Podcast
From Disparate to Actionable Data — The Anatomy of Consumer Engagement
Mitch Holdwick
Director of Consumer Transformation, Innovacer
On this episode of Healthcare Market Matrix, host John Farkas sits down with Mitch Holdwick, Director of Consumer Transformation at Innovaccer, the number one platform for value-based care that unifies patient data across systems and care settings, and empowers healthcare organizations with scalable, modern applications that improve clinical, financial, operational, and experimental outcomes. With over fourteen years of experience with a healthcare marketing focus, Mitch has an honest approach to consumer engagement strategies and has successfully led teams working to drive volume with business and service line priorities. Throughout the episode, John and Mitch discuss how Innovaccer is unifying patient records and patient data and how Innovaccer is marketing in the health systems.
Show Notes
(1:12) Introducing Mitch Holdwick and Innovaccer
(8:30) The Unification of Patient Records and Patient Data
(16:21) Rediscovering the Joy of Medicine
(18:18) How Innovaccer is Marketing in the Health Systems
(23:02) Delineating between Target Markets
(31:33) Measuring Success with Proactive Engagement Strategies
(37:21) Customer Relationships and Engagement Initiatives
(50:15) Innovaccer’s Newer Products and Offerings
(54:06) Closing Thoughts
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Transcript
Introducing Mitch Holdwick
John Farkas:
Greetings everyone, and welcome to Healthcare Market Matrix. I’m your host, John Farkas, and joining me in the Ratio Studios is Mitch Holdwick, and Mitch and I are going to spend some time today exploring the realm of consumer engagement in healthcare. And Mitch comes at that honestly. He spent more than 14 years with healthcare marketing focus and CRM and consumer engagement strategies with an underscore in the patient acquisition universe. And he’s led teams working to drive volume with ROI specific to business and service line priorities, and so a lot of pertinent conversations in today’s realm that we can have around that.
He worked as the Director of Marketing and Director of Consumer Engagement at Trinity Health for a while, and they’re an enterprise-level health system in the Michigan area, where he helped drive growth and improve engagement and access. And so he also has briefly spent some time working in a digital health and technology company in the product marketing realm, and right now, he leads consumer transformation efforts for Innovaccer, which is a company I know a number of our listeners are very familiar with, and I’m eager to learn more about his work there. So Mitch, welcome to Healthcare Market Matrix.
Mitch Holdwick:
Thank you so much, John. A pleasure to be here.
John Farkas:
So Mitch, tell us a little bit about your journey, how you got from into this realm, because let’s face it, this isn’t a normal, it’s not something that a kid wakes up after college and just says, “I really want to jump into the healthcare data universe.” What has that meant for you?
Mitch Holdwick:
Yeah, it’s a great question. You’re right. It was not a linear path for me, as I’m sure it has not been for many of your listeners and supporters. But as you mentioned, spent most of my career, roughly 14 years, on the hospital health system side at Trinity, and I really started out as a marketing specialist, kind of worked my way up as a manager into a director role, and kind of found my sweet spot professionally in the realm and space of digital marketing CRM. I became really interested with technology and how things work and how we can really leverage those solutions to better serve our patients and community members.
But the last two years of my time at Trinity, actually was thrust into a role right at the beginning of the pandemic. And I know all your listeners can appreciate this, literally the beginning of the pandemic, we had on the heels of an Epic go-live, and the call center that I was going to be supporting had just acquired a fifth hospital. So operationally speaking, it was a lot of complexity, a lot of nuances going on.
John Farkas:
A lot of converging factors.
Mitch Holdwick:
Yes, yes, but it really forced me to learn a lot about the operations side and how operations and technology work together with people. And it kind of heightened my awareness and passion, not just for digital marketing and acquisition, but overall consumer engagement. And so it was, I would say, two of the most challenging, but equally if not more rewarding, years of my career, having the opportunity to serve with and support a call center and all the agents, in addition to my work in digital marketing.
So transitioning from that, I had an opportunity to take a leap into the dark side, as they say, on the vendor side, where I got even a little more broad as it related to digital health and the technology that supports all of that. And really just kind of recognizing the undeniable momentum that we are continuing to see in the industry, and there’s so many opportunities if you’re willing to take some risks and take a jump, which is what I did. And that has opened me up to a whole new world of the product side. But really where my passions lie is trying to take everything I’ve learned from the hospital health system side and now help others across multiple organizations. And that’s the role I’m currently sitting at with Innovaccer as their Director of Consumer Transformation.
John Farkas:
So help us. So lots there, obviously. I’m curious about what are some of the things that you saw, especially in those last couple of years, as you talked about, that being a particularly impactful time, what some of the things that you saw clearly emerging with Trinity that helped spur your interest, underscore the importance? What were some of those practical factors that you were seeing take shape that made that more front and center in your world?
Mitch Holdwick:
Yeah. Honestly, it was just the challenge of really understanding how technology works from an end user’s perspective. So I supported agents, roughly 15 to 20 agents, in a highly nuanced call center that required a lot of different technologies and platforms for them to do their jobs. And it’s hard, it’s really challenging to maintain overall call performance while also keeping an eye on opportunities to improve technology, improve overall patient and consumer experience. But I think it was really just that challenge of seeing firsthand how end users of products and solutions work and how I can help to make that a better experience for them.
John Farkas:
That’s great. Give us a little backdrop on Innovaccer. Tell us what the company does for the folks who are not familiar with the organization.
Mitch Holdwick:
So Innovaccer, and I’ve been here close to eight months now, between seven and eight months, a company that’s very much dedicated to data management for hospitals and health systems, primarily and historically on the value-based care population health side, but in the last two to three years, have built out an end-to-end CRM solution and suite of applications specific for healthcare hospitals and health systems. That’s kind of where I fit into the company.
The Unification of Patient Records and Patient Data
John Farkas:
Am I right in thinking a lot of that mission and what they’re working toward is the unification of patient records and patient data, just bringing that all together?
Mitch Holdwick:
Exactly, exactly. And that’s really what kind of inspired me, John, to come to Innovaccer was a company that is truly dedicated at its core in its DNA to getting that piece right, bringing together disparate data sources into one record that can be actionable, that can really help care managers, marketers, all healthcare professionals better serve patients and community members.
John Farkas:
Yeah, because so often, clinicians are working with partial datasets that are not reflecting the full picture and relying on the patient’s ability to fill in those gaps, which we all know, and especially in more acute scenarios, is not an easy thing to do. So getting that information lined out really, really well and consistently is certainly a big part of what I understand the mission of the organization being and is so important right now and continues to be a challenge that the whole interoperability equation is working to help master at some level.
So knowing your backdrop, I’m fascinated with the whole move and some of the dynamics that are involved right now in the move toward the understanding of needing, for traditional health systems to look at the people that they serve as consumers and what that is, means, and looks like. What does it take for a healthcare organization to, what do they need to be from a cultural perspective to impact that kind of transformation or that kind of movement? What are some of the things that really need to be in place?
Mitch Holdwick:
Change management is such a key piece to that, John. I think there’s inevitably a lot of operational and otherwise disjointedness as we continue to move towards this notion of systemness. And I think there’s varying levels of how that is happening right now across the industry, but that ultimately creates an environment where folks feel comfortable coming together.
And I use the word comfortable because I think that’s really important. It requires sometimes a lot of uncomfortable conversations when you’ve got people in marketing versus finance versus operations versus clinical informatics, talking together, speaking different languages, having been historically siloed in their areas for a number of reasons. You talked about data. Disparate data sources is a big part of that. Using different technologies, leveraging different data sources has created some of that disjointedness. So I think to answer your question, that’s really where it starts is trying to find ways to come together and just start talking. We all have common goals. How do we work on that together?
John Farkas:
Yeah, and it’s never easy for an organization to confront a gap, because it’s pin the tail on the gap is the game that a lot of people end up playing in those scenarios, and you can’t afford to do that, especially when the call is as urgent as it is right now with health systems needing to very quickly and effectively address the consumer opportunities that exist in their organizations.
So what I know, and anytime we’re going to talk about consumer engagement, the conversation very quickly turns to technology because we’re talking about communication of a lot of things to a lot of people. We can’t build call centers and staff call centers that big, let alone afford it, it has to involve automation and it has to involve a robust tech stack. And what were some of the things that you were employing in the context of Trinity into what end, and what did that look like?
