| |
About Strategic Consulting
|
The need for evidence-based
support and decision-making is apparent throughout all layers and segments
of the healthcare industry:
clinicians
¦
healthcare workers across all
disciplines, working both independently from and interdependently with
each other, in settings from acute outpatient care to hospitals to
institutional long-term care.
consumers
¦
patients, families, and
communities.
suppliers to clinicians and
consumers
¦
pharmaceutical and biotechnology
companies; manufacturers of diagnostic and monitoring devices, therapeutic
equipment, and care supplies;
payers
¦
insurance companies, employers,
governments, but also individuals and families.
educators
¦
those who train the healthcare
practitioners, scientists, and engineers of tomorrow - as well as those
who keep today's workforce up-to-date
scientists
¦
those who innovate healthcare:
laboratory scientists trying to understand mechanisms of action or
discover new methods of treatment; clinical researchers assessing the
efficacy and safety of interventions; outcomes researchers examining the
effectiveness of treatment paradigms in "real world" settings.
MATRIX45
is built around a core of
scientists who are consultants, and consultants who are scientists -- the
ideal combination for providing services that are strategically relevant and scientifically
rigorous, yet also pragmatic and responsive.
We are not "shelf
consultants" who prepare voluminous reports to adorn executive
bookshelves. Sure, we do a good amount of thinking, optioning, and
planning. As needed, we analyze the big picture or zoom into
pixel-level
granularity. When it comes to presenting you with our
work, it will be pragmatic and implementable - within a relevant context and
supported by thorough analysis.
We balance strategic purpose with scientific
rigor. Too often, strategy-driven studies are criticized for the
scientific compromises they (are believed) to make. The challenge is
to design studies with a purpose that will stand up
to scientific standards and peer review. This is the
scientific consulting expertise you can expect from
MATRIX45:
solid science, pragmatically
adapted to strategic purpose and budgetary realities. We may recommend one particular scientific approach, or present you with
different scenarios and their respective advantages and disadvantages.
Top of Page
Top of Section
|
The
Question-and-Evidence Chain |
Identifying and analyzing problems, raising
questions,
conceptualizing, hypothesizing ... project design ...
supervision and monitoring ... statistical analysis ... linking
results back to the initial problem ... formalizing new knowledge ... we
call it the question-and-evidence chain: the
dynamic, iterative process of asking questions, generating evidence,
applying the answers, and developing new solutions.
At MATRIX45,
we ask questions all the time. Questions guide our work. We focus on the
what,
why,
and how
of addressing your evidence-based strategy. We do not stop
there - just as much, we work with you on the
so what,
what if,
and what next
questions. Our ultimate goal is to provide you with answers
to the where from
and where to
questions - the critical end-questions that lead to industry foresight, strategic leadership, and
competitive advantage.
Top of Page
Top of Section
|
Integrated Healthcare
Solutions |
New insights in genetics and
disease processes, advances in human therapeutics, innovation in
biomedical engineering, and the continued need for patient and family
support are transforming healthcare and pharmacotherapeutics from
disease-driven to solution-focused. Treatments are evolving from
focusing on specific diseases to targeting pathophysiologic processes at
the genetic, molecular, and cellular levels:
from
drugs for disease classes to drugs for individuals-with-illness-processes. In the (near) future, this will
require advanced diagnostic methods and monitoring techniques.
Patient compliance with treatment and monitoring will be a necessity not a
choice, as will patient participation in clinical decision-making.
Patients and families will need to be guided and supported in the
management of their disease and the prevention of relapse, sequelae, or
new illnesses.
Taken together, today's somewhat hesitant convergence
will soon evolve into
integrated healthcare
solutions: the integration of diagnostic technology,
human therapeutics, secondary/tertiary prevention, technology-enabled delivery and monitoring, and
patient and family participation and support.
In turn, this will
substantially alter the relationships among all healthcare players
-
into evidence-based and
knowledge-driven collaboration:
between patients, families,
and clinicians
between the pharmaceutical,
biotechnology, diagnostic and monitoring device, medical technology, and
informatics industries
between these industries,
clinicians, and patients
between clinicians and
healthcare provider organizations
between the payers, the
providers, and the consumers of healthcare
These advances call for
the design of new healthcare models, developing multilevel approaches to
scientific investigation, rethinking strategic marketing frameworks, and
examining new methods of costing, pricing, and paying.
MATRIX45
wants to be your strategic science partner in this process.
