The 4 Foundations of Medical Entrepreneurship

Medical entrepreneurship is the pursuit of opportunity with uncontrolled resources. The goal is to create user defined value through the deployment of biomedical and health innovation. 

While fewer graduating residents are choosing to open a private practice, the trend might be changing. Some are finding that the grass is not greener working to some one else and antitrust agencies are increasingly questioning  larger mergers and integration that contributes to anticompetitive practices that results in price inflation. That might mean fewer hospital systems buy practices or hire doctors. Those who choose to open a private practice will be unprepared since medical schools and residency training programs don't teach them the business of medicine. What's more, the don't have a grasp on how to adapt to the big megatrends impacting sick care.

Graduates will need to embrace the 4 foundations of biomedical entrepreneurship and evolve from being a technician to a manager  to a biomedical and health entrepreneur. They are:

The Entrepreneurial Mindset  About 1% of doctors have an entrepreneurial mindset. Even fewer are innovators. Most are  technicians. 

Innovation An idea is not an invention nor, certainly, an innovation. Entrepreneurs are innovators and are more interested in the new instead of the now.

Marketing Doctors don't get marketing. They will have to adapt to the world of digical care and social media.

A validated and scalable business model Most new graduates who open a private practice do so thinking it is about location, location, location when, in fact, success depends on delivering value, value, value.

Practice management is about operations. Medical practice entrepreneurship is about creating value, not just companies. 

The sooner doctors learn these fundamentals, the more they can thrive and address the wicked challenges we all confront.

Arlen Meyers, MD, MBA is the President and CEO of the Society of Physician Entrepreneurs at www.sopenet.org