Break through the noise and find a data exchange partner you trust

I started my career in healthcare responding to requests for proposals (RFPs). Over the years, I’ve responded to thousands of them with carefully crafted responses that I hoped would win over buyers.

While I recognize the value of RFPs—they help us weed out potential vendors who don’t meet our basic technical requirements, for one—RFPs only tell part of the story. And the part that RFPs miss should be just as important to buyers as the boxes a vendor is or isn’t able to check.

What an RFP can’t tell us is what kind of partner a vendor will be. What is their approach to problem solving? Do they truly seek to understand their customers’ needs, and do they flex to meet those needs? Are they transparent when challenges arise? Do they have integrity?

The data exchange marketplace is noisy. Buzzwords abound. How, as a buyer, do you cut through the noise and determine who will best meet your organization’s needs, now and in the future? How do you determine whether a vendor will be the type of partner you are looking for over the long haul?

As Moxe’s Chief Marketing Officer, I try to lift our message so that it resonates in the market. In the age of SEO and online shopping, words are important. Messaging matters. But the old adage remains true: Actions speak louder than words.

The Killer Questions You Should be Asking

Here are seven questions I would ask potential vendors to cut through the noise and find a data exchange partner you can trust and grow with as healthcare continues to evolve.

1)     What problem did you set out to solve? What problems are you solving for today?

As my colleague Eric talked about in a recent blog, if you perused the booths at HIMSS 2023, you might think interoperability (a problem that has plagued healthcare) has been solved. Of course, we know it hasn’t. That drives us because it means there is an opportunity for us to do it better and smarter.

As you look for a clinical data exchange partner, assess the depth of their expertise. Is clinical data exchange something they’ve added to their menu simply because they see an opportunity in the market, or is it something they have deep expertise in and a passion for?

A lot of vendors have a broad focus; clinical data exchange may be one of many things they do. For Moxe, clinical data exchange is our primary focus. We aim to be the best partner to solve complex problems.

To truly make a difference in healthcare, we need to bring as many players together as possible, not just the most lucrative or noisiest stakeholders. We want to unite the entire healthcare ecosystem, which means we need to be anywhere clinical data is needed.

2)     How do you work with customers?

Every organization has unique needs. A worthy data exchange partner should understand that it’s their job to flex to meet those needs, not try to fit customers into a one size fits all solution. What does the vendor do to understand their customers’ current challenges, their goals, and how they can best serve them?

Importantly, in addition to asking the how question, I’d also ask the who question: Who will we be working with? Have a conversation with the folks you’re slated to work with. Unless they are hiring completely wrong, every sales team is going to be personable and charming. But who will you get after the sales process is over? What’s the strength of the vendor’s bench? Is their team a good match for yours?

3)     How do you incorporate the voice of the customer into your products?

What is the vendor doing to understand their customers’ needs and respond to those needs? How are they evolving as their customers’ needs evolve?

4)     How do you monitor regulations?

You want a vendor who has your back and that you can trust to help keep you compliant with emerging regulations and shifting requirements. How does the vendor address the demands of regulations (past and future)?

5)      How do you safeguard data?

We know that data is a healthcare organization’s number one asset. We believe connectivity must be married to control, and we invest a lot of time collaborating with our customers to ensure we put the necessary controls on their data pipeline. To get a sense of how seriously a vendor takes patient confidentiality and what they are capable of when it comes to privacy and security, ask them to share the questions they ask their customers when setting up their data controls.

6)     How does your solution scale? Can it solve more than one problem?

You don’t want to end up in a situation where you need multiple data exchange vendors to meet multiple needs. Unless, of course, you relish evaluating RFPs, getting contracts through your legal team, aggravating your IT team, and making your finance folks see red. :) Partner with a clinical data exchange vendor who is committed to delivering precise, actionable data for a myriad of use cases.

7)     What are your mission and values? How do you live your values?

If a prospective vendor hasn’t defined what matters to them, what propels them to deliver excellence? A desire to make as much money as possible usually doesn’t cut it. Understand why a vendor does the work they do and how they commit to show up to work.

At Moxe, our values—integrity, transparency, persistence, and collaboration—are central to everything we do. And our mission to connect our healthcare ecosystem with the highest quality and most efficient data is what drives our desire to be the best partner for our customers.

The importance of the unquantifiable

When you’re making a big decision, sometimes it’s the things that can’t be quantified that matter just as much as those things that show up on organized pro vs. con lists or RFP responses.

At the end of the day, when selecting a data exchange vendor, you want to feel good about the partnership. You want someone who has moxie: who isn’t afraid to push you and prepare you for the future. You want someone who will help you not just solve the problems of today but anticipate future challenges and opportunities.

Because our mission is to connect our healthcare ecosystem, we want to be anywhere clinical data is needed. We’re not afraid to work with customers that don’t have the most sophisticated infrastructure in place. If people are left out, then making healthcare affordable for everyone isn’t going to work.

If you are looking for a data exchange vendor, we’d love to answer all your tough questions as you try to break through the noise. Drop us a line. We have a feeling that what you hear may be music to your ears!

About Kristin: Kristin brings more than 20 years of healthcare marketing, communications, and business development experience. Passionate about making healthcare better, Kristin leads Moxe’s marketing efforts, promoting our story and our commitment to uniting the healthcare ecosystem through precise, actionable clinical data exchange.