G2 Communications Inc.-Medical Practice Marketing

We help physicians recruit, retrain & refer

  • WHO we are
  • WHAT we do
    • Healthcare Case Studies
    • Healthcare Clients
  • WHY choose us
  • WHERE we are
  • HOW to learn more
  • Blog

Mar 04 2014

Kate Schafer’s HIPAA programming guide for mhealth engineers

Most of us are familiar with HIPAA, the law that requires healthcare providers, insurance companies, health plans, etc., aka covered entities (CEs), to protect the privacy of patients’ health information. The law has been around since 1996.  But last year the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) made sweeping changes to HIPAA.

Under the Final Omnibus Rule, a new set of provisions have been laid out that strengthen the HIPAA Privacy, Security and Enforcement rules for protecting patient health information. Some of the updated HIPAA Privacy Rule applies to business associates (BAs), the companies that provide services to CEs, which typically involves handling patient information.

Previously a BA was only required to sign an agreement assuring that it would safeguard patient health information on behalf of a CE.  But as of September 2013, both CEs and BAs became liable under the Omnibus Rule and are now subject to HIPAA audits which are about to ramp up.  And the definition of BA has expanded to include organizations that merely store or transmit patient data, even if they don’t touch it. CEs and BAs in violation of patient privacy rules could face stiff penalties.

Meet Kate Schafer, founder of Innovative Healthcare IT.  I met Kate at a recent Health 2.0 Silicon Valley Meetup.  A room full of developers looked at the latest batch of mobile health apps designed to help us lead healthier lives.  That’s the good news.  But if they’re getting their hands on patient information and not following HIPAA rules in the process they may be shut down before they say “click on our icon.”

That’s where Kate comes in.  She brings startups the trifecta of security technology, product development, and regulatory compliance with a focus on HIPAA, and advises them on building security and encryption layers into their platforms.  I asked Kate to tell me what she does and why healthcare startups should care.

Tell me about your work and the services you provide to startups?

I have a long and varied background in technology and product development, combined with regulatory compliance and a focus on HIPPA.  It’s that technical foundation that really resonates with potential clients and convinces them to work with me.  There are numerous audit firms that can do what I do – most coming from the financial industry – but they don’t really provide healthcare startup support. I offer a “let’s roll up our sleeves and get it done” service where I work together with each client to craft a compliance strategy that works for their staff and for their budget.  I can help healthcare startups get from prototype to industrial strength and scalable, and I make myself available for ad hoc questions any time a former client needs advice.

Companies come to me at various stages. A lot of my clients are just starting their first pilot.  The product may have been developed offshore and they’re trying to bring it in-house.  Or they may have just signed up a healthcare provider or a hospital for a pilot of the product, and their customer is asking for assurance of HIPAA compliance.

By law, healthcare providers must ensure that anyone who handles protected health information on their behalf (a business associate) complies with HIPAA before sharing any patient data with them, so non-compliance is a deal-breaker for these startups.  That’s when they call me.

 

What is the primary sector of healthcare that your startup clients are creating solutions for?

There’s a range, but most recently the startups I’m seeing have a focus on the communications between providers and patients, particularly pre-op and post-op or at some other transition of care.  For example, apps that focus on maintaining communications during recovery from surgery.  The patient will go home with information they can access from their smartphone or tablet.  These apps enable two-way communication, with metrics on rehab going back to the healthcare provider.  Secure telemedicine enables real time feedback.  Surveys and questionnaires provide feedback on the patient’s experience and can be fed into the product enhancement loop.

I’ve also got clients doing research and analytics on population health data and clients using mobile devices for healthcare decision-making.  Those apps often also need to be FDA compliant.  I also have clients from the VC community who are looking for an assessment of the security and/or compliance risk profile of a startup they’re considering investing in.

I don’t work with a lot of “quantified health” firms.  Often people assume that quantified self apps (where an individual chooses to store their protected health information on their smartphone, for example) need to be HIPAA compliant but that is not the case.  Healthcare providers must comply with HIPAA; individuals may do whatever they want with their personal health information.  For some of these applications the patient is collecting information they might give to their doctor.  But the doctors don’t always know what to do with it, may not trust it, or may not want it because they just don’t have the bandwidth to deal with it.  This has created a new market for companies that can solve this problem with data aggregators and other solutions.

At what stage do healthcare startups typically bring you in for consulting?

