Healthcare Tech Companies: Make News with Your Data

Healthcare technology companies spend a lot of time urging providers and payers to become “data-driven.” But what about themselves? The fact is, most healthcare tech companies are sitting on goldmines of data that, given a little exploration, could produce intriguing and meaningful insights. In turn, these insights can become marketing and PR gold.

It’s not just analytics companies that have access to a lot of data. Any company that processes digital information in some fashion for its clients presumably has access to sizeable datasets. They are in a prime position to examine this data for patterns and trends.

A clearinghouse for medical claims, as one example, can spot trends in which claim types payers are more likely to deny, and for which reason. In another example, a company with care coordination technology can detect patterns about which health events and conditions require the most collaborative care.  And of course, analytics companies have access to any number of data insights.

Once these insights are in hand, how to package them? Here are a few ideas:

• A graphical representation, such as a chart or infographic
• Industry reports
• Byline articles and blog posts
• Press releases

Or bundle all of the above into a larger campaign, especially for those data insights that are sure to make industry waves.

Start by capturing the main data points into a graphical format, which you can brand with your logo. Flesh out these findings in an industry report, which you can announce is now available via a press release. Further market the industry report with social media posts of your graphics.

Many tech-enabled companies outside of healthcare already do this and get national news coverage for it.

So, how can marketing and PR departments get these data insights? The answer lies in understanding what kind of data your organization processes, and forging relationships with the stewards of this data. Even one initial project can show the success of these efforts if the findings reap media coverage or increased social media interaction. And success tends to beget more success.

CEOs can also make it part of the data steward job description to share interesting findings on a monthly or quarterly basis.

The point is to remember that data isn’t just an asset for the healthcare tech company’s customer. It’s of value to the healthcare tech company, too; especially for those inevitable times when news is slow. Rather than wait for a big event to promote, shake up the industry with some big findings and make some data-driven news of your own.