A recent American College of Cardiology (ACC) survey of cardiologists published in Cardiology Today reported that 35.4% of respondents had feelings of burnout while 1.6% reported total burnout. In addition, nearly 9% reported concern that they might have made a major medical error in the previous 3 months; 58% of these also reported burnout and 33% reported stress (P < .001).  Compared to prior surveys in 2015, burnout among cardiologists has grown by 32%. 

Physician burnout has been studied across many medical specialties, with a multitude of factors cited for this growing problem. While healthcare providers view certain attributes of medicine – long shifts, extended time on one’s feet, lack of sleep – as simply part of the job, there are increasing concerns that the health and well-being of physicians are not being prioritized adequately. Although medical professionals clearly understand that their roles will inherently experience very challenging work conditions, burnout is a problem that is on the rise.

One often reported cause for burnout is the burdensome workload of electronic health records, now a standard requirement in U.S. hospitals. Physicians are tasked with a significant administrative workload that often leaves them less time to engage with their patients, or even to take care of their own health.

But aside from added administrative work, physicians face issues of both physical and cognitive stress, some of which can lead to taking leaves of absence or even early retirement. On the physical side, many physician specialties have reported work-related musculoskeletal diseases, including data from interventional cardiologists. Cognitive stress can impact any medical discipline but it is of particular importance in the surgical setting.

Physician demand is projected to grow faster than supply; by the year 2032, the Association of American Medical Colleges predicts an estimated physician shortage of between 24,000 and 65,800 in non-primary care specialties. This physician shortage will coincide with the projected 48% rise in Americans over the age of 65, a segment of our population that uses a much larger portion of health care services per capita. 

In the coming decade, it will be critical to address burnout among all physicians. 

And in our current situation of fighting the COVID-19 pandemic, I expect we are facing an aftermath of sharp increases in burnout among all physicians, across all age groups. 

If you’ve ever worked at a medtech startup, you’ve experienced this dilemma firsthand. You need reputable market data to substantiate your pitch to investors and to adopters and influencers of your technology, but you have a limited budget. Analyst reports are expensive so ideally, you are looking for quality data that won’t cost you an arm and a leg.

To tackle this problem, let’s go back to basics and consider the Five Ws to help you find your solutions.

Why

Are you preparing a pitch to investors? Do you need data for discussions with hospitals or physicians? Are you preparing for a market launch? Why you need the data you’re seeking can help you weigh the costs/benefits for potentially paying for it, and it should drive your decisions on what you need. If you are talking to investors, they expect to see data from high-quality sources, such as analyst reports, DRG (formerly Millenium Research Group), etc. And you should include a few sources to show that your market information is consistent across reports, that you are not cherry-picking data from a single source.

I’ve had a great career in medical device marketing. When people ask me what drew me to this type of work, I respond with, “I enjoy being a part of saving lives.”

Yet I feel like those words sound so hollow, even cliché. Millions of people working in medicine and healthcare are on the front lines of saving lives – physicians, nurses, technicians, researchers, educators – and here I am behind the scenes doing marketing.

But the reality is that it takes a village. Truly, each innovation is the result of millions of people, including marketing, and many others who work in supporting roles.

A core aspect of medtech that keeps me around is that the solutions provided are often curative. And frequently these technologies can obviate the need for medications and their associated side effects. We can change lives and restore hope.

So, as we celebrate Thanksgiving and the upcoming December holidays, I am so grateful to have been a part of this journey. Here’s to continued innovations in 2018 and beyond!

I know what you’re thinking … “I don’t need to bother with Twitter, that’s for big companies with big departments to run it.” But you’re wrong.

Social media is now on the list of things most companies should have as part of their business model. Similar to a website and business cards, it’s a standard way to engage with your audiences.

Twitter has more than 300 million active monthly users worldwide. According to 2016 Pew Research, 21% of American adults are using Twitter. Although Facebook remains the most popular social media site, 42% of Twitter users log in at least once a day, with 23% logging in more than once daily.

PwC research found that 33% of consumers use social media for health-related activities, and 45% say information gathered in social media searches would affect their health decisions.

