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
    healthy hobbies
    The Importance of Hobbies for Our Health
    September 15, 2024
    Whiplash
    Understanding Whiplash: A Guide For Healthcare Practitioners
    January 22, 2025
    research chemicals and health care
    Chemical Research Drive Medical Breakthroughs
    June 14, 2023
    Latest News
    7 Most Common Healthcare Accreditation Programs: Which Should You Use?
    August 20, 2025
    Hospital Pest Control and the Fight Against Superbugs
    August 20, 2025
    Hygiene Beyond The Clinic: Attention To Overlooked Non-Clinical Spaces
    August 13, 2025
    5 Steps to a Promising Career as a Healthcare Administrator
    August 3, 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
    Hospitals and Providers Using NHIN (Nationwide Health Information Network)
    March 11, 2012
    Image
    Physicians With High Productivity And Satisfaction Scores Employ Strong Patient-Centered Communication Skills
    May 7, 2013
    My Solution to the Healthcare Crisis
    March 31, 2012
    Latest News
    How Social Security Disability Shapes Access to Care and Everyday Health
    August 22, 2025
    How a DUI Lawyer Can Help When Your Future Health Feels Uncertain
    August 22, 2025
    How One Fall Can Lead to a Long Road of Medical Complications
    August 22, 2025
    How IT and Marketing Teams Can Collaborate to Protect Patient Trust
    July 17, 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
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 Duffy
  • Luke 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 Healthcare Workers and Administrators Can Reduce Their Facility’s Carbon Footprint
Providing Patients with Access to their Personal Medical Records On-The-Go
Why Your Point-of-Care Strategy Is Half-Baked
The Future Of Technology Advances In Medicine
Dealing with Negative Online Reviews of Doctors

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

travel nurse in north carolina
Balancing Speed and Scope: Choosing the Nursing Degree That Fits Your Goals
Nursing
September 1, 2025
intimacy
How to Keep Intimacy Comfortable as You Age
Relationship and Lifestyle Senior Care
September 1, 2025
engineer fitting prosthetic arm
How Social Security Disability Shapes Access to Care and Everyday Health
Health care
August 20, 2025
a woman explaining the document
How a DUI Lawyer Can Help When Your Future Health Feels Uncertain
Public Health
August 20, 2025

You Might also Like

State by State Telemedicine Licensure

December 28, 2012
Computer Couple
eHealth

Predicting the Future of ePatients

February 26, 2014
eHealthPublic Health

How Much Does It Cost To Be Gluten Free? Here’s What To Know

June 5, 2019

First Lawsuit Filed Against a Business Associate Under HIPAA / HITECH

February 14, 2012
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?