Mitch Holdwick:
Yeah, so CRM was a big part. So our customer relationship management platform and solution was used primarily for a lot of patient acquisition campaigns and strategies, but it also spilled into the contact center or call center as kind of that conduit, a way to bridge the gap in between marketing and the call center. So that was a big piece of what I worked on. Also, of course, the ecosystem and tech stack associated with the call center in terms of a telephony platform. Agent councils, a lot of that I learned that ultimately allows agents and customer care reps to serve patients and community members. Those are the two biggest pieces of technologies or platforms that I was involved with. And the challenge, having come from the marketing world into operations and into the call center, was how to bridge the gap between those two worlds to help not only manage daily call volume for your basic call needs, but also to help at a more sophisticated level engage with community members specific to campaigns and other initiatives.
John Farkas:
And so what were some of the conversations and some of the technology that was beginning to get a foothold? What were some of the innovations that you all were looking at in that realm?
Mitch Holdwick:
One of the areas, it’s still a nut that I’m trying to crack, and I think a lot of your listeners probably are to an extent, is not only bridging the gap between call centers and marketing, but in the clinical space, finding ways to seamlessly transition folks to a nurse navigator, for example. If there’s an initiative around lung cancer, how do you empower an agent or a customer care rep to guide somebody through a conversation that has concerns for lung cancer, sticking with that as an example, as far as you can go until they may potentially qualify for different services? How do you operationalize a way to get them connected to that navigator, to that clinical member of your organization to help them get the services they need?
Which in other industries, probably seems really simple, but in healthcare, as you know and as many of your listeners know, that’s really, really difficult. But it’s something we’ve got to figure out, and that’s an area, to answer your question, where we were moving towards what felt like a very innovative thing from a process perspective and a workflow perspective, but transparently, we didn’t quite get there, and that’s an area that I think we’re all continuing to work towards.
Rediscovering the Joy of Medicine
John Farkas:
Gotcha. So knowing that you were looking at those elements and staring at some of that horizon, what were some of the factors that led you to the move to Innovaccer? What did you see as compelling on that side of the equation that you wanted to help make happen?
Mitch Holdwick:
Yeah. I’ll kind of go back to one of our founders, Kanav, he’s our chief product officer, and he talks about, and does it much better than I do, but rediscovering the joy of medicine, and I think about that a lot. It’s kind of a rallying cry for us at Innovaccer and what we really try to do for customers, and that resonates with me quite a bit, having spent the majority of my career on that side, because as we all know, the pandemic took its toll on not just providers and physicians and clinicians, but healthcare professionals as a whole.
The agents that I served with in the call center, things got really hard and are continuing to be difficult, but I feel like we are at this point now where technology’s at a place, there’s so much focus on consumer engagement that we’re starting to see some movement that’s helping not only create better experiences for our patients and our community members, but again, helping people rediscover the joy. Because you don’t work in healthcare for giggles. You do it because you love what you do, and you kind of embrace the chaos, but that’s what motivates me.
John Farkas:
Or at least tolerate it.
Mitch Holdwick:
Or tolerate it. Right. But every now and then, you see examples of where people are starting to rediscover that joy and that keeps me going. If I can help our customers do that, that fills my bucket every day.
How Innovaccer Is Marketing in Health Systems
John Farkas:
Yeah, absolutely. So how is Innovaccer approaching making that inroad? What does it look like, marketing in the health systems? What are some of the things and some of the messages and ideas that you guys are pulling forward in and around this engagement realm and the consumer realm? How are you having that conversation?
Mitch Holdwick:
Yeah. It’s like a broken record, but I think it’s important that it goes back to data, knowing we put so much emphasis on getting that part right. As you mentioned and articulated well at the beginning, bringing together different data sources into one record to allow our customers to take action. And that is a real differentiator for us and where, historically, marketers and other professionals in healthcare have kind of looked at data as this black box where you don’t know what you don’t know, where we like to think we’ve created an approach and a practice to data management where that becomes fully transparent and allows customers to understand their own data in a meaningful way. So that it’s not always going to answer all the questions, but it’ll help you ask the right questions.
John Farkas:
No doubt, no doubt. As you guys are looking at engaging with those organizations from the Innovaccer side and combining that with some of your direct experience on the provider side, what are some of the obstacles you’ve experienced in integrating new technologies, new platforms that end up causing challenges? Or what are some of the things that you would want organizations to know coming into a health system, and how are you helping Innovaccer ease that process?
Mitch Holdwick:
Yeah, that’s a great question. And honestly, I think it’s always good to celebrate success but also learn from failures. And one of my, not personal failures, but at Trinity, we recognized pretty quickly that we had a missed opportunity as it related to integrating the technology that was used to support agents with some of those marketing initiatives, that we didn’t have our end users, our agents or customer care-ops, really at the table from the onset to help understand and have that-
John Farkas:
The actual anatomy of things.
Mitch Holdwick:
Yeah, exactly, exactly.
John Farkas:
What’s actually happening on the ground.
Mitch Holdwick:
Right, right. And I think that’s a really common missed step. Going back to the idea of the joy of medicine, it’s hard to find joy in your work when the tools you have don’t work the way they’re supposed to work or the way that you need them to work. So that’s one aspect, I think, is making sure your end users are at the table from the onset, have them involved as much as you can possibly have them involved, number one, to create some ownership, but also to get the product where it needs to be. So that’s one piece, and we certainly practice that or encourage that with our customers at Innovaccer as we go through implementation.
But the other piece, too, John, is really understanding the tech stack and ecosystem and being able to visualize what that looks like. And as you know, listeners know as well, that’s really complicated. If you were to put it on a whiteboard, it looks like kind of a mess, but understand what that mess is and where this new piece of technology fits in and how it actually integrates. And a very specific story I can think of, hearkening back to the Trinity days when we had the call center, we recognized that the council the agents were using wasn’t integrated with the new solution. So we had to create a middleware, which is like a band-aid, solution to fix that. And I know that’s a very specific example, but that-
John Farkas:
But not an uncommon one [inaudible 00:22:59] happen.
Mitch Holdwick:
[inaudible 00:22:59] Yeah. Those are the two things I would think of.
Delineating between Target Markets
John Farkas:
Yeah, great points. When you look at the process of what I know is part of what Innovaccer is enabling is better, cleaner patient data, and clean data is certainly an important part when we’re looking at segmenting and understanding who it is that we’re talking to and working to engage. How do you see segmentation and how has this delineation evolved based on the specific target markets that you’re concentrating on?
Mitch Holdwick:
So I kind of go back to Trinity first, because a lot of those principles apply to what we do at Innovaccer within CRM and the customers that we work with. So there are a number of ways. The most common in terms of developing a delineation between those types is using different clinical propensity models. So taking your existing data and using propensity models to understand people that are most likely in need of knee surgery or may be in need of weight-loss options. And it’s not always perfect, but it helps you kind of go after the unknown, so to speak, the folks within your primary secondary service areas and maybe raising their hand in need of services. It helps you kind of understand who they are and how to target them accordingly. So that’s one way to delineate between those groups.
And within those groups, of course, you’ve got folks that are actively engaged with your health system, those that maybe haven’t engaged in a while and could be less active, and some that are unknown. They may be looking to establish care, or they may be working with multiple competitors in your region, and there are attributes of their profile that can surface that up so that you can market to them accordingly.
John Farkas:
In the context of your role at Innovaccer, who are some of the personas and the folks on the health system end that you’re most frequently finding yourself working with?
Mitch Holdwick:
So I think of it as, at the highest level, you’ve got buyers, which could be the chief level, so CIOs, chief consumer officers, chief marketing officers. But you also have, equally as important, the influencers of those buyers, so those would be maybe directors, managers in marketing, knowing that CRM is a big focus for me. So those are kind of at the high level how we kind of group up those two personas.
Who I deal with and who we deal with most commonly I’d say would be the influencers, so the folks that are going to be either using the technology or managing the teams that use the technology, because we want to make sure it’s a good fit, that our solutions, our applications, our approach aligns with their thought process but also will ultimately work with their teams on a day-to-day basis.
John Farkas:
In my experience, the influencers are often the black sheep. They’re not necessarily folks that people are spending a whole lot of time, effort, and energy in treating, and I see that as a pretty consistent mistake. Talk a little bit about how you differentiate there and what types of things you’re doing to engage in the context of the influencer space as opposed to the more traditional buyer personas.
Mitch Holdwick:
Yeah, I like that. That’s a really good term, the black sheep. That very much kind of fits that persona. But our-
John Farkas:
Or at least the forgotten sheep.
