MEMOTEXT’s Amos Adler Guest Lectures at U of T

Posted on February 26, 2015 by Noah Nemoy On February 25, 2014, MEMOTEXT Founder and President Amos Adler was invited to give a guest lecture at the University of Toronto. This honor was fresh off the heels of MEMOTEXT’s participation at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management’s IT in Healthcare Speaker Series earlier this month. The lecture was presented to Prof. Joseph Cafazzo’s Health Informatics class.   Given MEMOTEXT’s recent success in launching HealthNHand with PerformRx and AmeriHealth DC, Amos Adler was a great resource to explain how to create a successful health IT business. Amos stressed that at the core you need the evidence to show your product works. Data, data and more data. Change management and obtaining stakeholder feedback early and often were also one of the key take-aways. Much of MEMOTEXT’s success comes from the fact it has both a proven methodology it’s from clinical trials, and is user friendly through its integrated features and accessibility from any communications platform. It also balances science with commercialism, as improved adherence helps all healthcare stakeholders improve their bottom line.   “Success is not linear.” explained Amos “You need to be prepared to pivot when you hit bumps along the way.”  Partnering with academia and grant applications, cash flow management, aggressive recruitment into your program, and understanding your market, are also necessary steps for success. Amos warned that health IT companies had to compete for mind-share against a population overwhelmed by marketing unhealthy behaviors, the sexy-burger syndrome. There is no silver bullet to overcome it except for pain old hard work. Distributing and situating recruitment, cross-organization buy-in, internal communications rigor, iterating your interventions, and communication with stakeholders are all methods that have worked for MEMOTEXT.   He also warned that patients tend to be defensive when approached to enroll. The most effective way to get patient behavior change to adopt a product is to include them in the process. Engaged potential customers can provide invaluable input, and help test marketing and recruitment tactics. Understanding their language is also key explained Amos: “When a pharmacist says “consider this support program” the patient hears “what are you trying to sell me?”  But when a doctor says “consider this support program” they hear it as medical advice.” As such, doctors have been 4 times as successful as pharmacists in recruiting patients for digital health interventions.   Amos took several questions from an engaged student audience before leaving with his parting thoughts. “The holy trinity of the health IT business is 1) the efficacy of your intervention, 2) clinical- workflow integration, and  3) figure out who’s paying. And also don’t take attacks on your product personally, it’s through innovation resiliency: perseverance and learning from your failures, that you will find success.”   MEMOTEXT improves outcomes for patients and the bottom line for healthcare stakeholders by ensuring patients adhere to their treatment and medications. With a proprietary methodology and machine-learning intelligent systems, MEMOTEXT actions data to personalize and integrate behavior change into the everyday lives of patients. People change over time, MEMOTEXT adapts. Visit www.memotext.com or call 1877.636.6898 NOAH NEMOY M.Sc. TEAM LEAD COMMUNICATIONS With an MSc in the Theory and History of International Relations from the London School of Economics, Noah brings several years of communications experience to MEMOTEXT. Prior to joining, he worked for the Government of Ontario, several small businesses, and most recently on the winning campaign in the 2014 Toronto mayoral election. As someone who loves communicating good ideas to help make the world a better place, Noah is thrilled to be a part of the MEMOTEXT team.