Design Thinking for Today’s Private Pay Medical Practice

Running a successful healthcare business is quite complex. As a physician, you have to stretch beyond your clinical expertise to deal with the constant challenges of business dynamics. 

Management, finances, employee turnovers and the stress of not knowing if your clinic is strong enough to survive, all takes a severe, emotional toll. Afterall, medicine is a business and, in this economy, where hospitals and competition are squeezing the life out of private practitioners, it can be an overwhelming space to be in.

Successful companies including, Google, Nike, AirBnB & Apple have all embraced design thinking to rekindle creativity and narrow down focus areas to communicate goals with clarity. Martin Lindstrom, a branding expert, calls it the ‘small data revolution’. Big data, solution-based models, help to automate our businesses; however, is impersonal data to predict future direction. Cookie-cutter designs and turn-key programs do not fit every business and in fact, most often are models that fail. 

Small marketing groups, literally, move in with consumers to search for the tiniest clues to understand the ‘why’ a company is in business; to observe what behaviors and characteristics are played out because the tiniest cluses have extraordinary results. 

Let me tell you about Lego.

In 2003 Lego relied on big data and nearly went bankrupt. With the new generation wanting instant gratification with platforms like Atari and Nintendo, Lego created massive size blocks to grab the attention of kids, but it didn’t work. 

A small marketing group from Lego moved in with an 11-year old Lego-loving boy in Germany. They looked around his bedroom and asked, ‘What in this room are you most proud of?’ He reached up and pulled down a pair of old sneakers from a shelf and said, ‘these shoes.’ Naturally, this came as a surprise to the team, assuming he would point to the Legos! The boy went on to explain he was the best skateboarder in the city and these ragged shoes, with the treads shaved off from wear and tear, were his trophy, his masterpiece. They were a tangible reminder that he was once the best.

Lego swiftly realized they had completely misunderstood their consumers. Children love to play and achieving levels of mastery, whatever the skill. If the skill is valuable, they’ll stick with until they get it right and have something to show for it.

Lego re-engineered the bricks back to the original size, and smaller, with more details. Instruction manuals were exacting and challenging! Lego was now about the mastery and became the largest toy maker in the world. In 2014 Lego came out with its first movie grossing $468 million worldwide, nominated and winning many awards and its fame continues with more movies and Legoland parks.

What does this have to do with the future of the private pay medical practice?

Everything!

Specialty Med Training (SMT) currently offers a solution-based model to serve a greater purpose and need for private pay practitioners. Physicians are eager to learn new procedures to implement into their practice offering and SMT provides such opportunities. If hands-on training isn’t feasible, then on-line trainings are possible using the very best technology and medical instructors. Clinicians also need marketing assets, implementation and consent forms; SMT makes them all available with every procedure. 

Today, however, SMT is re-branding and building an entirely new platform to decisively serve its current client’s needs, utilizing “Design Thinking” as its business model. We have beta testing sites showing profound impact with financial success! It’s time to get into the trenches to be more human centered, to completely understand you, your unique business and individual goals in order to achieve your mastery. 

We are the first to adopt a solution-based product design model focused on data harvesting for the medical sector. We are excited to be working with international business leaders with proven expertise in design thinking and together, we are making it our mission to create a concise roadmap to your business success. 

Stay tuned. The Best Is Yet To Come! 

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