Healthcare innovation partnerships can make a huge difference in the way common ailments are regarded by the medical care community. By promoting efficient distribution of data and enhancing the ability to combine resources to gain a deeper perspective into these issues, such partnerships can play a major role to in furthering medical advancements. The collaboration of Merck Medical Information and Innovation M2i2 and online research community PatientsLikeMe is a case in point.
Entrepreneurs and start-ups are preferred partners for Merck because they have the ‘best technology that‘s out there and they bring the Silicon Valley DNA to the thinking process…’, says Sachin Jain.
The initial agenda of the partnership was to test how information on real world health outcomes assimilated by an online evidence network could impact drug development, with the original test community being psoriasis patients. However, it was found that the partnership did not really live up to expectations as data on outcomes was very limited. This is a risk that is inherent in such partnerships. Under the leadership of Chief Medical Information and Innovation Officer Sachin Jain, M.D., M.B.A., M2i2 turned the partnership around by shifting focus to another key area of interest, sleep deprivation. The initial disappointment and subsequent success gave Dr. Jain a unique insight into the following 5 best practices on leveraging collaborations/partnerships in healthcare.
1) Sharing risk and responsibility with the partner judiciously
Risk and responsibility are both extensively involved in such partnerships and it is necessary to choose a partner organization that is trustworthy enough to be given due flexibility to work independently within its own space. The most important requirement is that your partner shares your commitment to arrive at valuable conclusion/inferences. At the same time, you have to demonstrate your reliability and adaptability to encourage your partner to reciprocate the same.
2) Transparency is priority
Stealth innovation may be the preferred path for many, but at Merck, the partnership exercise clearly indicated that complete transparency was necessary for seamless continuation of research. Despite having to contend with red tape, transparency brings all of the key players on board in both the organizations involved in the partnership. This makes data accessing easy, allows for improved collaborative efforts, and enables the pooling of a wider set of skills to make data collection and analysis easier and more accurate. Transparency necessitates the establishment of strong guidelines that help immensely when significant changes need to be made in the partnership agenda.
3) Measure progress against the objectives
Measuring the progress of the partnership against the original objectives allows you to view the success of the partnership objectively. In the case of the M2i2-PatientsLikeMe partnership, the initial lack of success prompted Dr. Jain to quickly switch over to another viable agenda instead of simply letting the partnership run its course and end up with data that was worth little to the company. Reviewing the success of the partnership and being ready to switch tracks or pull out is essential in the partnership game.
4) A skilled team at the center makes a difference
To ensure that the partnership flourishes, joint effort from both organizations is necessary. This can happen only when skilled individuals are involved in the task at both ends. Collaboration needs to be carried out effectively, such as with said partnership where a Merck team member was working with the PatientsLikeMe weekly. This helped Merck derive quality results in minimum time despite the much smaller size and completely different business structure of PatientsLikeMe.
5) Remain committed when your focus changes
With the M2i2- PatientsLikeMe partnership, both organizations quickly refocused and committed resources and support to the new agenda. A decline in enthusiasm may be inevitable when the focal point of such research and study suddenly changes, but it is up to the team leaders at both the partner organizations to keep the team motivated for the new scope and objective of the partnership.
The final word is that with such partnerships, it is necessary for each and every member involved in the task to take personal responsibility for the success of the project. Publicizing the partnerships and its perceived benefits at company-wide gatherings gives the team members involved the enthusiasm and passion necessary to derive maximum benefits.
Another very important factor behind the success of healthcare innovation partnerships is that the collaboration needs to remain agile and effective. Only then can the best resources of both partners be utilized optimally to make the partnership truly beneficial for themselves, the health care community, and the patients who are the ultimate beneficiaries of any innovation in this field.
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