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Getting Cross-Industry Collaborations Right, Part 1: A Transactions Perspective

Healthcare is facing an age of disruption from new market entrants and players outside the traditional healthcare paradigm. Unexpected partnerships are bringing fresh solutions to market and changing how business is done and care is delivered.

Many of these new partnerships are arising in conjunction with innovation investments by hospitals and health systems (HHSs). HHSs have always been a source of significant innovation through research and other avenues, but traditionally this work has been largely decentralized. Today, HHSs are formalizing their innovation efforts and finding ways to capitalize on those opportunities—which are abundant, thanks to HHSs’ physician workforce, research infrastructure, and access to patients and their data. These centralized innovation incubators make it easier for non-traditional players, such as tech companies, to pool resources with an HHS and bring game-changing solutions to market in an expedited fashion.

Whether they occur through an innovation center, cross-industry ventures in the healthcare sphere are still in their infancy. As such, they pose a number of challenges that require careful planning and a flexible mindset.

Vet Your Opportunities Thoroughly

In today’s push for value-driven transformation, HHSs and other health industry stakeholders have hundreds if not thousands of opportunities for partnerships knocking on their door. Diverse players, from tech vendors to start-ups to private equity firms, are queuing up for a chance to participate in the burgeoning health sector.

Faced with these abundant—and often novel—opportunities, HHSs have the task of sorting through their options and developing an efficient process to vet, select and pursue them. Too many choices is a good problem to have, but HHSs nonetheless face challenges as they determine the best way to triage potential partnerships and ventures. Key infrastructure components at HHSs include education of and buy-in by governing board, development of investment guidelines that align with mission, and building the innovation structure and team (often with contributors who come from outside of “traditional healthcare”). Once that infrastructure has been established, the HHS will be able to evaluate and pursue innovative ventures better and faster, in turn bringing solutions to market and to patients more quickly.

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Vetting Relationships for Telemedicine Collaborations

As the telemedicine regulatory and reimbursement environment becomes more cohesive and providers and patients alike embrace technology, opportunities for telemedicine collaborations are likely to grow. Like any collaboration, finding the right partner is crucial for success, particularly at the highly-scrutinized intersection of healthcare and technology. This post explores the factors to address when evaluating service providers and vendors for your next telemedicine collaboration.

Service Provider Evaluation

  • Ask around “town” – What is the collaborator’s reputation? What independent feedback is provided in references?
  • Determine if the service provider’s stage in the organizational “life-cycle” and its affiliated relationships are the best fit for the strategic goals of your partnership (e.g. should you partner with an early-stage company or a longstanding organization?)
  • Assess the capabilities of potential collaboration partners for meeting your organization needs, and pressure test their ability to come up with back-up options, should the need arise throughout the course of the collaboration.
  • Determine whether collaborator has state specific and service specific policies and procedures governing the provision of telemedicine services, including: (more…)



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