One of the biggest challenges for entrepreneurs new to healthcare is the lengthy sales cycle that typifies the sector. The time-consuming process of healthcare vendors figuring out the best person or group to champion their business at a health system at the right time can be deadly for startups. But one business believes it may have cracked the sales cycle conundrum with a platform that combines a social network with a marketplace similar to market networks such as Houzz for home design and HoneyBook for the event planning industry.
Lucro CEO Bruce Brandes spoke with MedCity News at the Health 2.0 conference this week to explain his company’s approach. He noted that the inspiration for the company came from a need articulated by heath systems. But he also pointed out that startups need to be in a position where they can be discovered in a timely manner by hospitals that need their services. He described the platform as containing elements of Pinterest, LinkedIn, and Eharmony.
Each vendor creates a solution card that highlights in a concise way their service and what it can do for healthcare providers. Health systems define their priorities in an idea board that Brandes likened to Pinterest, which highlights the problems they want to solve. Health systems can privately connect with health vendors and invite them to join their network.
The company’s backers include Health Insight Capital — HCA’s investment arm , Heritage Group and Martin Ventures.
About a dozen health systems took part in the initial Beta when the Nashville-based business launched in November last year, and Lucro plans to add 50 more users as the Beta period continues.
A Deep-dive Into Specialty Pharma
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
Although he emphasized that Lucro isn’t a lead generation service, Brandes said it could help level the playing field for smaller health vendors to help them to gain access to health systems. He added that his company’s service could save health systems a lot of time that is currently spent doing homework on the vendors before they communicate with them.
Brandes said that another challenge large health systems face is communicating the success one hospital has with a vendor to other hospitals in the group so there’s system-wide adoption. Having a platform like Lucro could make it easier to help quantify the effectiveness of those vendors and help health systems better understand what they have in their arsenals, although it doesn’t seem like a panacea for improving the ongoing challenge of effective system-wide communication between hospitals.
“Health systems don’t have the luxury of meeting with all these companies to hear pitches,” said Brandes. “We need to find ways to accelerate health innovation.”
Photo: Lucro
