What's the problem inside the problem? Often, #medtech innovators aren't seeing the inner layers. Here's an example 👇 : "The problem we aim to solve is that patient recovery rate following a medical procedure is unknown." ❓ What's the problem inside that problem? If patient recovery rate is unknown, then clinicians may be providing inadequate therapy. ❓❓ What's the problem inside that problem? If clinicians are providing inadequate therapy, then patient recovery time will be prolonged. ❓❓❓ What's the problem inside that problem? If patient recovery time is prolonged, then excessive procedures will be provided by clinical teams. ❓❓❓❓ What's the problem inside that problem? If excessive therapies are provided, then clinics may be losing money due to capped payments for patient recovery procedures. ⏹ When is the right time to stop this type of questioning? 💲When you identify a problem that customers will pay to solve. In the example above, the initial problem was focused on: "Patient recovery rate is unknown" Is this ☝ a problem that hospitals will pay to solve? Unlikely. By looking at the problems inside the problems, we landed at a new focus: "Clinics are losing money due to excessive procedures for recovering patients." Is this ☝ a problem that clinics will pay to solve? Maybe. It's never a slam dunk. But getting to the root of the problem that customers will pay to solve is one of the most critical parts of building your medtech strategy. Remember, customers aren't buying your device. They're buying solutions to their problems. Make sure you build your medtech strategy around the problem that customers will pay to solve. #medicaldevices #strategy #healthcareeconomics Archimedic
Tom Patzelt
7mo
Spot on Eric Sugalski! And there is high overlap between finding - and articulating - a problem that customers will pay to solve and a problem that investors will invest in! 💡
Multidisciplinary Biomedical Engineer for the Future of Medicine
7moIt's a very similar mindset to the "5 Whys" problem solving tool in Quality. More often than not, you need to keep asking "Why?" to your current problem before you can get down to the root cause. Once you see all the steps in your problem, you're in a much better place to really start innovating.