MedCity Influencers, Policy, Startups

Digital Health startups should raise awareness of health issues, not flaunt tech

The most successful digital health companies will have a strong, realistic mission that focuses on a targeted customer base and will focus their marketing message not on technology, but on bringing awareness to the health issue and motivating people to solve it.

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Saving lives is an honorable vocation. Whether you’re a paramedic on the front lines, a doctor or nurse in the ER, or even a tech company providing an app or service to help people suffering from health problems, you’re all on the same team.

Digital health is increasingly becoming a big part of that team. It accounted for $76.7 billion in revenue in 2015 globally and has an expected compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 21.0% until 2022, according to Report Buyer.

Legacy health organizations like Cedars-Sinai are opening up tech accelerators to help spur industry growth and according to StartupHealth.com, $8 billion was invested into 500 digital health startups in 2016. Startup Health’s experts reported that startups that received the most investment were “examples of companies with bold visions.”

This is important because while early stage digital health companies must focus on growth and fundraising, the way to bring about the most change and save lives is having a strong mission and raising awareness about the health issue your company is tackling.

Here are some key takeaways for digital health startups to effectively market their companies and bring about real change in the world.

The Mission

Successful digital health companies make their mission their North Star. A strong mission not only motivates and focuses everyone on the team when curve balls are hurled at them, it also inspires potential customers who may need your product or service.

The Human Health Project is an example of a company with an exciting mission. It aims to be a global map to link any health problem to its possible causes. It does this by harnessing data from its online community — it’s an ambitious goal that many people can get behind.

Nevertheless, digital health companies should be wary of missions that are too lofty. Bill Gates is backed by enough capital to set the towering goal of ending world poverty by 2030, but most startups won’t have the resources to be so ambitious, at least not initially.

Make your digital health startup’s mission grand, but realistic. Aim for a goal that can be achieved in five to ten years and one that focuses on a particular target group instead of a broad customer base.

BrainCheck, an iOS app that tracks brain health, is a great example that aims to help people more quickly identify concussion symptoms. They have zeroed in on youth sports as a market that could potentially benefit from this technology and their founder, Dr. David Eagleman and CEO Yael Katz, regularly write and speak about the importance of early detection for concussions.

Lastly, it’s paramount that your company’s mission is focused on solving a health-related problem, not just becoming a billion-dollar company. What’s more, the problem should be the focal point when marketing to your potential customers.

Building Awareness of the Problem Builds Awareness for your Company

There’s no point in having a strong mission if no-one knows about it. Initiatives around the world have sought to highlight certain health problems. Special holidays such as Rare Disease Day (February 28) and World Malaria Day (April 25), help bring attention to illnesses. Then there are online health forums like ProMed and TravelMed which “exemplify unprecedented potential for increasing public awareness on public health issues,” according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

However, many barriers to health issue awareness still exist around the world. According to a report published in the Global Heart Journal a few years back about rheumatic heart disease (RHD), “The level of awareness of ARF/RHD is low in the communities most affected by it.”

Barriers such as lack of political and financial will, lack of information in local languages and a lack of understanding of the culture have led to the vast majority of clinicians — 87% in a study from Tanzania — feeling that “their patients and families were unaware of the consequences of untreated GAS infection,” which, commonly referred to as “strep throat,” is a precursor to RHD.

In light of this, your job as a digital health startup is to bring awareness to the health issue your company is solving.

Do not bother communicating to the public the sophisticated algorithms or techy backend that allows your product to function. If people aren’t aware that they are at risk for a health issue, they’ll never seek out your product to remedy it.

Individual case studies help people relate on a personal level to your product. For example, in a particularly heart-warming case study, a son’s stethoscope app saved his mother’s life. Sharing these types of stories with media and potential customers makes the problem more relatable and shows them what to do if it happens to them.

Perhaps the most infamous example of creating awareness for illnesses are the “godfathers” of the overactive bladder, Alan Wein and Paul Abrams, who helped balloon the market size of incontinence medication. Through building awareness, they helped the industry rake in $3 billion in sales in 2015 simply by penning papers partially based on a marketing survey from drug company Pharmacia that claimed some 33 million US residents could be affected by overactive bladder.

While the ethics in this particular case are more than questionable, it shows how building awareness is the key to success. Digital health startups should seek to bring the issues they are solving to light, in an ethical, straightforward way.

If you can raise awareness of a health problem and how to fix it (whether people use your product or not), then your company is making a difference.

The Skeleton Key to Marketing a Digital Health Company

California-based Ekso Bionics, a company that makes robotic exoskeletons, has a mission to “help people rethink current physical limitations and achieve the remarkable.” Although they recently released a new product line geared toward industrial workers, one of their core products, Ekso GT, has helped patients suffering paralysis in their lower limbs in over 130 rehabilitation facilities around the globe.

In 2014, it was widely reported that an Ekso user who had been paralyzed in a boating accident was able to stand upright during his wedding ceremony and more recently, it was reported that an Army reservist paralyzed by an IED blast in Afghanistan was given a SoldierSuit, which uses Ekso technology.

Ekso Bionics is a great example of a company with a clear user base, an exciting and focused mission and one that has used heartwarming case studies to connect with potential beneficiaries of its product.

Most all digital health startups are aiming to positively change the world and with an exit rate that has doubled since 2012, there are more opportunities than ever for digital health startups to be triumphant. However, the most successful companies will have a strong, realistic mission that focuses on a targeted customer base and will focus their marketing message not on technology, but on bringing awareness to the health issue and motivating people to solve it.

[Photo Credit: Stethoscope on Keyboard from Big Stock Photo]


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Erik de Heus

Erik de Heus is the CEO of leading skin cancer app SkinVision.

This post appears through the MedCity Influencers program. Anyone can publish their perspective on business and innovation in healthcare on MedCity News through MedCity Influencers. Click here to find out how.

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