Getting into Verticals: Healthcare

Commercial printers looking for new business – and who isn’t – should at least be eyeing the healthcare industry, which the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics expects to grow more (3 percent) than any other industry, and be America’s number-one source of new jobs for the rest of the decade.

Getting a piece of the healthcare vertical means knowing the industry, choosing the  niche – hospitals, private practices, outpatient services, home healthcare services or a host of others – that makes the most sense, going to school on it, targeting decision makers and bringing excellence.

 “The real question is, why aren’t you servicing the healthcare market?” insists Gavin Smith, Vice President, Solutions and Production Planning for Konica Minolta. “It’s booming. It is one of the largest growth industries right now. The hospitals are growing bigger, consolidating, new offices opening up, new practices  -- and they’re one of the biggest consumers of printed materials in the short-run business. It really is starting to make an incremental effect in terms of how hospitals are building up their business.”

Here are some suggestions:

Research: “To intelligently approach the marketplace,” suggests Gina Testa, Vice President of Market and Business Development for the Graphic Communications Marketplace for Xerox, “first and foremost they’re going to have to do some research on the industry itself; to create in their mind what is the definition of healthcare. It’s a pretty broad title.” Indeed, it is one that includes everything from hospitals and doctors to insurance, life science, pharmaceuticals, medical instruments and more.

Focus: “It’s a very, very large industry,” Testa notes, “so I guess the questions would be, what is it that they’re truly trying to go after?” The good news, of course, is that healthcare in general is growing tremendously. “Bottom line: we know there is a lot of money being poured into that industry, and they need a lot of help, so to speak.” Thus, doing the research – or at least hiring someone who knows the industry from the inside – is crucial.

Introspect: When scanning the industry, suggests Susan Weiss, Xerox’s Manager for Worldwide Customer Business Development, don’t forget to look in the mirror. Printers “really need to look internally. Given that they have identified where they want to go, what are their own skills and capabilities that enable them to provide solutions to that industry?”

Find the Decision Makers: “Obviously there are two different people you speak to if you’re a printer,” Smith says. “If it’s the hospitals you’ve got to focus on the decision makers in materials management. And in solo doctor’s practices it’s the office manager.”

Training and Education: “An invoice is an invoice, whether it’s for a telephone company or a hospital,” Testa says. “It’s just the rules and the regulations for the two industries is very important.” That relates directly to employee preparedness, adds Weiss. “Can they have those conversations if they haven’t been having them already? And are they positioned to be able to talk to different people at different levels in an organization than they may have been calling on before?”

Ask, Join: Printers’ hunger for healthcare industry information can be slaked by any number of equipment manufacturers and trade associations that service it. “Join the associations – the American Hospital Association, the American Medical Association, others -- that are publishing information about the trends in your sub-segment, and then concentrate on what matters most to them: direct mail, email, directory listings, and all sorts of other materials that will be produced within that specific area.”

Not to do this is foolhardy, Smith adds. “Don’t think you can go into it and offer them a product if you don’t know what is important to them. Develop an association strategy where you can start generating a presence and an understanding of what’s relevant in their industry.”

Emphasize Confidentiality: Safeguarding confidentiality is of course a top priority. But as Testa correctly points out, “Confidentiality is not a new issue; it’s an issue in other vertical markets. The key is, how does it apply here?”

 “The risk is that quick printers find it very difficult to prove that they can provide security, document management and some of the other services,” Smith warns.“Patient information is extremely confidential, whether you’re dealing with internal documents, which generally are printed internally, or marketing.”

Walk First: Avoidance, usually not a good strategy, may be wise, at least at first. “If you are a novice, what I would strongly recommend is that it’s not where you start,” Testa says. “Steer clear of the applications that involved in-depth knowledge of the laws and regulations involving confidentiality. The chances are if you’re not doing that in another industry you don’t have that type of software with the checks and the balance. I would start on the marketing end, or with training materials, posters, things that are more in the public domain to get your feet wet. Walk before you run.”

Go For It: “Should printers concentrate on it?” Smith concludes rhetorically. “They should concentrate on any industry that is booming, and the hospital business is booming.”

Confidentiality is Crucial to Success in the Healthcare Vertical

By Miranda Reeves, software production manager, Ricoh

Ensuring the integrity of healthcare document printing can be a daunting task. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) has instilled increasingly tighter standards on healthcare providers to protect patient confidentiality. If a patient’s health information is mailed to the wrong address the violation is highly punishable, and can lead to hefty fines.

Compliance with HIPPA, and other laws like the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) and Regulation Z (Truth in Lending) have created a demand for a high integrity print-to-mail workflow solution that lessens the possibility of confidentiality and privacy violations.

Print shops can help assure their customers avoid confidentiality violations and the repercussions that follow by implementing an Automated Document Factory (ADF). An ADF connects different hardware, software and processes into a unified workflow with a single point of control. This can not only reduce production and postal costs but also streamline the overall print and mail operation and help improve its integrity. ADF solutions are built to manage the creation and delivery of mission-critical digital documents with the utmost integrity – an ideal tool for highly confidential healthcare materials.

There are proven examples of ADF successes. One award-winning deployment comes from Merrill Corporation, a global provider of technology-enabled solutions for health care markets, that printed nearly three million healthcare welcome kits that had more than 190 potential variations with a defect rate of zero with the support of InfoPrint ProcessDirector. Another aspect of an ADF is the reports solution, which is critical in verifying compliance. Reports let the customer collect data on jobs to be used for future capacity planning, production efficiency, and problem determination.

Today it is imperative for mailers in regulated sectors such as healthcare to implement ADF as part of their cost savings and compliance initiatives to help ensure the same results that Merrill has experienced. Without it, integrity can be hindered and fines can be incurred.