When Healthcare "Solutions" Are Just Potemkin Villages 🏛️🏚️ - The Skeptic

I am stunned by the number of AI, App, healthcare tech, RCM, wellness, mental health, population health and other companies that somehow seem to exist in a world in which even healthcare with its $4 trillion plus and growing market, can’t be supported.

Over the years I have worked for, consulted with, advised and looked at many companies from small to large, start-up to long term player, and the one thing I have noticed consistently is that they often believe they are IT! Glossy sales pieces, the latest technology, big name advisors but if you look behind the curtains and if they were truly honest with themselves (most aren’t even close), they are mediocre at best. Let’s face it, there are very few truly excellent organizations in healthcare, there are some that are good, but the majority are mediocre and many of the start-ups are huh?? That’s what you’ve created? That’s the Solution?

The wizard behind the screen isn’t magic, the emperor has no clothes, just a Potemkin village. There is no there, THERE! Oh, and by the way, there are umpteen hundred who are already doing that.

So how does one overcome that, they bring in the skeptic, someone who is knowledgeable enough to review the offering, identify the issues, know the market, but more importantly someone willing to speak up and point the issues out and help you fix them. It’s hard to hear when you’re running and gunning as a start-up, raising funds, building a product, selling the golden solution all at once or even when you’re an established company launching a new or revised product. But it’s essential.

One of my big mistakes:

I had one client who was bound and determined to sell their product in the US, I kept pointing out what still needed to be done, but they wouldn’t listen. So, against my better judgement (something I had never done before and will not do again), I introduced the product to a potential client who said, we’ll look at it and if it works, here is our growth plan.  It would have been an enormous contract. After they tested the product, they came back and said no, we won’t use it and listed everything that was missing or didn’t work. Everything I had told the client before the introduction. All of it was fixable. Years later, and they still haven’t broken into this market.

I don’t exist to sell your product I exist to challenge your assumptions, realistically evaluate what you’ve built or are building and telling you what I see and what you need to do to be good, to fix the issues, to make a difference, to survive. Not great, that takes decades, but good.  Call me, I’m the skeptic.

This blog post was written by me, the image is AI generated.