A growing number of established health tech companies are outlining a strategy to connect startups to health systems.
The trend was highlighted at the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society’s annual conference in Orlando, Florida, with health tech vendors such as Innovaccer, Royal Philips, GE HealthCare and Epic outlining their strategies to court startups for a platform solution they can sell to health systems.
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By building out platforms that offer multiple startup solutions, these large companies are appealing to health systems overwhelmed with the number of pitches they receive from vendors. These platforms also give big tech vendors a strategic edge, said Abhinav Shashank, co-founder and CEO at healthcare data company Innovaccer.
“Everyone basically says that they have a platform,” Shashank said. “The basic reason why anyone wants to develop on a platform is that they get distribution."
Shashank said many of his company’s health system customers have asked for different technology functionalities it did not offer. As a result, he said the company plans to build out a platform for organizations, either companies or developers, that cover clinical areas from behavioral health to nephrology.
Roy Jakobs, CEO of health tech company Philips, said he was recruiting health IT companies to join its software-as-a-service platform. The aim of this strategy is to focus on specific disease areas like cardiology, neurology and oncology for these partnerships, he said.
“I think it's an opportunity for inorganic [growth], but even more an opportunity for partnerships,” Jakobs said. “The bigger play for our customers is actually do you offer a platform that can seamlessly integrate these health startups.”
Other large health tech vendors like GE HealthCare and Epic are similarly seeking to leverage their respective positions to enhance health system customers’ experiences with interested startups.
It’s not just vendors that are offering solutions catering to health systems’ vendor fatigue. HIMSS debuted a program at the show that pairs select health system buyers with vendors that align with their specific interests.
“Healthcare systems have limited bandwidth. They can only implement so much per year,” said HIMSS CEO Hal Wolf. “If it’s not scalable and relevant…it’s really hard to rationalize trying something new. You can do pilots but how do you turn a pilot into something more?”
Wolf said provider organizations have asked HIMSS to act as a fair broker and neutral third-party between health systems and vendors.
Jen Brooks, vice president of population health and administrative services at Phoenix-based Banner Health, has also noticed the increase of vendors pitching platforms. But despite the uptick in platform solutions, Brooks said vendors should recognize there are limitations and no single vendor can exclusively solve the health system’s needs.
“[Vendors] should stay true to realizing that they don’t have to solve [everything] and it doesn’t have to be soup to nuts [or] end-to-end," Brooks said.