The one advantage Twitter has for health news and information, for both physicians and consumers, is its brevity. The information presented in a tweet must grab your attention and be easily digestible. This allows for easy review of pertinent topics. With the expansion from 140 to 280 characters per tweet, there is more opportunity to communicate with clarity on healthcare topics, for all audiences.

As medical device marketers, we believe we know what patients want in their healthcare journeys. The majority of content we create focuses on education and awareness, striving to provide patients with the information they need to make informed decisions with their physicians.

But is this enough?

In a survey study of more than 9,000 Americans adults, scores for shared decision making between patient and physician increased significantly from 2002 to 2014. Clearly, patients are feeling better about their interactions with physicians on some key attributes.

But that same survey reported that 30% of Americans feel their physician does not listen to them adequately, and 40% felt that their physician did not spend enough time with them.

Our goal in marketing is to help patients learn more about their health, to help them in an environment where their physician is not available to do so. But we are not physicians. And patients are feeling like they are not being heard.

According to Medscape’s 2016 Physician Compensation Report, most physicians spend an average of 13 to 15 minutes with each patient. For primary care doctors on the front lines of patient care, 80% of physicians spend less than 24 minutes with each patients; and 20% are spending just 9 to 11 minutes.

Of course, there are multiple levers that drive this behavior – a lack of time, financial pressure from both hospital employers and from insurers, and the decrease in physician-owned practices where the partners have control over their own time management.

As patients ourselves, we have come to expect this rush when we see our physicians. But wouldn’t it be nice if physicians and insurers recognize that “customer service” has to play a role in driving better outcomes? Happier patients are more likely to follow care regimens, heal faster and refer other patients.

Patients want to be heard. We need to find a way to make this a priority – how do we help patients feel like valued customers?

We all know content is king but how do we begin to create enough fresh content to fill so many channels and reach so many diverse audiences? It can feel overwhelming, particularly for emerging startup companies with limited budgets.

The key is to build a strategy that focuses on quality content, with a plan to repurpose and redistribute it into different forms, each of which are valued by your audiences.

Content creation has a focus on video. This is because most consumers and physicians are viewing videos on mobile devices. And our brains are attracted to imagery, which helps build rapport and engagement. Physicians report spending an average of 180 minutes per week viewing video content for professional purposes; and 81% of physicians use a mobile phone for their work, with more than 50% also using tablets.

There are several staples for content when marketing to physicians:

• White papers, blog posts, by-lined articles
• Infographics, advertisements, direct mail
• Video testimonials, on-demand webinars, peer-to-peer interviews
• Press releases, professional society features/interviews

So how do you get the most mileage from a single piece of content?

Let’s consider a white paper published on single-center data from a KOL institution. This single white paper itself will be a compelling way to reach physicians through an email campaign. But you can gain even more mileage out of that white paper by:

Most medical device marketers know the power of patient video testimonials. But creating this content can feel incredibly daunting for many reasons – finding the right patients, asking the right questions, and delivering a professional video on a limited budget. When you view patient testimonials from multibillion dollar medical device companies, you start seeing costs that are out of your reach, and then you bail.

But do you really need an expensive, studio video to tell a meaningful story?

With the rise of social media and smartphones, “real world” video content is highly consumed and valued. The number one YouTube personality, with more than 57 million subscribers, is a young man whose videos center around him playing video games. The top YouTube personalities are everyday people, telling their stories to their own cameras. In addition to YouTube, we also have video content being delivered via Facebook Live, Instagram, SnapChat –all of which are being created with current-model camera phones and video editing apps and computer software.

Real, unfiltered videos, by real people … this is what consumers are watching. And patients are no exception; if patients feel a connection to the material, they will view it.

So how do you start? First, the story is paramount. To get the right story, start with some core techniques used for any patient video:

Patients need to hear from other patients in their medical journey.

As our healthcare landscape evolves, there has been a lot of emphasis on consumer choice in medical care. Everyone working in the industry has come to recognize that patients are more empowered through information, and we need to help them navigate very complex medical topics. As marketers, we keep telling ourselves how important this is, and yet I continue to see patient educational posters and pamphlets dominate the available materials, both in print and merely transferred to a digital form.

A pamphlet, in any form, is not enough. It does not tell the full story.