Mitch Holdwick:
The forgotten sheep. Yeah, exactly. Honestly, I think a big part of it is knowing that these are not the buyers per se, helping them have a voice because inevitably these are a lot of folks that are very passionate about the work they do, sometimes obsessive in a good way. You look at any healthcare organization that has a successful marketing team or whatever that function is, it always stems from somebody that has that kind of unwavering commitment and obsession.
So finding ways, rather than selling to them, give them a voice, doing what you’re doing, providing this amazing platform for people to talk about what gets them excited. Because number one, you’re going to learn a lot. Approaching that with curiosity helps you individually and, in turn, helps them feel better about the work that they do. And if you have solutions and services that could serve them, then you are empowering them to have those conversations internally. Nothing’s more powerful than that. It needs to come from internal folks within your stakeholders.
John Farkas:
I really couldn’t agree more, and it really, to me, is becoming an increasingly important framework, because what I know is we interview a number of CIOs on Healthcare Market Matrix, because they’re one of the primary buyers, and none of them have got time, none of them do. None of them sit around, going, “Wonder what I should consider today?” Their list is long, the competition for their time is fierce, and who they decide, especially from an outside perspective, who they decide to listen to is really, really carefully relegated.
And what I also know, because I would say that this is very common in the CIO role from my experience also, is the people that have that position are usually extremely empathetic and very tuned-in to the people that report under them, because they’re all in this pretty difficult challenge together, and I’ve been really impressed across the board with the folks that we’ve talked to about how well-tuned they are to the anatomy and the challenges of their organizations.
So it just makes sense to spend some time cultivating relationships and equipping the influencers to tell your story extremely well. Because if you can do that, if you can help them become your advocate in a world where you’ve got a CIO who truly is desiring to figure this equation out and meet the needs of an organization, that voice is the best voice. If it’s coming from a sincere direct report, who has found something that they’re passionate about and can tell a story that is meeting one of their needs, boy, that seems like a really well-positioned opportunity.
Mitch Holdwick:
Yeah, I agree. And I think, too, just to kind of add on to that, it shows at the CIO chief level, C-suite level, somebody that’s willing to spend time like that, I think, with their team means a lot. They see the benefit and value in doing that, not only to give them a voice, but to learn from them, and it just creates more of that relationship as you evolve from just a transactional type engagement, so it makes sense.
Measuring Success with Proactive Engagement Strategies
John Farkas:
Yeah, no doubt. So what I know is that right now, to foster stronger patient relationships, the healthcare industries really shifting away from what we’re talking about, I mean the traditional engagement methods. We’re not seeing the kind of billboards we used to see. Billboards are no longer our primary strategy of healthcare systems, and if they are, we have a problem. So putting greater emphasis on proactive engagement strategies. So let’s talk about how to measure success there and what you’ve seen. How would you recommend that healthcare technology companies think about messaging these types of strategies and to the systems they partner with? And we’ll start with acquisition. What does that look like?
Mitch Holdwick:
Yeah. You mentioned evolving from billboards, and we still see billboards, which is crazy.
John Farkas:
There still are billboards still, and we see how many minutes do you have to wait in the ER. Those still exist in our little community.
Mitch Holdwick:
Yes, yes. So it is a challenge, but within acquisition, I think, and your point is well stated, how do we get past or get more proactive? So using data, we’ve got, as mentioned, access to so much data, but how do we take some of the key pieces of that data to help understand what that next, we talk about next best action. That’s a term used quite a bit, but I think it lends itself to acquisition well, because it’s anticipating what the next need could be, whether that’s in the conversation with an agent in a call center or for campaigns and different communication tactics that are designed to help understand what that might be. So it’s really showing what that next best action could be in helping community members take action on that.
So that comes to mind right away as it relates to acquisition. And then other areas, too, more in the population health element, but how do we reduce ED admissions and recognizing cohorts of patients within your hospital or health system that may have a propensity towards that and acting accordingly?
John Farkas:
How about in the context of retention? When we’re looking toward identity-based engagement, and how can healthcare technology companies, how should they be thinking about designing data to help accelerate retention strategies for healthcare companies?
Mitch Holdwick:
I always start with, “Show me that you know me,” and it’s so hard to get to that level of one-to-one personalization, but we have to keep moving in that direction. The data is there to do that, but the challenge is surfacing and serving up elements of that data that will help empower our customers to demonstrate that. Very quickly, we talk about the most common is somebody that’s due for an annual well visit, “Looks like you are, it’s been over a couple of years. Would you like me to help you get that scheduled for you?” Again, sounds very simple in other industries. That is a challenge in healthcare, but a very feasible way to show folks that you know them, create that one-to-one personalization, and ultimately retain your patients. So I think it’s really that piece of personalization.
John Farkas:
That makes sense and is going to be an increasingly critical component and expected component as some of the bigs continue to enter the space with gusto, and they already know a whole lot about us.
Mitch Holdwick:
Exactly.
John Farkas:
That feels like they’re living with us. That’s because they kind of are. They know what’s in our houses, they know what our buying habits are, and that’s a lot of powerful data.
Mitch Holdwick:
We used to say, and you’ll probably appreciate this, it’s kind of along those lines with that mindset, reminding our customers, our marketers, that we’re not selling shoes. So we have to use the principles, the technologies in the context of healthcare. Don’t be creepy. Just show me that you know me.
John Farkas:
Yep, that’s good. How about in context of leakage? How should solution providers be regarding that?
Mitch Holdwick:
Yeah. Claims data is a big piece to that, I think, that will help identify where there is existing leakage so that you can act accordingly. That can be a scary thing for a lot of folks. It was for me, just because there are so many different clearinghouses and companies that are …
John Farkas:
Selling that data.
Mitch Holdwick:
… housing and selling it, and it’s rich data, but what do you do with that? But I’m seeing a lot of emerging solutions dashboards that are taking that data and making it visual, making it actionable so that you can clearly see where that leakage is occurring and start asking some of those important questions.
Customer Relationships and Engagement Initiatives
John Farkas:
Yeah, that’s good. Clearly, data is one of the most powerful assets that a healthcare system has in its possession, and how it leverages that is really critical. And I think that as a vendor, showing that you understand that and are a good steward of that is really important. But what strategy or initiatives do you see being front and center around that when we’re talking about how we are improving customer relationships and engagement? What are some of the things that we are looking at as a whole organization around treating data as a strategic asset?
Mitch Holdwick:
Yeah. You’ve got to lead with data. And again, a lot of the folks and the customers that I work with are in the marketing consumer engagement space, and historically, that’s been lacking from the story, but starting with data creates a level of objectivity that takes the emotion out. And there’s so much emotion in healthcare, especially going back to our earlier points around this movement towards systemness. But it’s kind of limping towards systemness, and through that, there’s some challenges, and there’s a lot of feelings and a lot of emotions. But data kind of takes that away and allows us to work on a common platform and a common playing field because it’s hard to argue with data. But it’s also important to know that it’s not always going to give you all the answers. It’s going to help you ask the right questions.
So those are some of the pieces, John, that we work on with, and it is so important. I think this is a great topic around developing a practice around the technology. It’s not just about the technology, but how do you really develop a practice and empower customers to articulate the value through data, keeping data at the forefront of those conversations?
And honestly, data’s fun. I’m not even a data guy per se, I’m not a data scientist, but when you find ways to use data to kind of tell your story and to validate what you do, it’s going back to that idea of rediscovering the joy of medicine. It creates joy. It’s a fun thing when you learn how to use it the right way.
John Farkas:
It’s one of the things that I just am always puzzled at, and I’m sure that from my naive perspective, I am missing a big part of the complexities associated with this. But we work with a number of platform companies, and I’ve been exposed to a number of platform companies that have just amazing access to amazing troves of powerful data around different engagement patterns, around different identified things that could be really meaningful. And it’s been interesting to me to look at how many technology companies put their solution forward and their solution has just all this phenomenal perspective and insight around opportunities around data, and they are not planning to leverage that intelligently.
I look at these organizations and what they have to do, the opportunities they have across their client base to identify benchmarking, to identify trend analysis. It doesn’t have to be identified data, it’s just trend analysis and what kind of level of insight that could provide their customers if they could say, “Hey, across our platform, here are things that we’re seeing that are going to be clear indicators of X, Y, Z.” And they don’t have that as a prioritization, and I just look at it and go, “What an incredible value potential.”
But they just let it sit there in the process of … And like I said, I’m sure that I have a very naive perspective on what that takes to do, but it sure seems like if you stuck data scientists on it, they could come up with a very compelling product addition that could provide great value to their customers that wouldn’t mess up anybody’s compliance agreements.
