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strategy

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?

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
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.

image

Will Virtual Care Platforms (VCPs) Become Healthcare’s Mega-Platforms?

by Vince Kuraitis and Seth Joseph

Let’s start with a pop quiz. Take 15 seconds to look at the list below, asking yourself the question “What do all these have in common?”

address booksvideo cameraspagerswristwatchesmapsbookstravelgamesflashlightshome telephonescash registersMP3 playersDay timers

alarm clocksanswering machinesThe Yellow Pageswalletskeystransistor radiospersonal digital assistantsdashboard navigation systemsnewspapers and magazinesdirectory assistancetravel and insurance agentsrestaurant guidespocket calculators

The commonality is that all of these were disrupted by smartphones and their operating system (OS) platforms — Google Android and Apple iOS.

Let’s […]

Hoarding Patient Data is a Lousy Business Strategy: 7 Reasons Why

In the video below, Dr. Harlan Krumholz of Yale University School of Medicine capsulizes the rationale of hoarding as business strategy:

We encourage you to take a minute to listen to Dr. Krumholz, but if you’re in a hurry we’ve abstracted the most relevant portions of his comments:

“The leader of a very major healthcare system said this to me confidentially on the phone… ‘why would we want to make it easy for people to get their health data…we want to keep […]

blockchain

Presentation Slides: Strategy & Business Models in Healthcare Blockchains

Here’s a copy of my slides from my keynote presentation at The Healthcare Blockchain Summit in Washington D.C. The presentation is titled:

Blockchains in Healthcare: Transforming Strategy & Business Models?

After reviewing some industry background and analysis of trends, consider 7 key implications:

Beware of “yellow flag” blockchain tech terminology: “could”, “possible”, “promising”.
Digital strategy is different than industrial era business strategy.
IMO, the most likely scenario for blockchain tech in healthcare is slow, steady growth over the next decade. After critical mass […]

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Will Apple’s Strategic Beachhead Be Doctors, Not Patients?

Last week Apple held a huge media event to announce forthcoming products, including the iPhone 6, 6+ and Apple Watch.  Many of us in the healthcare world had been sitting on the edge our seats, hopefully awaiting news detailing Apple’s broader strategy in entering healthcare.  We were disappointed — no mention of Apple HealthKit, no doctors on the main stage, only a few teasers about how the Watch might be used in fitness and health monitoring.

Apple is a consumer technology […]

Is Hospital-Physician Integration Sustainable?

Reprinted courtesy of MCOL.

Perspectives on a Selected Key Topic |     April 2011/May 2011     |   Volume Three Issue Two

Will a material number of hospitals and their core medical […]

Tire Kickers Need Not Apply: 8 First Impressions of the Medicare ACO Rule

On March 31, CMS released the long-awaited “Medicare Shared Savings Program: Accountable Care Organizations” document (ACO Rule). Read the details here (strong suggestion: unless you’re working on your PhD in ACOs, start with the fact sheets).

There are many surprises. Here are eight first impressions on this 429 page tome:

The bar has been set high…very high.  Tire kickers need not apply.
Don’t expect to see many or any small ACOs.
Patients will be confused by ACOs.
Concerns over maintaining competition and avoiding antitrust are […]

The New ACO Rule is Here…The New ACO Rule is Here…and more!

429 p. Proposed ACO Rule

ACO Fact sheet from HHS

Medicare Fact Sheet: What Providers Need to Know

HHS press release

Don Berwick’s article on ACOs in the NEJM

ACO Quality Performance Standards Summary

FTC/DOJ Joint Antitrust Statement on ACOs

TheHill article “Leaked memo reveals Dem strategy for defending healthcare reg”

The leaked memo