Conducting market research for your healthcare IT app

Many of you out there are looking at the ARRA (stimulus) bill for ways to sell your healthcare IT wares to healthcare providers. One of the weaknesses of most tech-focused companies is that don’t spend enough time on market research to figure out where to sell their products. That’s primarily because it’s not always easy to get useful statistics so here’s a little advice I give to my startups when they ask “where do I find out how many doctors there are in the country?”.

Check out the following sites:

Kaiser’s site is a very nice site to start with — it provides all kinds of health statistics but you might be very interested in the Providers & Service Use statistics which contains details like the following:

Hospitals
Total Hospitals
Hospitals by Ownership
Beds
Beds by Ownership
Admissions
Admissions by Ownership
Emergency Room Visits
Emergency Room Visits by Ownership
Inpatient Days
Inpatient Days by Ownership
Outpatient Visits
Outpatient Visits by Ownership

Hospital Trends
Total Hospitals, 1999-2007
Hospitals by Ownership, 1999-2007
Beds, 1999-2007
Beds by Ownership, 1999-2007
Admissions, 1999-2007
Admissions by Ownership, 1999-2007
ER Visits, 1999-2007
ER Visits by Ownership, 1999-2007
Inpatient Days, 1999-2007
Inpatient Days by Ownership, 1999-2007
Outpatient Visits, 1999-2007
Outpatient Visits by Ownership, 1999-07

Medical Errors
Mandatory Quality Reporting Requirement
Hospital-Based Infection Reporting Req.

Nursing Homes
Number of Nursing Home Residents
Residents by Primary Payer Source
Number of Nursing Homes
Nursing Homes by Ownership Type
Number of Nursing Home Beds
Beds by Certification Category
Number of Special Care Beds
Nursing Home Occupancy Rates
Nurse Hours per Resident Day
Avg # of Nursing Home Deficiencies
% Nursing Homes with Deficiencies
% of Homes w/ Serious Deficiencies
Top Ten Nursing Home Deficiencies
Nursing Home Resident and Family Groups

Rural Health Clinics
Total Rural Health Clinics
Federally Qualified Health Centers
Total FQHCs
Total FQHCs Service Delivery Sites
Total Patients Served by FQHCs
Total FQHC Encounters or Visits
FQHC Revenue by Source

Physicians
Total Nonfederal Physicians
Nonfederal Physicians per 1,000
Nonfederal Physicians by Gender
Nonfederal Physicians by Race
Nonfederal Primary Care Physicians
Nonfederal PCPs per 1,000 Population
Nonfederal Primary Physicians by Field

Health Professional Shortage Areas
Primary Care HPSAs
Mental Health HPSAs
Dental HPSAs

Access to Care
Could Not See Doctor Because of Cost

Medical School Graduates
Total Medical School Graduates
Medical School Graduates by Gender

Medical Malpractice
Paid Medical Malpractice Claims
Medical Malpractice Payments

Non-Physician Providers
Total Registered Nurses
Registered Nurses per 100,000 Population
Total Physician Assistants
Physician Assistants per 100,000 Pop.

Dentists
Total Dentists
Dentists per 1,000 Population
Total Dentists by Gender
Dentists by Specialty Field

Health Care Employment
Total Health Care Employment