Mitch Holdwick:
Yeah, agreed. And also, it’s a good point of how we need to be more transparent for the greater good. There’s that opportunity as well. Of course, we all have business goals and objectives and needs that are unique to our areas of work, but there’s also a greater good that I think we can all focus on. I think that’s kind of what you’re hitting on. There’s ways that we can achieve both.
John Farkas:
Yes, no doubt about it. So let’s pull back a little bit. Because you’ve looked at life from both sides now, if you could share with a health tech company a piece of advice, knowing that you’ve sat on both sides and knowing that you’ve experienced some of the wins and the shortfalls with some of the organizations that you’ve worked with, what’s a piece of advice that you’d put forward that might be helpful to a company marketing solutions into the healthcare space?
Mitch Holdwick:
Yeah, I think a lot of it is trying to solve real problems, rather than making more problems.
John Farkas:
That would go into the obvious fundamentals that are so often ignored, yes.
Mitch Holdwick:
It’s so true. But I think that the challenge of solving real problems, as it takes a certain level of, I don’t know if it’s vulnerability or curiosity …
John Farkas:
Humility.
Mitch Holdwick:
… humility to understand what those, and they could be super small, they could be very specific things, but your ability to either solve problems or work towards solving those problems goes a long way in developing trust and rapport in the spirit of a true partnership. So my recommendation is trying to find those real problems.
John Farkas:
Yeah, it’s such a phenomenal thing to watch happen. We have a process that we work through with our clients where we’re working to unearth the real problems that people in their market are facing. And we do it through a workshop process with their stakeholders and sometimes some outside experts coming in. And we list problems faced that are in any way related to their products directly or their offering. And we just put up the primary problems that real people in the real world are really facing every day. And we list those out and we put them in priority order, and priority is determined by urgency combined with willingness to pay to solve. Because at the end of the day, those are pretty important factors.
And it’s amazing to me, Mitch, how often that is an incredibly revelatory conversation. What we see is they’ll confront that problem list, and they’ll look at the top two or three problems and say, “So help me understand why we only have a 50% solution for that, and we’re down here on problem number 9, 10, and 11, spending a bunch of development cycles solving for these problems that are pretty far down the list when we could reallocate those efforts to creating a 100% solution for our number one, two, and three problem?” And it’s just because they’re looking at what the technology can do as opposed to what the market actually needs and will pay for.
Mitch Holdwick:
Interesting.
John Farkas:
And it’s an easy thing when you’re focused on technology solving problems to run after the problem that avails itself after the last conversation you had with a leader or something like that, and it becomes a priority, even though that leader of that particular health system that you happen to be talking to has a little bit of an esoteric problem that yes, you can solve, but it’s not going to be a market mover.
And so doing the work of really, like you said, Mitch, just doing the work of really understanding what the real problems are is critical. And we continue to hear from a number of folks on the buyer side that you’ve got to do that work, you’ve got to get into their world and understand what’s really going on in their particular scenario and speak to that, be informed and speak to that directly. Don’t just come in with your blanket and expect to cover their feet with it. You may not be able to.
Mitch Holdwick:
Yep, that’s right.
John Farkas:
It’s a tricky scenario, for sure.
Mitch Holdwick:
It’s a great example.
John Farkas:
Putting your provider hat back on again, when you were in that seat, where were you learning about new innovations? What were some of the channels that you were living in and that were effectively reaching you?
Mitch Holdwick:
Yeah, and I’m sure I wasn’t alone in this regard, but traveling budgets are very thin if they exist at all.
John Farkas:
And they are getting cut.
Mitch Holdwick:
Yeah. So when I could, I would say my top three conferences, HCIC, which is Health Care Internet Conference, SHSMD, I think most listeners are familiar with that, and then HMPS are the three top marketing technology …
John Farkas:
Consumer-focused, yeah.
Mitch Holdwick:
… consumer-focused conferences. So I would glean a lot either from going or getting access to sessions. And then aside from that, just a lot of podcasts. I love podcasts. I love learning. So being active on LinkedIn, understanding where there’s content to glean from and other thought leaders to learn from. So that’s our two biggest areas, I’d say, for me.
John Farkas:
Yeah. So going the other direction, what things annoyed you? What were things that you were seeing happen that you’re just going, “Oh, come on.” What were some of your pet peeves?
Mitch Holdwick:
Gosh, I think it’s more, I guess, it kind of goes back to, and I loved your example of how you really surface-up real problems and spending time to develop relationships, the opposite of that is cold calls or cold emails or cold messages on LinkedIn when somebody doesn’t know you, but they’re pushing a product, and it just doesn’t work. It doesn’t work, and it’s kind of shocking that it still happens more than it should. To me, that’s the biggest annoying thing.
John Farkas:
Yeah, I hear that pretty frequently. As I mentioned, you’ve got to show up and you got to know and have done your work. I think that it keeps being increasingly underscored and stuff I’m aware of that those more account-based movements and how we get information about a particular health system that we can then figure out how to create campaigns that would target specific needs and be relevant seems really increasingly important.
Mitch Holdwick:
Great.
Innovaccer’s Newer Products and Offerings
John Farkas:
Well, that’s some great points there. What is on Innovaccer’s front burner right now? What are some of the things that you are involved with that you’re excited about and bringing forward that we can be looking for?
Mitch Holdwick:
Yeah. Well, I mean the big focus for me, CRM, as I mentioned, is still one of our newer products and offerings, but having a chance to really understand it deeply from a product perspective, I’m so excited about bringing this, continuing to bring this into market as it continues to mature, helping other marketers and healthcare professionals understand the benefit of a CRM within a data company that historically is rooted in value-based care and population health management. It’s a really unique blend of those worlds. So I think that’s really at the forefront for me, John, is just continuing to find our existing customers, help them find success, but also introduce these solutions to others as well where there’s a fit.
John Farkas:
That’s awesome, and at the end of the day, all these things are determined to help make the lives of providers, the folks who are on the front lines, making things happen, be able to do their jobs better and more effectively because they’re working with the right people and the right audiences and the right understanding of who they are.
Mitch Holdwick:
Exactly.
John Farkas:
And that ends up being such a critical component. So just winding up here, first of all, I’d just like to say, Mitch, thank you for joining us today and offering your perspectives on this. Just want to make a blanket invitation to our audience, any feedback, topic suggestions, ideas you have bouncing off of this for future episodes. That’s actually how Mitch found us. He had some feedback or some thoughts he wanted to offer, and we started a conversation. But that would be great. Mitch, where can our listeners follow you and understand more about what’s going on with you?
Mitch Holdwick:
Yeah, and again, thank you for having me on. This has been a pleasure. And folks can find me on LinkedIn, very active. I am on Twitter or X, as they say now at MCH110. It feels weird.
John Farkas:
As they reluctantly say.
Mitch Holdwick:
Admittedly, I will say it, I would say that the Twitter X space is my half-and-half of work and my personal endeavors and sports and other things, so fair warning there. Linkedin, I’m all in on work stuff, but I really, really love interacting, so please reach out. I love having conversations, learning from others. That’s the best way for me to grow and hopefully to help others do the same.
John Farkas:
Well, and Mitch, I’ll just say, too, I really appreciate you setting aside your football allegiance to spend some time. As a fan of the Maze and Gold, talking to a fan of the Scarlet and Gray, one of the great rivalries, but you handled it really well, and I appreciate that.
Mitch Holdwick:
See? We can get along, John. Who knew?
John Farkas:
That’s right, that’s right.
Mitch Holdwick:
Wolverines and Buckeyes can get along. There’s that, too.
John Farkas:
We’re all people.
Mitch Holdwick:
That’s right.
John Farkas:
That’s right. Well, thanks a lot, Mitch. Appreciate you joining us here today on Healthcare Market Matrix.
Mitch Holdwick:
My pleasure. Thanks, John.
Closing Thoughts
Outro:
Healthcare Market Matrix is a Ratio original podcast. If you enjoyed today’s episode, then jump over to healthcaremarketmatrix.com and subscribe. And we’d really appreciate your support in the form of a five-star rating on your favorite podcast platform. It does make a difference. Also, while you’re there, you can become a part of the Healthcare Market Matrix community and get access to courses and content that’s created just for you by signing up for Insights Squared, a monthly newsletter dedicated to bringing you the latest health tech marketing insights right to your inbox.
