Consulting firms have the ability to provide pharmaceutical and healthcare companies with customized solutions to combat the increasing changes in the industry.
Challenges in the Healthcare Industry
In an industry that is constantly evolving, healthcare organizations are pressured to cut costs, reduce medical errors, and adopt both standardized processes and new innovations. Providers today are having to spend more time on documentation, see more patients a day, and use processes and tools they aren’t familiar with. Managers of these organizations are searching for ways to keep up with changes in the industry while still providing the highest quality of care.
One of the challenges currently facing the healthcare industry is the balancing between a hands on/ hands off approach with the rise of the Internet of Things. More patients are taking their healthcare to new resources like artificial intelligence and wearable tech. Patients can now monitor certain aspects of their vitals and health themselves and some can even share this data with their providers. With the rise of IoT, more IT professionals and medical coders will be entering the workplace which can be difficult to integrate with current systems and employees.
Changes in demographics, social systems, and disease patterns continue to challenge healthcare. Providers need to understand how to provide care for diverse patients and how to navigate the ethical challenges that can come with it.
COVID-19 forced many healthcare organizations to make many changes that are still enforced today. The pandemic caused massive disruptions across a variety of industries, including healthcare, manufacturing, and distribution. Healthcare organizations are now being forced to find new ways of reducing this impact. According to the University of Central Florida, “the healthcare sector has begun investing in new technology that can help alleviate future pressure of continuing to minimize COVID’s impact on society”.
One example of new technology is telehealth which is playing a large factor in healthcare organizations gaining new patients and retaining current patients. Patients are more open to developing relationships with providers online and have seen similar quality of care virtually when compared to an in-person visit.
Consulting Benefits for Healthcare
Healthcare consulting helps organizations navigate these common challenges facing the industry in an efficient and beneficial manner. The rise in industry challenges has created high demand for advisory and consulting professionals and have made consultants an important part of the American healthcare system.
A healthcare consultant benefits an organization by giving a unique perspective on managing challenges within the healthcare field and offering a comprehensive, external look at the organization. Consulting firms help create strategies to meet challenges and adapt to shifts in the industry. Benefits that consulting firms provide organizations include:
- Improving efficiency in patient care when patient numbers increase. Consultants help to implement a system for patient intake and onboarding, manage appointment systems, identify areas that staff can improve in, and provide expert recommendations to providers.
- Consultants provide business recommendations to give healthcare staff the ability to focus on patient care. Consultants also manage and negotiate contracts, monitor reimbursement levels and revenue cycles, create a business model and a strategic plan for the organization, and manage growth and profit-loss.
- Consultants perform objective productivity assessments to ensure everyone in the organization is doing their part. These assessments evaluate productivity levels, identify strengths and weaknesses, develop recommendations for improvements, and implement necessary changes.
- Experts offer a unique approach to challenges by creating data driven approaches to improving operations and increasing revenue. An external consultant helps staff to understand and implement new technology into day-to-day operations and provide recommendations on what technologies will stimulate growth.
- Consults help combat groupthink by providing diverse thoughts and ideas on how to improve an organization. Many healthcare consulting firms consist of strategic consultants, tech experts, human resource managers, marketing professionals, and lawyers to provide new thoughts and ideas.
Overall, consulting firms help increase efficiency, enhance profits, create a more structured organization, and extract value in healthcare organizations.
Combating Challenges in Pharma
Trends affecting the pharma services markets include a change in clinical trials, more advanced data acquiring capabilities, and an increased need for global coordination of local requirements.
Clinical trials are gaining greater distribution and becoming more patient centered. GlobalData projects that approximately 1,300 clinical trials with a virtual or decentralized component will begin in 2022, up 28% from 2021 and 93% from 2020. This change impacts sponsors, sites, and participants in reducing costs, increasing efficiency, and improving patient experience.
More advanced data aggregation capabilities are also entering the pharma industry as legacy data systems for clinical trials don’t normally communicate well with one another. Therefore, aggregation techniques for integrating this data are often outdated or even nonexistent, and many biopharma companies are missing opportunities to gain value from collected data. Data aggregation results in better insights into in-house data and provides commercial value.
There is an increased need for global coordination of local requirements due to local regulations varying from country to country and constantly changing to become more complicated. This need is driving innovation in various pharma services and making the space more competitive.
Consulting firms help to provide long term solutions to challenges pharma companies face such as workforce changes, global factors, new developments, new modalities, and the pressure to innovate. Consultants also help organizations differentiate themselves in an increasingly competitive industry.
Customized Solutions for Your Industry
Prime Meridian consults with pharma and healthcare companies to better understand how industry changes will impact a business through market research and focus groups. Our team then develops customized solutions for the organization. We are uniquely qualified to consult and develop key strategies to meet the goals and objectives of every project.
Contact us today to learn more about our strategy and consulting services!
