19 Recent Healthcare Tech Start-Ups Attract Instant Consumer Appeal, Black Book Survey
Providers and payers are confronting consumers’ newfound expectations of medical convenience, efficiency, and innovative technologies. Those demands are forcing healthcare delivery to be envisioned differently to drive and retain patient volumes. Nineteen recently-funded companies captured the approval of nationwide health consumers in a review of over two hundred start-ups for their potential to deliver in the advent of healthcare consumerism.
Black Book (@blackbookpolls) surveyed 650 health consumers through panel partners in Q2 2018. The mean age of respondents was 37.2 years. 44% of survey participants identified themselves as among the Millennial generation or younger.
92% of healthcare consumers surveyed say that improving customer experience should be a top strategic priority for medical providers over the next twelve months, increasing from 71% last year.
“Despite healthcare becoming more digital and available to consumers, provider organizations still have far to go when it comes to embedding new consumer-centric technology,” said Doug Brown, Founder of Black Book.
Consumers report a confidence that advanced technology is available in Q3 2018 to engage them with digital provider tools (93%), as well as offer a variety of virtual access points (85%), online scheduling (97%), online payment options (92%), and/or provide price transparency (94%). However, only 9% of the collective providers reported the ability to offer these consumer demands successfully in a Black Book Q4 2017 survey of hospitals and physicians.
90% of patients no longer feel obligated to stay with healthcare providers that don’t deliver an overall satisfactory digital experience. 88% of respondents under age 40 state they will choose their next medical provider based on a strong online presence.
For their next healthcare purchase, 83% of consumers polled will seek providers that offer four fundamental technologies in demand: digital scheduling, online payment options, portal and engagement capabilities, and results reporting tools.
Black Book’s 2011-2016 marketplace study demonstrated that 77% of all new healthcare products failed. Lack of relevance, lack of distinction, inappropriate pricing and jumbled messaging all factor into a brand’s fight to differentiate between consumers and buyers when launching a new healthcare technology product.
“The ultimate judgment of new health IT products falls to consumers and providers, who, ironically, are often absent from the development process,” said Brown. “That development stage stands the greatest chance of generating transformative ideas early on before the brand has made a significant investment.”
In 2018, Black Book sought out panels of healthcare consumers and presented a diverse range of technologies funded and/or launched in the past twelve months and asked, which application or solutions (from a one sentence product description) would: (1) have immediate demand from them as an active consumer (meaning they had used or interacted with a healthcare technology, product or service within the last six months); (2) would most likely drive an improvement in their healthcare status, choices or delivery in the next six months; (3) is highly innovative and/or disruptive for the healthcare industry, and (4) has immediate value to them.
An alphabetical directory of 210 healthcare consumer-oriented products from companies which each received investor funding in the past twelve months was provided panel members. Black Book culled the products and services that piqued the highest current application curiosity and demand. Each of the nineteen vendors received an average score of 9.0 out of 10.0 across four product capabilities or features.
“Consumer health information technology continues to be one of the top-funded value propositions for global investors,” said Brown.
Digital health startups raised an all-time high of $11.5 billion in 2017.
Each of the nineteen vendors received an average score of 9.0 out of 10.0 across four measurements:
The 19 startups include:
98Point6 – Chat-based Telemedicine
Able To – Online Behavioral Health Support
Amino – Patient/Doctor Matching
Blink Health – Online tool to find the lowest Rx pricing
Carbon Health – Virtual Health Clinic
CirrusMD – Virtual Health Visits
Conversa – Patient/Caregiver Communications
Day Two – Personal Laboratory Analyses
EverlyWell – Online Lab Testing
Kry – App-based Telemedicine
Lemonaid Health – Text-based Telemedicine
Medisafe – Personalized Medication Management
PatientPoint – Engagement & Education Platform
Phil – Rx Filling & Delivery
Policy Genius – Health Insurance Shopping Tool
Practo – Provider locator & matching
Protenus – Patient data protection
Push Doctor – Virtual Visits
Solv Health – Urgent Care Visit Scheduling
Visit Pay – Payment planning & processing
About Black Book
Black Book Market Research LLC, its founder, management and staff do not own or hold any financial interest in any of the vendors covered and encompassed in the surveys it conducts. Black Book reports the results of the collected satisfaction and client experience rankings in publication and to media prior to vendor notification of rating results and does not solicit vendor participation fees, review fees, inclusion or briefing charges, and/or vendor collaboration as Black Book polls vendors’ clients.
In 2009, Black Book began polling the client experience of now over 590,000 healthcare software and services users. Black Book expanded its survey prowess and reputation of independent, unbiased crowd-sourced surveying to IT and health records professionals, physician practice administrators, nurses, financial leaders, executives and hospital information technology managers.
For Black Book vendor satisfaction rating methodology, auditing, resources, comprehensive research and ranking data see the Black Book Market Research website.
