GUIDELINES FOR THE GROUP PROJECT: GROUP #2
I. INTRODUCTION
Heroic Faith Medical Science Co., Ltd. is a medical material technology company founded in 2018. It focuses on the development of critical care and respiratory monitoring and
eakthroughs in medical technology. More specifically, the AI real-time respiratory audiometer launched in 2020 “monitors the patient's
eath sounds and detects changes in the lungs and different lung lobes in real-time through a non-invasive assessment method, and converts the monitoring data into visual graphics to facilitate both auditory and visual diagnosis by medical staff. By doing so, medical personnel can more easily identify abnormal sounds and intervene on time for treatment and therapy.” [1] Addressing the global COVID-19 pandemic and the need for remote monitoring and evaluating respiratory function, Heroic-Faith has been able to collect over 500,000
eath sounds from multiple medical centers in Taiwan for labeling and analysis over the last 6-month period [2]. The product has been approved by the Taiwan Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and cu
ently Heroic-Faith is pursuing FDA certification in the United States [1].
In terms of the potential applications, the mobile application that can function on a stand-alone machine is expected to address the increase in demand for non-intubated anesthesia in the surgical market and other issues related to apnea alert, intensive care units, isolation wards, lung sound monitoring system for endoscopic surgery or examinations, pediatric dental surgery for sleep relief and orthopedic surgery [1], [2]. On the other end of the medical care spectrum, Heroic-Faith’s innovation and technology will help to address outpatient respiratory disorders in the shape of a cloud-based respiratory recognition platform for home monitoring.
In terms of the business strategy, Heroic-Faith acknowledges the immense potential for its products worldwide. They have already determined that their first large-scale foreign expansion will be into the North American market. The intention is for the entry to take place in two stages: (1) create a strong presence and establish operations in the U.S. and later (2) expand operation to Canada and Mexico from their regional HQ in the U.S. As part of this project, you will address the questions for all three countries, but should prioritize in terms of efforts the U.S. market to be in line with company’s strategy.
Three different groups will address a variety of client’s questions. Apart from the first question which every group will have to address, the other questions are group-specific.
Two important pieces of the value-adding chain for Heroic Faith are (1) the marketing/promotion of its products/services using the distribution channels (topic for a different group), and (2) product/service valuation and pricing strategy.
With regard to the marketing strategy, the trend for the digital health industry is digital marketing, which with the fast-growing internet and active social media users makes it possible to reach a much larger audience than what was possible through traditional methods. It is, therefore, no surprise that when marketing to digital health stakeholders, a mostly digital approach is most effective [3]. There exist, however, many approaches to choose from and it can be overwhelming to know what to do, especially if you are working with limited resources. Specifically, Account Based Marketing and Inbound Marketing are two important forms for B2B marketing. Whereas the former directs marketing and sales resources to focus on a targeted list of (high value and high probability) customer accounts, the latter attracts customers by creating valuable content and forming connections with the clients. Such strategies are tied to content creation and development [3]. The pandemic has forced many healthcare companies to provide much more content rather than being just sales-oriented [4]. Need for new content became apparent also for B2C companies driven by heavy engagement in digital, virtual events and the need to keep on top of rapidly changing analytics resulting from more people being at home and online [5]
Given the novelty of digital health interventions (DHI), it is challenging to come up with accurate ways of evaluating digital health solutions in terms of their value and subsequently pricing. Digital health ecosystems are expected to improve the administrative efficiency based on lower overhead costs and faster turnaround times [6], but there is a need to develop a new DHI’s value assessment framework, since the quality-adjusted life years (QALY) approach developed for pharmaceuticals hardly applies [7] (see figure below for a depiction of the existing approaches for health digital solution evaluation.)
Companies in the digital health industry need to prove their value and convince the healthcare providers to adopt their solutions, start-up firms even more so. Unfortunately, they find themselves in a vicious circle, since “without evidence healthcare providers would not adopt a solution; without solution adoption it is very difficult to generate evidence to convince healthcare providers” [8]. Research has shown that to demonstrate the value of DHI, it is important to investigate, as a baseline, the cu
ent standard of care (i.e., address the question: What if the digital solution was not available?). Moreover, a focus on the patient’s perspective alone – as it is done traditionally - may lead to an underestimation of the value of DHIs and hence the company should try to quantify the incremental differences it
ings to all its recipients (clinicians, patients, payers, and managers responsible for the organization of healthcare). Further, the value of a DHI depends not only on its technical capacity but also on its successful implementation; its efficiency gains can only be achieved if data generated by DHIs will be incorporated by healthcare professionals in their decision-making processes and its connectivity to other data sources [7].
