A quick guide to selling into acute and secondary care channels
If you’re considering working in medical device sales, you may find that you’re well suited to selling into acute and secondary care channels. Here’s a quick guide about what you can expect from these markets!
What is acute care?
Acute care provides short-term treatment for severe injury, urgent medical conditions and illnesses, and recovery from surgery. It’s provided in emergency care, pre-hospital care, critical care and trauma care.
What is secondary care?
Secondary care is involved where patients are referred by a primary care provider or are admitted in via emergency services. There’s a mix of elective and non-elective patients that span a multitude of clinical disciplines, usually in hospitals and clinics.
How are products sold into these markets?
Here’s where secondary care sales are more complex than acute or community… a multitude of stakeholders are often involved. The salesperson will seek endorsement for the product from a consultant, the aim being to give the user a product they will benefit from so that they will support the sales process. From here, the process shifts and becomes more business-like. Once approval has been gained for the spend the focus shifts once more, to clinical professionals who place the products.
We’re seeing hybrid sales teams more and more in medical device sales – whether you’ve got a pure sales background or something more clinical you could well find yourself in one.
What does it take to sell products in these markets?
These markets are constantly changing (almost as much as Take That changed their line-up!), with the NHS increasingly concerned with the battle of cost versus quality and innovation. It’s important that purchasers can see the long-term savings from buying and using a particular product rather than just the immediate benefit, a value-proposition sales approach is key.
Furthermore, the options for treating emergency medical conditions is ever increasing and therefore it seems there are always new products to take to this market.
Are there any challenges in these markets?
The changing face of the NHS is a major challenge in this area. It’s well known that there is a current lack of desire to spend within the NHS and getting by this can be a tough job, requiring an emphasis on value proposition. This is made all the more tricky when you consider your competition is doing the same. If you’d like to know about the challenges of medical device sales in other markets, have a look at our blogs on primary and community care channels!
If you think you’d make a great addition to a commercial, dynamic sales-team with strong clinical knowledge then this might be the market for you.
Want to discuss your career in medical device sales? Contact me on [email protected]