Ratio is an award-winning marketing agency headquartered in the Nashville, Tennessee. We operate at the intersection of brand and growth marketing to equip companies with strategies to create meaningful connections with the healthcare market and ultimately drive growth. Want to know more? Go to goratio.com. That’s G-O-R-A-T-I-O.com. And we’ll see you at Noon Central next week for an all new episode from our team at Ratio Studios. Stay healthy.
Transcript (custom)
Introducing Mitch Holdwick
John Farkas:
Greetings everyone, and welcome to Healthcare Market Matrix. I’m your host, John Farkas, and joining me in the Ratio Studios is Mitch Holdwick, and Mitch and I are going to spend some time today exploring the realm of consumer engagement in healthcare. And Mitch comes at that honestly. He spent more than 14 years with healthcare marketing focus and CRM and consumer engagement strategies with an underscore in the patient acquisition universe. And he’s led teams working to drive volume with ROI specific to business and service line priorities, and so a lot of pertinent conversations in today’s realm that we can have around that.
He worked as the Director of Marketing and Director of Consumer Engagement at Trinity Health for a while, and they’re an enterprise-level health system in the Michigan area, where he helped drive growth and improve engagement and access. And so he also has briefly spent some time working in a digital health and technology company in the product marketing realm, and right now, he leads consumer transformation efforts for Innovaccer, which is a company I know a number of our listeners are very familiar with, and I’m eager to learn more about his work there. So Mitch, welcome to Healthcare Market Matrix.
Mitch Holdwick:
Thank you so much, John. A pleasure to be here.
John Farkas:
So Mitch, tell us a little bit about your journey, how you got from into this realm, because let’s face it, this isn’t a normal, it’s not something that a kid wakes up after college and just says, “I really want to jump into the healthcare data universe.” What has that meant for you?
Mitch Holdwick:
Yeah, it’s a great question. You’re right. It was not a linear path for me, as I’m sure it has not been for many of your listeners and supporters. But as you mentioned, spent most of my career, roughly 14 years, on the hospital health system side at Trinity, and I really started out as a marketing specialist, kind of worked my way up as a manager into a director role, and kind of found my sweet spot professionally in the realm and space of digital marketing CRM. I became really interested with technology and how things work and how we can really leverage those solutions to better serve our patients and community members.
But the last two years of my time at Trinity, actually was thrust into a role right at the beginning of the pandemic. And I know all your listeners can appreciate this, literally the beginning of the pandemic, we had on the heels of an Epic go-live, and the call center that I was going to be supporting had just acquired a fifth hospital. So operationally speaking, it was a lot of complexity, a lot of nuances going on.
John Farkas:
A lot of converging factors.
Mitch Holdwick:
Yes, yes, but it really forced me to learn a lot about the operations side and how operations and technology work together with people. And it kind of heightened my awareness and passion, not just for digital marketing and acquisition, but overall consumer engagement. And so it was, I would say, two of the most challenging, but equally if not more rewarding, years of my career, having the opportunity to serve with and support a call center and all the agents, in addition to my work in digital marketing.
So transitioning from that, I had an opportunity to take a leap into the dark side, as they say, on the vendor side, where I got even a little more broad as it related to digital health and the technology that supports all of that. And really just kind of recognizing the undeniable momentum that we are continuing to see in the industry, and there’s so many opportunities if you’re willing to take some risks and take a jump, which is what I did. And that has opened me up to a whole new world of the product side. But really where my passions lie is trying to take everything I’ve learned from the hospital health system side and now help others across multiple organizations. And that’s the role I’m currently sitting at with Innovaccer as their Director of Consumer Transformation.
John Farkas:
So help us. So lots there, obviously. I’m curious about what are some of the things that you saw, especially in those last couple of years, as you talked about, that being a particularly impactful time, what some of the things that you saw clearly emerging with Trinity that helped spur your interest, underscore the importance? What were some of those practical factors that you were seeing take shape that made that more front and center in your world?
Mitch Holdwick:
Yeah. Honestly, it was just the challenge of really understanding how technology works from an end user’s perspective. So I supported agents, roughly 15 to 20 agents, in a highly nuanced call center that required a lot of different technologies and platforms for them to do their jobs. And it’s hard, it’s really challenging to maintain overall call performance while also keeping an eye on opportunities to improve technology, improve overall patient and consumer experience. But I think it was really just that challenge of seeing firsthand how end users of products and solutions work and how I can help to make that a better experience for them.
John Farkas:
That’s great. Give us a little backdrop on Innovaccer. Tell us what the company does for the folks who are not familiar with the organization.
Mitch Holdwick:
So Innovaccer, and I’ve been here close to eight months now, between seven and eight months, a company that’s very much dedicated to data management for hospitals and health systems, primarily and historically on the value-based care population health side, but in the last two to three years, have built out an end-to-end CRM solution and suite of applications specific for healthcare hospitals and health systems. That’s kind of where I fit into the company.
The Unification of Patient Records and Patient Data
John Farkas:
Am I right in thinking a lot of that mission and what they’re working toward is the unification of patient records and patient data, just bringing that all together?
Mitch Holdwick:
Exactly, exactly. And that’s really what kind of inspired me, John, to come to Innovaccer was a company that is truly dedicated at its core in its DNA to getting that piece right, bringing together disparate data sources into one record that can be actionable, that can really help care managers, marketers, all healthcare professionals better serve patients and community members.
John Farkas:
Yeah, because so often, clinicians are working with partial datasets that are not reflecting the full picture and relying on the patient’s ability to fill in those gaps, which we all know, and especially in more acute scenarios, is not an easy thing to do. So getting that information lined out really, really well and consistently is certainly a big part of what I understand the mission of the organization being and is so important right now and continues to be a challenge that the whole interoperability equation is working to help master at some level.
So knowing your backdrop, I’m fascinated with the whole move and some of the dynamics that are involved right now in the move toward the understanding of needing, for traditional health systems to look at the people that they serve as consumers and what that is, means, and looks like. What does it take for a healthcare organization to, what do they need to be from a cultural perspective to impact that kind of transformation or that kind of movement? What are some of the things that really need to be in place?
Mitch Holdwick:
Change management is such a key piece to that, John. I think there’s inevitably a lot of operational and otherwise disjointedness as we continue to move towards this notion of systemness. And I think there’s varying levels of how that is happening right now across the industry, but that ultimately creates an environment where folks feel comfortable coming together.
And I use the word comfortable because I think that’s really important. It requires sometimes a lot of uncomfortable conversations when you’ve got people in marketing versus finance versus operations versus clinical informatics, talking together, speaking different languages, having been historically siloed in their areas for a number of reasons. You talked about data. Disparate data sources is a big part of that. Using different technologies, leveraging different data sources has created some of that disjointedness. So I think to answer your question, that’s really where it starts is trying to find ways to come together and just start talking. We all have common goals. How do we work on that together?
John Farkas:
Yeah, and it’s never easy for an organization to confront a gap, because it’s pin the tail on the gap is the game that a lot of people end up playing in those scenarios, and you can’t afford to do that, especially when the call is as urgent as it is right now with health systems needing to very quickly and effectively address the consumer opportunities that exist in their organizations.
So what I know, and anytime we’re going to talk about consumer engagement, the conversation very quickly turns to technology because we’re talking about communication of a lot of things to a lot of people. We can’t build call centers and staff call centers that big, let alone afford it, it has to involve automation and it has to involve a robust tech stack. And what were some of the things that you were employing in the context of Trinity into what end, and what did that look like?
Mitch Holdwick:
Yeah, so CRM was a big part. So our customer relationship management platform and solution was used primarily for a lot of patient acquisition campaigns and strategies, but it also spilled into the contact center or call center as kind of that conduit, a way to bridge the gap in between marketing and the call center. So that was a big piece of what I worked on. Also, of course, the ecosystem and tech stack associated with the call center in terms of a telephony platform. Agent councils, a lot of that I learned that ultimately allows agents and customer care reps to serve patients and community members. Those are the two biggest pieces of technologies or platforms that I was involved with. And the challenge, having come from the marketing world into operations and into the call center, was how to bridge the gap between those two worlds to help not only manage daily call volume for your basic call needs, but also to help at a more sophisticated level engage with community members specific to campaigns and other initiatives.
John Farkas:
And so what were some of the conversations and some of the technology that was beginning to get a foothold? What were some of the innovations that you all were looking at in that realm?