Existing approaches for health digital solution evaluation, cu
ent methodological gap and emerging innovative pragmatic approaches to fill such gap [8]
QUESTIONS:
1. PART I: MARKET FOR DIGITAL HEALTH
a. Describe the size of the market for digital health (with a special focus on respiratory monitoring) in U.S., Canada, and Mexico
. Who are the main players, i.e. potential competition
c. Who are the main buyers?
d. Describe shortly the main business models typically employed in this industry
2. PART II: THE MARKETING AND COMMUNICATION STRATEGY
a. Discuss the pros and cons for Heroic Faith pursuing Inbound Marketing vs. Account Based Marketing.
. A content strategy focuses on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience. What are some relevant areas for Heroic Faith, in which to develop content?
c. Discuss the pros and cons of different tools of content strategy: infographics, Web content, podcasts, videos, and long form content (e.g., eBooks and in-depth case studies).
3. PART III: VALUATION/PRICING STRATEGY
a. What are the best ways for Heroic Faith to demonstrate the value of its digital health solution compared to the cu
ent standard of care?
. How can Heroic Faith quantify incremental improvements it delivers to all beneficiaries, including patients, clinicians, payers, and healthcare managers?
c. How can Heroic Faith make sure that the data it generates will be accessible by healthcare professionals?
II. TEAM ORGANIZATION
The project work will be undertaken by you in teams of five or six. Each team will choose a team leader who will take responsibility for coordinating the group’s activities, communicating with me and the client, and meeting deadlines. Teamwork tips: frank team (virtual) discussion at the beginning will help you set expectations for all team members in advance and create clear rules before conflict arises, as often does in team work—for example, when a member doesn’t complete his/her part of the project. Try to address problems with team member(s) first, before speaking to the professor; however, do not leave problems too late to resolve. Try to be cooperative, considerate, and understanding of all team members while making sure everyone does their fair share of the work involved in the project.
III. FINAL DELIVERABLES
All written deliverables, including presentation slides (see below), must be sent to me before the due date.
III. 1. WRITTEN REPORT
Your final paper should be around 25 double-spaced pages (12 pt font, 1” margins) in length, excluding tables, figures and bibliography. The paper should have a professional appearance. This means:
· No grammar or spelling e
ors (including foreign names and words).
· Tables, graphs and exhibits should have a title and give source of data, and should be referenced in the text of the report. All references used in the report should be listed in an appendix, in a common format (e.g., MLA).
· All pages (except the cover, if you include one) should be numbered, double spaced, with margins of 1 inch (1”) all around, and 12-pitch font. Sections, paragraphs, and other subdivisions of the report should be clearly marked.
Citation convention: Plagiarism will result in severe penalty, which may be up an ‘F’ on the project or result in an inquiry as designated in the Student Handbook. A list of all material used should be provided under ‘Bibliography.’ Books and articles used must have name of author(s), title, publisher, year, name of journal, volume and page numbers, as the case may be. Websites used should be cited with full URL and date accessed. Any ve
atim use of material (a phrase/sentence or more) should be within quotation marks in the text and the name of the author and page number given at the end of the sentence in parenthesis. Data should indicate source.
III. 2. PRESENTATION
You will also orally present the key results of your work in a live session and in front of the faculty and the representatives of the firm. The presentation will last around 15 minutes, plus 5 minutes for questions. The presentation should have a professional appearance. This means:
· No grammar or spelling e
ors (including foreign names and words).
· Tables, graphs and exhibits should have a title and give source of data.
· All slides (except the cover slide) should be numbered.
· Avoid cramming too much text in one slide.
· Presenters should speak loudly and avoid simply reading from the slides.
IV. GRADING
As spelled out in the syllabus, the group project accounts for 25% of your grade and I will grade your performance in terms of the written project (max. 20 points), presentation (max. 3 points), and peer evaluation (max. 2 points).
REFERENCES
[1] https:
heroic-faith.com/?page_id=3733&lang=en
[2] https:
www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/heroic-faith-raised-nt-1-2-billion-for-covid-19-unprecedented-need-of-remote-patient-monitoring XXXXXXXXXXhtml
[3] https:
cdn2.hubspot.net/hubfs/2889306/The%20Ultimate%20Overview%20to%20Digital%20Health%20Marketing.pdf?__hstc= XXXXXXXXXX3e25cf1f85cf3ae40398e3711f390cc XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX&__hssc= XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX&__hsfp=4053557&hsCtaTracking=a4a33f40-532b-450a-8b30-00fb45907f60%7C9bceff44-123b-4062-89fd-be99fbf5ca2f
[4] https:
contentmarketinginstitute.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/B2B_2022_Research.pdf
[5] https:
contentmarketinginstitute.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01
2c-research-report-2021.pdf
[6] https:
healthcare.mckinsey.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Digital-health-ecosystems-a-payer-perspective.pdf
[7] Kolasa, K., & Kozinski, G XXXXXXXXXXHow to value digital health interventions? A systematic literature review. International journal of environmental research and public health, 17(6), 2119.
[8] Guo, C., Ashrafian, H., Ghafur, S., Fontana, G., Gardner, C.,