Top of Page
Top of Section
|
Case Studies |
Throughout their careers,
MATRIX45
principals have worked
on many strategic consulting projects. A few examples, all of which are in the public
domain:
Phase 4 & 5 Portfolio Analysis
Case Management Models for High-Risk
Geriatric Patient Cohorts
Performance-Based Pricing of Drugs
Technology for
Knowledge-Based Collaboration in Key Opinion Leader Management
Commercialization of
Clinical Data
Designing a Clinical
Knowledge Consortium
Top of Page
|
Phase 4 & 5 Portfolio
Analysis |
Several years of rapid
growth from new drug launches, in-licensing, and merger-and-acquisition
activity gave our client one of the richest drug portfolios in key primary
and specialty care areas. Our client requested an analysis of its
phase 4 and 5 portfolio - not in terms of picking the "winner drugs", but
in terms of picking the "winner projects": maximizing detection of
emerging indications, understanding practice patterns and outcomes,
long-term efficacy and safety, global and regional coordination, managing
key opinion leaders and coordinating investigator-initiated studies, and
strategic, scientific and competitive positioning.
Return to list of examples
|
Case Management For High-Risk
Geriatric Patient Cohorts
|
During
more than a decade, we provided the strategic and scientific leadership to
develop and evaluate case management models for high-risk geriatric patient
cohorts. In the USA, under the auspices of major foundations, we
developed community-based case management service models for elderly in
medically underserved areas - integrating formal community services with
volunteer training. Upon request by the Belgian Ministry of Health,
we designed national implementation models for community-based case
management and hospital-based discharge management - for geriatric,
psychiatric, and gero-psychiatric patients.
Return to list of examples
|
Performance-Based Pricing of Drugs
|
If there is
virtually no doubt that a lab value V is the clinical
target to be achieved with drug D, and that it is achievable in a
large majority of patients, why is it that so many patients are persistently at
values < V? Realizing the gap between actual and best
practice, and the associated variability in patient outcomes, we examined
strategies to reward "good" outcomes with pricing adjustments, yet avoid
"subsidizing" substandard care or care to patients with less predictable
treatment responses (e.g., those with complex co-morbidities).
Using mathematical models
and clinical review, we identified cohorts of patients who had either achieved
or maintained lab values
>
V.
For risk analysis purposes, we also looked for subcohorts that might fail
to achieve or maintain
V. This yielded a final
set of subcohorts of
patients recommended for performance-based pricing.
Return to list of examples
|
Technology for Knowledge-Based Collaboration in Key Opinion Leader
Management |
A key strategy in the
marketing of specialty drugs is the scientific communication with various
tiers of opinion leaders - and stimulating changes in clinical practice
through these opinion leaders. Key opinion leader management is a
supra-regional effort, seldom confined to one region or country but rather involving
the coordination of geographically dispersed experts. This scientific
communication is focused on the science of pharmacotherapeutic agents: trials
and other studies, as well as dissemination and education. Pharma
employs highly educated staff in this effort: from basic to clinical
scientists - by necessity geographically dispersed as well. The challenge is to optimize collaboration among these teams: from avoiding
duplication and reinvention, to optimizing the discovery and exchange of
key information, opinion leader management, and medical education
materials.
There are software tools that go
beyond document management and promote team collaboration on the
market - in fact, some are of high quality. But introducing
technology does not lead to changing work processes, unless people are
prepared to adopt the technology. This requires needs assessment,
staff participation in analysis and planning, careful specification of
functional and technical characteristics, policies and procedures,
training and support, and a technology that emulates work processes.
Return to list of examples
|
Commercialization of
Clinical Data |
Having accumulated a
voluminous database of key health parameters, this national healthcare
provider sought advice on the database's commercial potential - not only
to the various healthcare industries, but also to such industries as
food/beverage, financial services, and insurance. Additional revenues would
enable this healthcare provider to expand population-based prevention and detection
programs.
"Selling raw
data" to individual companies was ill-advised: the value of the data would
drop rapidly after the first sale. Moreover, what the industry
needed most was knowledge, not data. A sustained revenue base model
was preferred over a variable revenue base.
We worked with this
organization on
the design of a membership-based plan in which, for an annual base fee,
industry would be provided with a "level playing field" of knowledge - the same
knowledge to and for all. The plan was also tiered: higher
(priced) membership levels offered additional knowledge disclosures,
special briefings, and the ability to request ad hoc, company-specific
analyses.
Return to list of examples
|
Designing A Clinical
Knowledge Consortium |
A regional charitable chain
of tertiary healthcare care facilities was particularly concerned about
the dissemination and utilization of good clinical practice information
throughout its facilities: the same level of evidence-based care
throughout the organization - by physicians, nurses, therapists, and other
clinicians. Along the way, it intended to achieve the economies of
scale that come with standardization.
Our role was one of
expertful facilitation of various working teams: visioning yet also
embedding this vision in the teams; process analysis yet also feasibility
testing; conceptualizing while giving the teams a (due) sense of ownership
and achievement.
Return to list of examples
|
Strategic Consulting Services |
Scientific strategy development
Scientific
portfolio review
Market / competitor analysis
of scientific strategy
Competitive positioning through scientific strategy
Knowledge-based
collaboration strategy
Knowledge dissemination
and commercialization strategy
Partnerships and alliances
development and support
Technology-enabled
knowledge strategy
Advisory
board / expert panel / key opinion leader
development
and support
Knowledge-based value-added strategy
Top of Page |
|