When the startup is ready to recruit beta testers and pilot sites that’s where I come in.  At that point if they haven’t already thought about security and HIPAA compliance, they are behind the 8-ball.  At that point I can provide a range of services from a simple assessment of compliance gaps to a full remediation project that gets the startup fully compliant.  I interview all the stakeholders and we talk about the big picture. I look at the technology stack, which refers to everything from the hardware up – all hardware and software components.

I look at all the security layers and identify where they could do better.  On top of the pure security aspect, HIPAA requires documented policies that describe how each HIPAA requirement has been met. Most startups are far from having the volume of documentation required to meet HIPAA compliance.

What are the biggest challenges or obstacles facing your startup clients?

They are resource constrained and tend to focus on product development and getting pilots lined up, rather than security.  They don’t have people on staff who understand compliance, so it gets handed off to somebody who’s already got a full plate.  Getting compliant is a big job, and staying compliant is a lot of ongoing work. Without dedicated resources and support from the top, it’s a real challenge.

How do you see the gap between your clients’ innovative technology and adoption by providers and payers (if they’re targeting insurance companies too)?

There are different challenges.  If you’re developing a product for use in hospitals it can be an uphill battle, particularly if the product needs to integrate with the hospital’s EHR.  Hospital IT teams are necessarily risk averse and often not up to date on cutting edge technologies.  They’re not entrepreneurial, so there can be a culture conflict.  But it’s not rocket science to integrate with an EHR.  I would say the challenges in working with hospitals are more bureaucratic than they are technical.

Working with clinics and smaller practices has its own challenges.  These folks have tight budgets and no cushion. If your product doesn’t save time – or worse, takes time – it will be a tough sell.  If implementation takes time away from providing care, it’s costing the practice money. Your product may improve care but if it makes a simple clinical step complicated and time-consuming it’s going to be a tough decision for them to adopt it.  It’s very hard to justify a product that may provide huge long-term benefits if it cuts into today’s bottom line.

Image:  Kate Schafer – provided by Kate Schafer

Written by Laura R. · Categorized: Healthcare PR, Medical Device PR, Medical PR, Other, Uncategorized · Tagged: applications, BAs, CEs, compliance, health, healthcare, HIPAA, hospital, innovation, mobile, start up, startup

Mar 06 2013

When Startups Need a PR Jumpstart

Startups face an entirely different set of marketing challenges than big brands and established companies. Risk-taking entrepreneurs have no problem putting their savings on the line, working around the clock, and pitching hard-nosed venture capitalists. But slogging through that first year without seeing their company name in print? Relying on social media and grassroots promotional techniques? No marketing budget? That would scare most of us.

It’s no wonder I was recently approached by several healthcare startups who wanted to be introduced to my journalist contacts. These founders are lucky enough to be part of a prestigious program, mentored by CEOs and venture capitalists who, from to time introduce them to potential investors. It’s only natural to expect journalist contacts as well.

But a list of press contacts is hard to come by and hard won.  Sharing them with fledgling company founders who want their stories spread across the media landscape may yield more risks than rewards when reaching out to a harried journalist.  Here’s why…

1. It’s our intellectual property

Relationships with the press are what give PR professionals their value. We’ve worked from the ground up, established a history of story pitches, on behalf of clients, that helped journalists meet the needs of their audiences.  We’ve earned their trust and good will. There’s never a guarantee they’ll run with our company news or story proposals but our contacts will likely give us “a hearing.”

2. I want to respect (and protect) my contacts

Journalists today are bombarded with pitches. The Internet has made it easy for anyone to find an editor’s email address, copy and paste a press release into an email, and hit send. This could end up wasting a journalist’s precious time that is already compressed by the latest job requirements: tweeting, blogging, and moderating comments, in addition to reporting and writing stories.

Founders not necessarily trained in marketing may start blindly pitching a PR pro’s contacts and erode the trust we’ve worked so hard to build. And it may not produce the intended outcome, which leads me to my final reason…

3. It’s in the founders’ best interests

With a list of journalists in hand, the almost irresistible temptation is to start pitching en mass. It makes sense: they need to start generating buzz yesterday to attract investors and partners in the early stages, and they’re busy. No matter how exciting their story is—a medical Smartphone app that removes the need for an annual checkup, or a pioneering heath IT product—without some knowledge of media relations they may not achieve the desired outcome, at best.  Worst case scenario: a negative reaction from the journalist that ends up being tweeted to thousands of followers.

Mostly importantly, given the time it takes to get responses from journalists, in view of the pressure to crank out 4 to 6 stories a day, news media consolidation, news staff layoffs, exponential increase in digital news platforms, social media and the endless appetite for fresh content, startups could be inventing their next products!  The amount of sheer persistence to reach reporters will only take away from getting products to market.

