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platform

platform

Your Company Has A Technology Platform…But Do You Have A Platform Business Model and Strategy?

Today in healthcare, platforms are understood mostly as technology. That’s not wrong, but it’s limiting and it misses a huge opportunity to adopt a platform business model.

In most other industries platforms are also understood as a business model and strategy. Outside of healthcare, there are 45+ books focusing on this topic.

This post is written for:

  • 9,000+ early-stage digital health companies, most of which have a software and/or hardware technology platform as a centerpiece of their offering
  • Healthcare incumbents — health systems, health plans, pharma, medical devices, etc. — that provide a digital platform as part of their external offering. For example, health systems that have an EHR platform, a patient portal, and/or a population health platform.

What Do Platforms Do?

Uber Health API software and workflow integration

Part II: Uber Health is More Than Just a Transportation Platform

This entry is part 2 of 2 in the series Uber Health as a Platform

Vince Kuraitis and Dr. Randy Williams talked with Caitlin Donovan, the Global Head of Uber Health, and Dr. Michael Cantor, the Chief Medical Officer of Uber Health, to learn more about Uber’s healthcare arm.

Part I of the interview summary covered 1) how Uber Health functions and how it supports the care of populations, and 2) how Uber Health harnesses network effects.

In today’s Part II, you will learn 1) why Uber launched Uber Health, and 2) how Uber Health manages opportunities and challenges presented by software and workflow integration.

Continue reading to understand how Uber Health is so much more than a transportation platform!

Why Did Uber Launch Uber Health? A Discussion of Platform Envelopment Strategies.

Uber Health

Part I: Uber Health is More Than Just a Transportation Platform

This entry is part 1 of 2 in the series Uber Health as a Platform

Recently, Vince Kuraitis and Dr. Randy Williams sat down with Caitlin Donovan, the Global Head of Uber Health, and Dr. Michael Cantor, the Chief Medical Officer of Uber Health, to learn more about Uber’s healthcare arm.

The interview is covered in two blog posts. In Part I, you will learn 1) how Uber Health functions and how it supports the care of populations, and 2) how Uber Health harnesses network effects.

Continue reading to understand how Uber Health is so much more than a transportation platform!

Meet Uber Health

Vince Kuraitis:

Our first question–simply describe Uber Health. What is it, who do you serve, and what are the various value propositions?

Caitlin Donovan:

I’m hoping that most of your readers know and use Uber. Think of Uber as the app that’s on your phone, in your pocket that allows you to request a ride somewhere or a delivery of something to you. Uber Health builds on those core competencies of Uber–the ability to move people, places and things–but takes an approach that allows us to think of many folks in the population as opposed to individuals requesting on their own behalf.

Bazaar

The New Rules of Healthcare Platforms: Platform Thinking Expands from “Technology” to Business Model & Strategy

This entry is part 3 of 4 in the series The New Rules of Healthcare Platforms

by Vince Kuraitis, JD/MBA and Randy Williams, MD

Today in healthcare, platforms are understood mostly as “technology”. That’s not wrong, but it’s limiting. We want to offer you a more expansive view of platforms, and in turn, understand platforms as being more than just technology.

This post is the third in our series on The New Rules of Healthcare Platforms. In this essay, we will:

  • Explain why platform business models are NOT new
  • Share a survey of health plan execs that documents a view of platforms as “technology”
  • Explain how network effects are the North Star of platform business models and strategy
  • Expand your view of platforms beyond just “technology”

Platform Businesses are Not New

Platforms facilitate connections.

While digital technologies have turbocharged platforms, platform business models are not new. Here are some examples:

  • Bazaars, shopping malls, swap meets, auctions: connecting buyers and sellers
  • Magazines, newspapers, broadcast TV, radio: connecting readers, viewers, and listeners with advertisers
  • Credit cards: connecting retailers and cardholders
  • Real estate multiple listing services: connecting sellers and brokers
  • In healthcare, the National Resident Matching Program: connecting medical graduates with residency programs
Platform businesses scale through network effects

The New Rules of Healthcare Platforms: Pipe Scale vs. Platform Scale

This entry is part 2 of 4 in the series The New Rules of Healthcare Platforms

Platform businesses scale differently than traditional businesses. Platforms scale through network effects.

In the previous post, we introduced and described a widely used metaphor: pipes vs. platforms.

  • Traditional businesses are pipes. Their value chains are linear. Value is added at sequential stages before a final product or service is delivered to consumers at the end of the pipeline.
  • Platforms do not produce goods or services themselves—they make connections among stakeholders and facilitate value exchange among those stakeholders. Value is created outside the platform.

Both pipeline businesses and platform businesses strive to achieve scale—but the type of scale they strive for is vastly different. In this post, we’ll explain how pipeline businesses strive for economies of scale (on the supply side) and how platform businesses scale through network effects (on the demand side).

Pipe Scale–Economies of Scale (Supply Side)

In the industrial economy, businesses scaled through traditional economies of scale–higher volumes of output lead to lower costs of production per unit.