Mitch Holdwick:
One of the areas, it’s still a nut that I’m trying to crack, and I think a lot of your listeners probably are to an extent, is not only bridging the gap between call centers and marketing, but in the clinical space, finding ways to seamlessly transition folks to a nurse navigator, for example. If there’s an initiative around lung cancer, how do you empower an agent or a customer care rep to guide somebody through a conversation that has concerns for lung cancer, sticking with that as an example, as far as you can go until they may potentially qualify for different services? How do you operationalize a way to get them connected to that navigator, to that clinical member of your organization to help them get the services they need?
Which in other industries, probably seems really simple, but in healthcare, as you know and as many of your listeners know, that’s really, really difficult. But it’s something we’ve got to figure out, and that’s an area, to answer your question, where we were moving towards what felt like a very innovative thing from a process perspective and a workflow perspective, but transparently, we didn’t quite get there, and that’s an area that I think we’re all continuing to work towards.
Rediscovering the Joy of Medicine
John Farkas:
Gotcha. So knowing that you were looking at those elements and staring at some of that horizon, what were some of the factors that led you to the move to Innovaccer? What did you see as compelling on that side of the equation that you wanted to help make happen?
Mitch Holdwick:
Yeah. I’ll kind of go back to one of our founders, Kanav, he’s our chief product officer, and he talks about, and does it much better than I do, but rediscovering the joy of medicine, and I think about that a lot. It’s kind of a rallying cry for us at Innovaccer and what we really try to do for customers, and that resonates with me quite a bit, having spent the majority of my career on that side, because as we all know, the pandemic took its toll on not just providers and physicians and clinicians, but healthcare professionals as a whole.
The agents that I served with in the call center, things got really hard and are continuing to be difficult, but I feel like we are at this point now where technology’s at a place, there’s so much focus on consumer engagement that we’re starting to see some movement that’s helping not only create better experiences for our patients and our community members, but again, helping people rediscover the joy. Because you don’t work in healthcare for giggles. You do it because you love what you do, and you kind of embrace the chaos, but that’s what motivates me.
John Farkas:
Or at least tolerate it.
Mitch Holdwick:
Or tolerate it. Right. But every now and then, you see examples of where people are starting to rediscover that joy and that keeps me going. If I can help our customers do that, that fills my bucket every day.
How Innovaccer Is Marketing in Health Systems
John Farkas:
Yeah, absolutely. So how is Innovaccer approaching making that inroad? What does it look like, marketing in the health systems? What are some of the things and some of the messages and ideas that you guys are pulling forward in and around this engagement realm and the consumer realm? How are you having that conversation?
Mitch Holdwick:
Yeah. It’s like a broken record, but I think it’s important that it goes back to data, knowing we put so much emphasis on getting that part right. As you mentioned and articulated well at the beginning, bringing together different data sources into one record to allow our customers to take action. And that is a real differentiator for us and where, historically, marketers and other professionals in healthcare have kind of looked at data as this black box where you don’t know what you don’t know, where we like to think we’ve created an approach and a practice to data management where that becomes fully transparent and allows customers to understand their own data in a meaningful way. So that it’s not always going to answer all the questions, but it’ll help you ask the right questions.
John Farkas:
No doubt, no doubt. As you guys are looking at engaging with those organizations from the Innovaccer side and combining that with some of your direct experience on the provider side, what are some of the obstacles you’ve experienced in integrating new technologies, new platforms that end up causing challenges? Or what are some of the things that you would want organizations to know coming into a health system, and how are you helping Innovaccer ease that process?
Mitch Holdwick:
Yeah, that’s a great question. And honestly, I think it’s always good to celebrate success but also learn from failures. And one of my, not personal failures, but at Trinity, we recognized pretty quickly that we had a missed opportunity as it related to integrating the technology that was used to support agents with some of those marketing initiatives, that we didn’t have our end users, our agents or customer care-ops, really at the table from the onset to help understand and have that-
John Farkas:
The actual anatomy of things.
Mitch Holdwick:
Yeah, exactly, exactly.
John Farkas:
What’s actually happening on the ground.
Mitch Holdwick:
Right, right. And I think that’s a really common missed step. Going back to the idea of the joy of medicine, it’s hard to find joy in your work when the tools you have don’t work the way they’re supposed to work or the way that you need them to work. So that’s one aspect, I think, is making sure your end users are at the table from the onset, have them involved as much as you can possibly have them involved, number one, to create some ownership, but also to get the product where it needs to be. So that’s one piece, and we certainly practice that or encourage that with our customers at Innovaccer as we go through implementation.
But the other piece, too, John, is really understanding the tech stack and ecosystem and being able to visualize what that looks like. And as you know, listeners know as well, that’s really complicated. If you were to put it on a whiteboard, it looks like kind of a mess, but understand what that mess is and where this new piece of technology fits in and how it actually integrates. And a very specific story I can think of, hearkening back to the Trinity days when we had the call center, we recognized that the council the agents were using wasn’t integrated with the new solution. So we had to create a middleware, which is like a band-aid, solution to fix that. And I know that’s a very specific example, but that-
John Farkas:
But not an uncommon one [inaudible 00:22:59] happen.
Mitch Holdwick:
[inaudible 00:22:59] Yeah. Those are the two things I would think of.
Delineating between Target Markets
John Farkas:
Yeah, great points. When you look at the process of what I know is part of what Innovaccer is enabling is better, cleaner patient data, and clean data is certainly an important part when we’re looking at segmenting and understanding who it is that we’re talking to and working to engage. How do you see segmentation and how has this delineation evolved based on the specific target markets that you’re concentrating on?
Mitch Holdwick:
So I kind of go back to Trinity first, because a lot of those principles apply to what we do at Innovaccer within CRM and the customers that we work with. So there are a number of ways. The most common in terms of developing a delineation between those types is using different clinical propensity models. So taking your existing data and using propensity models to understand people that are most likely in need of knee surgery or may be in need of weight-loss options. And it’s not always perfect, but it helps you kind of go after the unknown, so to speak, the folks within your primary secondary service areas and maybe raising their hand in need of services. It helps you kind of understand who they are and how to target them accordingly. So that’s one way to delineate between those groups.
And within those groups, of course, you’ve got folks that are actively engaged with your health system, those that maybe haven’t engaged in a while and could be less active, and some that are unknown. They may be looking to establish care, or they may be working with multiple competitors in your region, and there are attributes of their profile that can surface that up so that you can market to them accordingly.
John Farkas:
In the context of your role at Innovaccer, who are some of the personas and the folks on the health system end that you’re most frequently finding yourself working with?
Mitch Holdwick:
So I think of it as, at the highest level, you’ve got buyers, which could be the chief level, so CIOs, chief consumer officers, chief marketing officers. But you also have, equally as important, the influencers of those buyers, so those would be maybe directors, managers in marketing, knowing that CRM is a big focus for me. So those are kind of at the high level how we kind of group up those two personas.
Who I deal with and who we deal with most commonly I’d say would be the influencers, so the folks that are going to be either using the technology or managing the teams that use the technology, because we want to make sure it’s a good fit, that our solutions, our applications, our approach aligns with their thought process but also will ultimately work with their teams on a day-to-day basis.
John Farkas:
In my experience, the influencers are often the black sheep. They’re not necessarily folks that people are spending a whole lot of time, effort, and energy in treating, and I see that as a pretty consistent mistake. Talk a little bit about how you differentiate there and what types of things you’re doing to engage in the context of the influencer space as opposed to the more traditional buyer personas.
Mitch Holdwick:
Yeah, I like that. That’s a really good term, the black sheep. That very much kind of fits that persona. But our-
John Farkas:
Or at least the forgotten sheep.
Mitch Holdwick:
The forgotten sheep. Yeah, exactly. Honestly, I think a big part of it is knowing that these are not the buyers per se, helping them have a voice because inevitably these are a lot of folks that are very passionate about the work they do, sometimes obsessive in a good way. You look at any healthcare organization that has a successful marketing team or whatever that function is, it always stems from somebody that has that kind of unwavering commitment and obsession.
So finding ways, rather than selling to them, give them a voice, doing what you’re doing, providing this amazing platform for people to talk about what gets them excited. Because number one, you’re going to learn a lot. Approaching that with curiosity helps you individually and, in turn, helps them feel better about the work that they do. And if you have solutions and services that could serve them, then you are empowering them to have those conversations internally. Nothing’s more powerful than that. It needs to come from internal folks within your stakeholders.
John Farkas:
I really couldn’t agree more, and it really, to me, is becoming an increasingly important framework, because what I know is we interview a number of CIOs on Healthcare Market Matrix, because they’re one of the primary buyers, and none of them have got time, none of them do. None of them sit around, going, “Wonder what I should consider today?” Their list is long, the competition for their time is fierce, and who they decide, especially from an outside perspective, who they decide to listen to is really, really carefully relegated.
