Value Selling in Healthcare IT

You don’t need to be an industry insider to know there is a tremendous amount of activity/interest in the Healthcare IT market. Companies across the broad spectrum of the IT industry are either actively involved in the HIT space or considering it as a practice option. Obviously, the benefits associated with the ARRA (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009) and HITECH (The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act) programs have spurred much of this interest.

The opportunities stem from incentives for EMR (electonic medical records) implementations and efforts to prove and meet “Meaningful Use” guidelines. This creates what one would think are ideal sales conditions – the IT version of a holiday sales promotion with a set rebate nearly equaling your investment in a home entertainment center or living room furniture!

Unfortunately, no matter how ideal the conditions might seem, there are typically barriers to entry that those unfamiliar with the healthcare technology market underestimate. Unfortunately, things aren’t always as easy as they appear. Even if the rebates dangled in front of doctors, group practices and medical alliances are significant; each decision maker must still understand and appreciate the greater value to their investment. There may be additional costs incurred or other processes that could be automated and included with an implementation project. A solution provider must understand the unique needs of these offices, and be able to provide them support needed to ensure their workflow and compliance issues are addressed.

Let’s not forget that physicians and other medical professionals are in fact business owners—and just like any owner, healthcare providers don’t necessarily spend money just to receive a rebate. There must be a true organizational value for that financial and technological investment. What is the motivator? As with most high volume/high touch businesses, most healthcare practices are comfortable with their current operations (and processes) and any change to the status quo is viewed with skepticism.  

With that in mind, entrants into the healthcare technology space—both new and existing IT firms—must evaluate and potentially retool their value selling skills. Let’s face it, most sales these days involve solutions that answer specific business needs and offer new capabilities to the prospective client. Providers must know more than the office technology requirements; they have to understand the office workflow and know the specific industry requirements of the industry. Then they have to be able to communicate how they can address them properly.      

Within HIT a provider may desire or need a particular specialty focus to succeed, an area that you know inside and out can offer up repeatable/customizable solutions. It may also require a better understanding of the laws and incentive programs, to help your customers get the most for their investment. Overall, we want to help you maintain or gain that trusted advisor status.

The CompTIA Healthcare IT Community recognizes the demands of this market and is actively developing tools and resources that will help solution providers in the HIT space. Experts in the industry will help you recognize, understand and practice “value selling” in this market. This initiative will be rolled out at the Annual Member Meeting in April. It will continue to evolve throughout 2011 as we look for “best practices” to enable the IT channel to best serve the healthcare marketplace, and meet their own business objectives at the same time.

Tim Byrnes is the Healthcare IT Community manager for CompTIA, an experienced technology industry professional, and an avid IT channel advocate. Contact him at [email protected].