Healthcare

What Does a Healthcare Mentor Do?

A healthcare mentor uses their expertise in the healthcare industry to guide and support healthtech startup founders. Healthcare advisors typically have professional experience in both healthcare and technology spaces.

What Is Healthtech?

Healthtech (healthcare technology) is an industry that revolves around leveraging technology to solve problems in the healthcare industry. Healthtech encompasses nearly all aspects of healthcare, including:

• Medical devices
• Disease detection
• Biotechnology
• Mental healthcare services
• Health insurance
• Pharmaceuticals
• And more

What Is a Healthtech Startup?

Healthtech startups are fledgling companies that design and sell healthtech products. Early stage healthcare startups create the technology solutions that enable modern healthcare, from telehealth platforms to digital pharmacies and beyond.

There are all kinds of healthtech startups worth getting excited about right now:

• Tempus uses AI data analysis to improve cancer detection and personalize cancer treatment.
• Maven Clinic is a virtual health clinic where women can receive specialized care in areas such as fertility, maternity, menopause, and more.
• Pearl Health provides risk forecasting software and business intelligence consulting for healthcare professionals.

What Are the Challenges that Healthcare Startups Face?

Early stage healthcare startups are regularly plagued by a few particular obstacles:

• Patient privacy and trust - Patient privacy is a chief concern in the healthtech industry. Healthtech startups handle a great deal of sensitive medical information, and ensuring the digital security of this health information is a crucial part of maintaining patients’ trust.
• Fragmented regulations - The healthtech market is tightly regulated since healthtech products directly affect consumer health and privacy. The problem is that these regulations are not centralized. Healthtech founders need to remain aware of how regulations vary by location and how separate healthcare and data laws interact. 
• Slow adoption of technology - In most industries, it can be difficult to get new technology to catch on and shake up old ways of doing business. However, nowhere is this more true than in the healthcare industry. Healthtech founders have their work cut out for them convincing existing healthcare institutions to adopt new, innovative technology solutions.
• Funding - Investor interest in healthtech startups is up, as the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the need for better global healthcare solutions. However, this means competition for funding is also at a high point, and the volatile nature of the healthcare technology landscape makes it especially challenging for healthtech startups to land on solutions with the level of product-market fit investors look for.
• Development challenges - Healthtech requires startups to have one foot in the healthcare space and one foot in the tech development space. Establishing an effective software development framework is just as vital as designing the perfect healthcare industry solution.

Mentorship from an experienced healthtech founder or investor is the best way to overcome hurdles like these. A mentor can work with you directly to help you develop tailored solutions and plan a path to success.

What Can a Healthcare Mentor Do for You?

A healthcare mentor from Mentorcam can help you whenever you are in the startup development process. They can help you validate your healthcare startup ideas, provide fundraising advice, guide your customer acquisition strategy, and more.

An experienced healthtech mentor can help you navigate the fragmented and often complex regulations that govern the healthtech industry, ensuring you always remain on the right side of patient privacy laws. They can also help you build a pitch deck and share fundraising tips to help you get financing from investors.

Mentorcam’s healthtech mentors all have proven track records in the healthtech market. They can use this hard-won experience to help you navigate the often cumbersome intricacies of the healthcare industry and improve adoption of your startup’s healthtech products. Your mentor can also support you through product development and advise you as you assemble the ideal development team.

Mentorship is the secret ingredient behind some of the fastest growing healthtech companies. With Mentorcam, you can get connected with qualified healthtech mentors and start expediting startup growth in practically no time.

Related areas of interest: Marketing, Fundraising, VCs