So where does that leave startups? Are they condemned to build a PR presence from nothing? Get a team of interns to run a marketing campaign? Not quite. While marketing strategies are as varied and unique as the products and services they’re selling, startups can minimize risk, streamline their PR campaigns, and get journalists to pay attention.

How to Pitch From Scratch: A Crash Course for Startups

1. Develop your story

Develop your key news and human interest stories. That means identifying not only what the stories are, but what makes them stories at all. In other words, articulating the problem you’re trying to solve with your solution; crafting the hook, plot, conflict, characters, point of view, and newsworthy features that make journalists take note.

2. Find relevant contacts

Find out which journalists already cover topics in your field, and who reach your target audiences. Follow them; retweet their tweets, comment on their articles. Find journalists who reach investors, physicians, patients, or all three? If you do the research first, you can put more energy where it counts.

3. Write a thought leadership piece

Research magazines in your industry and propose an article that describes the problem with your product as the implicit solution.

4. Think long-term

You don’t need quick hits. You need a sustained PR campaign that is relevant to your business goals. Each story we craft and pitch will tie in to the long-haul growth of your business and market. I can help you strategize a PR campaign now that will become a launching point for the next one.

 

Written by Laura R. · Categorized: Public Relations, Uncategorized · Tagged: brands, healthcare, social media, startup, startups

Oct 17 2012

The PR Honeymoon is Over… Now What?

You’ve just completed a successful PR launch for a new medical device that yields faster post-operative recovery for cardiac surgery patients, the clinical trial results have been published in a medical journal and the FDA has approved it for safety and efficacy.  Health and science journalists from top media outlets thought it was unique enough to cover.  The articles have been very respectable by startup standards.

Investors are delighted and all 20 employees are singing your praises.  You’ve had lots to tweet about and post on the company Facebook page and the retweets and comments are rolling in.

But eventually the PR bloom will fall off the rose and the board will be expecting the next wave of coverage.  Customers are not quite ready to go on record, nor are surgeons who are trying out the product.  What do you do?

While you have focused on generating broad coverage with great success the second wave of brand building requires a new PR strategy to sustain momentum.  It’s the right time to narrow your PR focus to reach your target customers – the surgeons who will push their hospitals for acquire your device; the patients who will benefit; the investors who see a healthy ROI.  Identify the publications, blogs and other digital destinations where surgeons and post op nursing staff get their medical news and information.  Set up specific PR programs to penetrate this second tier media: trade publications, medical journals, blogs, etc.

First, research healthcare and medical publications read by your customers. Check out the magazine editorial calendars which schedule feature stories throughout the year to drive advertising spending.  Identify the topics related to your device.  Set up a spreadsheet and populate with those publications and topics.  Pitch your new device and how it shortens patient recovery times in unique ways.  Invite the editor – or assigned writer to interview your company founder.

Develop a thought leadership program for company clinical executives by proposing and ghostwriting articles for those same publications, which are often looking for content, especially for their websites.  These articles help position executives as experts who articulate the problem your device solves — but doesn’t shamelessly promote it.

Don’t forget to post and Tweet all PR driven content on Facebook and Twitter.  Reshape these articles into blog posts, or add an introductory paragraph with a link to your published article.

Start a speakers’ bureau and arrange for speaking engagements at medical conferences and tradeshows where you’ll be exhibiting your product.

Find opportunities to announce the latest company news [following the initial product introduction]: a new round of funding; new customer; new executive hire; results of a clinical trial; etc.

Set up a mini PR program for new customers with a news release template that lets them announce the benefits of your product to the communities they serve and how they’re securing post-op safety for their cardiac patients.

Develop a story around the company founder for the business media; who she is; what inspired her to create a solution; her unique journey that led to the invention of the device.

Set up Google alerts on cardiology or cardiac surgery. Use headline news stories as angles to introduce your company to the media; pitch the founder as a guest for a radio talk show.

The honeymoon will end at some point so don’t ignore the myriad ways you can use PR to promote your company’s accomplishments.

 

Written by Laura R. · Categorized: Public Relations, Uncategorized · Tagged: articles, coverage, executives, facebook, health, healthcare, journalists, media, medical device, PR, startup, Twitter

sgordon@g2comm.com
(480) 685-3252 (office)
(650) 248-6975 (mobile)

Copyright © 2021 — G2 Communications Inc.-Medical Practice Marketing • All rights reserved •