MEDICAL DEVICE
Millennials Want More Contact with Medical Devices By Rob Murphy, CMO, MC2
According to management consultants Bain & Company, in the last 60 years, the medical device industry relied on a single, very successful sales and marketing strategy: “sell innovative, clinically beneficial products to surgeons and “pull” these products through [to] the hospitals and other providers that ultimately pay for them”1. Now, decisions that used to be the sole preserve of doctors are also being made by regulators, hospital administrators [and the procurement process] and more formalized committees of non-clinicians. This broader set of influencers comes with different objectives2. Nurses, nurse practitioners, physician assistants and pharmacists are also taking a larger role in influencing patients and physicians. These so-called “extenders” will expand as the U.S. healthcare system absorbs the newly insured, manages the expectation of the millennial
generation, and stretches to care for a cresting wave of aging baby boomers3. VALUE-BASED BUYERS CREATE A SHIFT FOR SALES REPS Hospitals facing increasing pressures to improve financial performance are becoming increasingly sophisticated buyers. The demand for utilization management, quantifiable safety data and better patient outcomes has expanded the medical device customer profile from the individual physician into the C-suite, procurement depart-
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ments or purchasing committees4. Hospital buying behavior has affected the behavior of doctors as well. First of all, we’ve seen a dramatic increase in the number of physician practices that are owned by hospitals. In a survey of 500 physicians across the U.S., spanning a broad range of demographics, including all ages, experiences, specialties and size of institutions, more than 80% of physicians feel like it is part of their responsibility to help reduce the total cost of care delivered to their patients5. These shifts challenge sales reps to access
