myocardial Infarction
Cardiology
May 13, 2025

You Might also Like

traditional hospitals
Global HealthcareTechnology

Global Study Finds Majority Believe Traditional Hospitals Will Be Obsolete in the Near Future

February 20, 2014
Health careMedical EducationMedical InnovationsNews

4 Important And Helpful Medical Advancements For 2020

March 10, 2020

Obesity Drugs Changing the Treatment Landscape

February 29, 2012
wearable health technology
BusinesseHealthMobile HealthTechnology

The Three Pillars of Wearable Healthcare Technology

March 6, 2015
Subscribe
Subscribe to our newsletter to get our newest articles instantly!
Follow US
© 2008-2025 HealthWorks Collective. All Rights Reserved.
  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy
Welcome Back!

Sign in to your account

Username or Email Address
Password

Lost your password?