Health Care & Medical

Limelight Insights by Shugoll has specialized knowledge and experience in helping health care organizations, pharmaceutical companies, biotech firms and medical device companies make critical business decisions in a highly competitive industry. We’ve provided critical analyses on the trends and issues that are significantly affecting profitability and the quality of customer care.

While we help many of our clients address the balance between short-term profitability and quality patient care, we also have a great deal of experience in forecasting for future planning. Applying our proprietary methodology – Product Opportunity Forecaster – the results and conclusions have provided timely insights on projected demand for new products and services and related pricing, thus indicating appropriate areas for capital investment.

A large part of our business is answering critical questions
and providing actionable direction.

Here are some of the questions Limelight Insights by Shugoll
has helped Health & Medical clients answer over the years:

Can DTC (direct-to-consumer) advertising increase demand for my drug/device?

Simultaneous research with target consumers and physicians has been used to track awareness of conditions, disease incidence, presentation of symptoms or indicators, use of screening tests and treatment protocols and the pros and cons of different therapies. Then the first step is to qualify demand, interest, awareness of and knowledge about the drug or device among target consumer segments and physicians.

Second, target consumers are queried about how often their physicians review their condition or how regularly they receive screening tests to identify the need for the drug or device. Third, using telephone or online research methods, we identify physician attitudes and current practices to determine what would motivate or prevent them from using the drug or device and test how to best position the drug/device for optimal receptivity by the medical community.

Finally, we test different messages with both physicians and target consumers. Often times it is difficult to know which strategy or position will resonate with the target audience. So Limelight by Shugoll employs a wide range of qualitative and quantitative tools including its proprietary evaluation tool, AdBeat to identify the overall strengths and limitations of various campaign strategies.

How can we confidently project future demand for new products and services and the impact demands may have on new facilities?

Limelight by Shugoll has evaluated potential patient and physician reactions to new concepts ranging from comprehensive women’s health care and information centers to full-service cardiac centers using our proprietary Product Opportunity Forecaster. First, we use qualitative research to define patient and physician expectations prioritizing essential features, products and services. Then quantitative studies are employed to estimate demand and revenues. In addition, our proprietary AdBeat product has been used to test advertising messages that have been developed to promote these healthcare programs.

How can we evaluate patient satisfaction with the quality of our services and care compared with those offered by other hospitals and centers?

We recommend and have used a systematic feedback program that allows recently discharged patients the opportunity to rate and comment on staff, services, facilities and other issues you consider important. We design custom evaluation forms, using qualitative input to ensure coverage of all key issues, and timely, easy-to-complete evaluation vehicles including opportunities for open-ended comments.

Using a variety of research methods, IVR, mail-back or drop-off forms and computer-administered evaluations completed at discharge, patient satisfaction is tracked on a large scale. Over time, these computerized data provide a picture of patient satisfaction and patient priorities. The data are a key component in evaluating and measuring the effectiveness of changes and improvements made.

How will our service area change in the next decade?

Limelight by Shugoll conducts many community needs assessments in which service area residents are profiled in terms of demographics, medical histories, lifestyle, risk factors and self-reported concerns about particular diseases. These data, when combined with growth projections for different segments of the population, provide insights on future trends in the diseases and health conditions for the area. This has been successfully used for long-range planning for departments/facilities, as well as CME, community health education efforts and development of centers of excellence in key disease areas.

What are my hospital’s/health care system’s strengths and weaknesses and how is it perceived in the community?

Limelight by Shugoll regularly conducts positioning and branding studies for hospitals/health care systems. These involve conducting qualitative and quantitative research with patients, community residents, community leaders and physicians to determine awareness, perceptions and use of area services in order to understand how your institution compares with the competition.

When using qualitative research to explore deeply held feelings about your institution or brand so that you can select an optimal market positioning, we often use metaphorical tools including analogies, personification, situational drawings and picture decks. Other projective techniques used include sentence completing, adjective sorts and storytelling.

The quantitative positioning and branding studies we conduct often use perceptual mapping and gap analysis to provide more substantive and insightful analysis of a hospital’s/health care system’s relative strengths and weaknesses. Forced choice preferences for selected services also provide insights into departments that are strongest. Repeated implementation of these studies provides trend data to measure changes in an institution’s position over time.

What is the demand for a new medical device or drug under different pricing and reimbursement scenarios?

Limelight by Shugoll uses its Product Opportunity Forecaster to measure price expectation, purchase intent at given prices and market share allocation. Results are used to estimate demand for drugs/devices among physicians and hospital administrators. Discrete choice analysis is used to determine how share varies under different pricing scenarios for client and competitive products and different market environments based on reimbursement and/or price changes in alternative therapies.