And what I also know, because I would say that this is very common in the CIO role from my experience also, is the people that have that position are usually extremely empathetic and very tuned-in to the people that report under them, because they’re all in this pretty difficult challenge together, and I’ve been really impressed across the board with the folks that we’ve talked to about how well-tuned they are to the anatomy and the challenges of their organizations.
So it just makes sense to spend some time cultivating relationships and equipping the influencers to tell your story extremely well. Because if you can do that, if you can help them become your advocate in a world where you’ve got a CIO who truly is desiring to figure this equation out and meet the needs of an organization, that voice is the best voice. If it’s coming from a sincere direct report, who has found something that they’re passionate about and can tell a story that is meeting one of their needs, boy, that seems like a really well-positioned opportunity.
Mitch Holdwick:
Yeah, I agree. And I think, too, just to kind of add on to that, it shows at the CIO chief level, C-suite level, somebody that’s willing to spend time like that, I think, with their team means a lot. They see the benefit and value in doing that, not only to give them a voice, but to learn from them, and it just creates more of that relationship as you evolve from just a transactional type engagement, so it makes sense.
Measuring Success with Proactive Engagement Strategies
John Farkas:
Yeah, no doubt. So what I know is that right now, to foster stronger patient relationships, the healthcare industries really shifting away from what we’re talking about, I mean the traditional engagement methods. We’re not seeing the kind of billboards we used to see. Billboards are no longer our primary strategy of healthcare systems, and if they are, we have a problem. So putting greater emphasis on proactive engagement strategies. So let’s talk about how to measure success there and what you’ve seen. How would you recommend that healthcare technology companies think about messaging these types of strategies and to the systems they partner with? And we’ll start with acquisition. What does that look like?
Mitch Holdwick:
Yeah. You mentioned evolving from billboards, and we still see billboards, which is crazy.
John Farkas:
There still are billboards still, and we see how many minutes do you have to wait in the ER. Those still exist in our little community.
Mitch Holdwick:
Yes, yes. So it is a challenge, but within acquisition, I think, and your point is well stated, how do we get past or get more proactive? So using data, we’ve got, as mentioned, access to so much data, but how do we take some of the key pieces of that data to help understand what that next, we talk about next best action. That’s a term used quite a bit, but I think it lends itself to acquisition well, because it’s anticipating what the next need could be, whether that’s in the conversation with an agent in a call center or for campaigns and different communication tactics that are designed to help understand what that might be. So it’s really showing what that next best action could be in helping community members take action on that.
So that comes to mind right away as it relates to acquisition. And then other areas, too, more in the population health element, but how do we reduce ED admissions and recognizing cohorts of patients within your hospital or health system that may have a propensity towards that and acting accordingly?
John Farkas:
How about in the context of retention? When we’re looking toward identity-based engagement, and how can healthcare technology companies, how should they be thinking about designing data to help accelerate retention strategies for healthcare companies?
Mitch Holdwick:
I always start with, “Show me that you know me,” and it’s so hard to get to that level of one-to-one personalization, but we have to keep moving in that direction. The data is there to do that, but the challenge is surfacing and serving up elements of that data that will help empower our customers to demonstrate that. Very quickly, we talk about the most common is somebody that’s due for an annual well visit, “Looks like you are, it’s been over a couple of years. Would you like me to help you get that scheduled for you?” Again, sounds very simple in other industries. That is a challenge in healthcare, but a very feasible way to show folks that you know them, create that one-to-one personalization, and ultimately retain your patients. So I think it’s really that piece of personalization.
John Farkas:
That makes sense and is going to be an increasingly critical component and expected component as some of the bigs continue to enter the space with gusto, and they already know a whole lot about us.
Mitch Holdwick:
Exactly.
John Farkas:
That feels like they’re living with us. That’s because they kind of are. They know what’s in our houses, they know what our buying habits are, and that’s a lot of powerful data.
Mitch Holdwick:
We used to say, and you’ll probably appreciate this, it’s kind of along those lines with that mindset, reminding our customers, our marketers, that we’re not selling shoes. So we have to use the principles, the technologies in the context of healthcare. Don’t be creepy. Just show me that you know me.
John Farkas:
Yep, that’s good. How about in context of leakage? How should solution providers be regarding that?
Mitch Holdwick:
Yeah. Claims data is a big piece to that, I think, that will help identify where there is existing leakage so that you can act accordingly. That can be a scary thing for a lot of folks. It was for me, just because there are so many different clearinghouses and companies that are …
John Farkas:
Selling that data.
Mitch Holdwick:
… housing and selling it, and it’s rich data, but what do you do with that? But I’m seeing a lot of emerging solutions dashboards that are taking that data and making it visual, making it actionable so that you can clearly see where that leakage is occurring and start asking some of those important questions.
Customer Relationships and Engagement Initiatives
John Farkas:
Yeah, that’s good. Clearly, data is one of the most powerful assets that a healthcare system has in its possession, and how it leverages that is really critical. And I think that as a vendor, showing that you understand that and are a good steward of that is really important. But what strategy or initiatives do you see being front and center around that when we’re talking about how we are improving customer relationships and engagement? What are some of the things that we are looking at as a whole organization around treating data as a strategic asset?
Mitch Holdwick:
Yeah. You’ve got to lead with data. And again, a lot of the folks and the customers that I work with are in the marketing consumer engagement space, and historically, that’s been lacking from the story, but starting with data creates a level of objectivity that takes the emotion out. And there’s so much emotion in healthcare, especially going back to our earlier points around this movement towards systemness. But it’s kind of limping towards systemness, and through that, there’s some challenges, and there’s a lot of feelings and a lot of emotions. But data kind of takes that away and allows us to work on a common platform and a common playing field because it’s hard to argue with data. But it’s also important to know that it’s not always going to give you all the answers. It’s going to help you ask the right questions.
So those are some of the pieces, John, that we work on with, and it is so important. I think this is a great topic around developing a practice around the technology. It’s not just about the technology, but how do you really develop a practice and empower customers to articulate the value through data, keeping data at the forefront of those conversations?
And honestly, data’s fun. I’m not even a data guy per se, I’m not a data scientist, but when you find ways to use data to kind of tell your story and to validate what you do, it’s going back to that idea of rediscovering the joy of medicine. It creates joy. It’s a fun thing when you learn how to use it the right way.
John Farkas:
It’s one of the things that I just am always puzzled at, and I’m sure that from my naive perspective, I am missing a big part of the complexities associated with this. But we work with a number of platform companies, and I’ve been exposed to a number of platform companies that have just amazing access to amazing troves of powerful data around different engagement patterns, around different identified things that could be really meaningful. And it’s been interesting to me to look at how many technology companies put their solution forward and their solution has just all this phenomenal perspective and insight around opportunities around data, and they are not planning to leverage that intelligently.
I look at these organizations and what they have to do, the opportunities they have across their client base to identify benchmarking, to identify trend analysis. It doesn’t have to be identified data, it’s just trend analysis and what kind of level of insight that could provide their customers if they could say, “Hey, across our platform, here are things that we’re seeing that are going to be clear indicators of X, Y, Z.” And they don’t have that as a prioritization, and I just look at it and go, “What an incredible value potential.”
But they just let it sit there in the process of … And like I said, I’m sure that I have a very naive perspective on what that takes to do, but it sure seems like if you stuck data scientists on it, they could come up with a very compelling product addition that could provide great value to their customers that wouldn’t mess up anybody’s compliance agreements.
Mitch Holdwick:
Yeah, agreed. And also, it’s a good point of how we need to be more transparent for the greater good. There’s that opportunity as well. Of course, we all have business goals and objectives and needs that are unique to our areas of work, but there’s also a greater good that I think we can all focus on. I think that’s kind of what you’re hitting on. There’s ways that we can achieve both.
John Farkas:
Yes, no doubt about it. So let’s pull back a little bit. Because you’ve looked at life from both sides now, if you could share with a health tech company a piece of advice, knowing that you’ve sat on both sides and knowing that you’ve experienced some of the wins and the shortfalls with some of the organizations that you’ve worked with, what’s a piece of advice that you’d put forward that might be helpful to a company marketing solutions into the healthcare space?
Mitch Holdwick:
Yeah, I think a lot of it is trying to solve real problems, rather than making more problems.
John Farkas:
That would go into the obvious fundamentals that are so often ignored, yes.