Pipes to Platforms

The New Rules of Healthcare Platforms: Value Creation Shifts from Pipes to Platforms

This entry is part 1 of 4 in the series The New Rules of Healthcare Platforms

by Vince Kuraitis and Randy Williams

Value for customers is created differently on platforms than by traditional product/service business models. Today we’ll present and discuss the metaphor of how traditional businesses can be thought of as “pipelines” and how these pipes differ from digital platforms.

A New Series

This post is the first in a new series: “The New Rules of Healthcare Platforms.” We’ll be writing about platform thinking, new mental models, and the new economics of platform business models and strategy. We’ll have at least seven posts to explain these new rules.

You’ll have some unlearning to do. We’ll illustrate how platform business models are fundamentally different than traditional product/service business models. To understand platforms, we need to change more than just our thinking—we need to learn new rules about how the digital world works and how platforms fit in.

From Pipes to Platforms

Traditional product or service businesses can be described as pipelines. Their value chains are linear—see the diagram below. Value is added at sequential stages before a final product or service is delivered to consumers at the end of the pipeline.

portals can't achieve network effects

The Missing Ingredient in Today’s Patient Portals: Network Effects

This entry is part 4 of 4 in the series Patient Portal #FAIL

by Vince Kuraitis and Jody Ranck

As described in the first three posts in this series, today’s patient portals are inherently flawed and doomed to mediocrity. The result is that today’s patient portals cannot achieve a critical mass of adoption and utilization, and therefore portals can’t achieve network effects.

In this post, we will:

  • Summarize key points from the first three posts in this series
  • Explain how today’s patient portals miss out on three types of network effects
  • Explain the implications: why tomorrow’s portals must be reconfigured to achieve network effects

Summarizing

Let’s review some of the key points from the first three posts in this series.

Patients would prefer one portal “home” (from the 1st post in this series):

By definition, today’s portals are NOT patient-centric—they are tethered to individual provider organizations.

Another portal

Today’s Patient Portals CAN NOT Work: Friction ACROSS Portals

This entry is part 3 of 4 in the series Patient Portal #FAIL

by Vince Kuraitis and Jody Ranck

Friction across multiple patient portals dramatically limits their usefulness—there’s no practical way for patients OR providers to reconcile and integrate information and workflow.

This is the third post in our series on patient portals. We’ve used platform terminology and concepts to explain why today’s patient portals are doomed to mediocrity. Let’s recap:

The first post in this series introduced the platform terminology of single-homing vs.multihoming. Patients strongly would prefer to have as few portals as possible — ideally one, i.e., a single “home”.

The second post described the difference between stand-alone value and network value. Today’s patient portals can provide some stand-alone value, but they provide minimal network value.

In this post we’ll discuss the pitfalls of friction across multiple portals. Your mom having seven portals is more than just inconvenient—it’s dangerous.

word-image-5578-1

Big Tech’s Platform Playbook in Healthcare: It’s the Data, Stupid

An excellent journal article provides an in-depth exploration of how Big Tech platforms have entered highly regulated industries such as healthcare and education:

“…the crux of platform entry into highly regulated markets is access to sensitive data.”

The article is entitled “Digital Colonization of Highly Regulated Industries: An Analysis of Big Tech Platforms’ Entry into Health Care and Education“. It was published in the California Management Review on May 24, 2022. The 30 page full-text is available as an open-access .pdf.

The authors researched and analyzed the activities of Google (Alphabet), Apple, Facebook (Meta), Amazon and Microsoft in the U.S. and U.K. Their research revealed over 3,500 articles shedding light on how these companies approached healthcare.

I’ll briefly summarize the article, point out its strengths,  and comment on how the title of “Digital Colonization” misses the mark.

word-image

Today’s Patient Portals CAN NOT Work: An Inability to Capture Network Value

This entry is part 2 of 4 in the series Patient Portal #FAIL

by Vince Kuraitis JD/MBA and Jody Ranck DrPH

Today’s patient portals are a mess. The catchphrase “Your mom has 7 portals for 7 providers” sums up patients’ frustrations and the resulting tepid utilization of portals. Today’s portals CAN NOT capture network value.

The first post in this series introduced the platform terminology of single-homing vs. multihoming. Patients strongly would prefer to have as few portals as possible — ideally one, i.e., a single “home”. However, patients are forced to subscribe to multiple homes since today’s portals are tethered to individual institutions or care providers.

In this post, we’ll introduce the platform terminology of stand-alone vs. network value. Today’s patient portals can provide some stand-alone value, but they provide minimal network value.

In the upcoming third post in the series, we’ll discuss “friction” in today’s portals. In the fourth post, we’ll consider some alternatives; while today’s portals CAN NOT work as configured, we’ll look at some options that could work.

Stand-Alone vs. Network Value

Value is created in different ways for different offerings. Some offerings provide stand-alone value; others provide value through networks and networked data and activities; some provide a combination of these.

Stand-alone value refers to the value provided by an offering that is independent of how the platform is used by others. Network value refers to value created through the activity and usage of others. Network value also refers to network effects or positive feedback loops created through the activities of others.

Let’s use your personal computer as an example to explain the difference between stand-alone vs. network value. Your PC has stand-alone value even when it is not connected to a network such as the internet.