Mitch Holdwick:
It’s so true. But I think that the challenge of solving real problems, as it takes a certain level of, I don’t know if it’s vulnerability or curiosity …
John Farkas:
Humility.
Mitch Holdwick:
… humility to understand what those, and they could be super small, they could be very specific things, but your ability to either solve problems or work towards solving those problems goes a long way in developing trust and rapport in the spirit of a true partnership. So my recommendation is trying to find those real problems.
John Farkas:
Yeah, it’s such a phenomenal thing to watch happen. We have a process that we work through with our clients where we’re working to unearth the real problems that people in their market are facing. And we do it through a workshop process with their stakeholders and sometimes some outside experts coming in. And we list problems faced that are in any way related to their products directly or their offering. And we just put up the primary problems that real people in the real world are really facing every day. And we list those out and we put them in priority order, and priority is determined by urgency combined with willingness to pay to solve. Because at the end of the day, those are pretty important factors.
And it’s amazing to me, Mitch, how often that is an incredibly revelatory conversation. What we see is they’ll confront that problem list, and they’ll look at the top two or three problems and say, “So help me understand why we only have a 50% solution for that, and we’re down here on problem number 9, 10, and 11, spending a bunch of development cycles solving for these problems that are pretty far down the list when we could reallocate those efforts to creating a 100% solution for our number one, two, and three problem?” And it’s just because they’re looking at what the technology can do as opposed to what the market actually needs and will pay for.
Mitch Holdwick:
Interesting.
John Farkas:
And it’s an easy thing when you’re focused on technology solving problems to run after the problem that avails itself after the last conversation you had with a leader or something like that, and it becomes a priority, even though that leader of that particular health system that you happen to be talking to has a little bit of an esoteric problem that yes, you can solve, but it’s not going to be a market mover.
And so doing the work of really, like you said, Mitch, just doing the work of really understanding what the real problems are is critical. And we continue to hear from a number of folks on the buyer side that you’ve got to do that work, you’ve got to get into their world and understand what’s really going on in their particular scenario and speak to that, be informed and speak to that directly. Don’t just come in with your blanket and expect to cover their feet with it. You may not be able to.
Mitch Holdwick:
Yep, that’s right.
John Farkas:
It’s a tricky scenario, for sure.
Mitch Holdwick:
It’s a great example.
John Farkas:
Putting your provider hat back on again, when you were in that seat, where were you learning about new innovations? What were some of the channels that you were living in and that were effectively reaching you?
Mitch Holdwick:
Yeah, and I’m sure I wasn’t alone in this regard, but traveling budgets are very thin if they exist at all.
John Farkas:
And they are getting cut.
Mitch Holdwick:
Yeah. So when I could, I would say my top three conferences, HCIC, which is Health Care Internet Conference, SHSMD, I think most listeners are familiar with that, and then HMPS are the three top marketing technology …
John Farkas:
Consumer-focused, yeah.
Mitch Holdwick:
… consumer-focused conferences. So I would glean a lot either from going or getting access to sessions. And then aside from that, just a lot of podcasts. I love podcasts. I love learning. So being active on LinkedIn, understanding where there’s content to glean from and other thought leaders to learn from. So that’s our two biggest areas, I’d say, for me.
John Farkas:
Yeah. So going the other direction, what things annoyed you? What were things that you were seeing happen that you’re just going, “Oh, come on.” What were some of your pet peeves?
Mitch Holdwick:
Gosh, I think it’s more, I guess, it kind of goes back to, and I loved your example of how you really surface-up real problems and spending time to develop relationships, the opposite of that is cold calls or cold emails or cold messages on LinkedIn when somebody doesn’t know you, but they’re pushing a product, and it just doesn’t work. It doesn’t work, and it’s kind of shocking that it still happens more than it should. To me, that’s the biggest annoying thing.
John Farkas:
Yeah, I hear that pretty frequently. As I mentioned, you’ve got to show up and you got to know and have done your work. I think that it keeps being increasingly underscored and stuff I’m aware of that those more account-based movements and how we get information about a particular health system that we can then figure out how to create campaigns that would target specific needs and be relevant seems really increasingly important.
Mitch Holdwick:
Great.
Innovaccer’s Newer Products and Offerings
John Farkas:
Well, that’s some great points there. What is on Innovaccer’s front burner right now? What are some of the things that you are involved with that you’re excited about and bringing forward that we can be looking for?
Mitch Holdwick:
Yeah. Well, I mean the big focus for me, CRM, as I mentioned, is still one of our newer products and offerings, but having a chance to really understand it deeply from a product perspective, I’m so excited about bringing this, continuing to bring this into market as it continues to mature, helping other marketers and healthcare professionals understand the benefit of a CRM within a data company that historically is rooted in value-based care and population health management. It’s a really unique blend of those worlds. So I think that’s really at the forefront for me, John, is just continuing to find our existing customers, help them find success, but also introduce these solutions to others as well where there’s a fit.
John Farkas:
That’s awesome, and at the end of the day, all these things are determined to help make the lives of providers, the folks who are on the front lines, making things happen, be able to do their jobs better and more effectively because they’re working with the right people and the right audiences and the right understanding of who they are.
Mitch Holdwick:
Exactly.
John Farkas:
And that ends up being such a critical component. So just winding up here, first of all, I’d just like to say, Mitch, thank you for joining us today and offering your perspectives on this. Just want to make a blanket invitation to our audience, any feedback, topic suggestions, ideas you have bouncing off of this for future episodes. That’s actually how Mitch found us. He had some feedback or some thoughts he wanted to offer, and we started a conversation. But that would be great. Mitch, where can our listeners follow you and understand more about what’s going on with you?
Mitch Holdwick:
Yeah, and again, thank you for having me on. This has been a pleasure. And folks can find me on LinkedIn, very active. I am on Twitter or X, as they say now at MCH110. It feels weird.
John Farkas:
As they reluctantly say.
Mitch Holdwick:
Admittedly, I will say it, I would say that the Twitter X space is my half-and-half of work and my personal endeavors and sports and other things, so fair warning there. Linkedin, I’m all in on work stuff, but I really, really love interacting, so please reach out. I love having conversations, learning from others. That’s the best way for me to grow and hopefully to help others do the same.
John Farkas:
Well, and Mitch, I’ll just say, too, I really appreciate you setting aside your football allegiance to spend some time. As a fan of the Maze and Gold, talking to a fan of the Scarlet and Gray, one of the great rivalries, but you handled it really well, and I appreciate that.
Mitch Holdwick:
See? We can get along, John. Who knew?
John Farkas:
That’s right, that’s right.
Mitch Holdwick:
Wolverines and Buckeyes can get along. There’s that, too.
John Farkas:
We’re all people.
Mitch Holdwick:
That’s right.
John Farkas:
That’s right. Well, thanks a lot, Mitch. Appreciate you joining us here today on Healthcare Market Matrix.
Mitch Holdwick:
My pleasure. Thanks, John.
Closing Thoughts
Outro:
Healthcare Market Matrix is a Ratio original podcast. If you enjoyed today’s episode, then jump over to healthcaremarketmatrix.com and subscribe. And we’d really appreciate your support in the form of a five-star rating on your favorite podcast platform. It does make a difference. Also, while you’re there, you can become a part of the Healthcare Market Matrix community and get access to courses and content that’s created just for you by signing up for Insights Squared, a monthly newsletter dedicated to bringing you the latest health tech marketing insights right to your inbox.
Ratio is an award-winning marketing agency headquartered in the Nashville, Tennessee. We operate at the intersection of brand and growth marketing to equip companies with strategies to create meaningful connections with the healthcare market and ultimately drive growth. Want to know more? Go to goratio.com. That’s G-O-R-A-T-I-O.com. And we’ll see you at Noon Central next week for an all new episode from our team at Ratio Studios. Stay healthy.
About Mitch Holdwick
Mitch Holdwick has more than 14 years of experience with healthcare digital marketing, CRM, and consumer engagement strategies. With a focus on patient acquisition, Mitch has led teams and work that drive volume with ROI specific to business and service line priorities.
Before joining Innovaccer, Mitch worked for a large enterprise-level health system with a focus on the Michigan Region, where we helped drive growth and improve consumer engagement and access for seven hospitals across the lower portion of the state. He also briefly worked for a digital health and technology company in product marketing.
Mitch brings value with a blend of work experience both within hospitals and health systems, as well as agencies on the vendor side. Combining familiarity and experience with technology, operations, and strategy around consumerism in healthcare positions him well to serve customers at Innovaccer.