The high adoption of digitalization in health- care firms and the rising need for increasing efficiency have contributed to the increased demand for healthcare consulting services. By implementing the right strategies, consultants fill in the knowledge gap and help in optimizing efficiency, revenue generation, and structural improvements.

D2 Solutions is one such consultation firm that empowers healthcare leaders with a unique combination of SaaS solutions and deep consulting expertise, providing them the guidance they need to achieve compliance and licensure, solve regulatory challenges, and better connect with patients. Dean Erhardt, President & CEO of D2 Solutions was with the CEOViews team to share details about how they are helping the healthcare business move forward.

Inception and Mission

It started as a straightforward consulting company helping manufacturers with distribution and reimbursement and pharmacies (specialty pharmacies) to enhance services to better work with specialty manufacturers. But listening to the customers drove Dean and his team to explore new ways. Firstly, pharmacies need help to stay current with accreditation requirements, and hospitals, manufacturers and others were looking to get better outcomes. When D2 looked to find solutions, they largely did not find effective options and so partnered with clients to build solutions that addressed specific industry issues.

Entrepreneurial Journey

As in life, the journey of entrepreneurship is full of obstacles, unanticipated problems and coping up with the ups and downs. In today’s environment, organizations face limited resources in the areas of time (too much to do with limited personnel resources), talent (a significant challenge in finding and retaining talent), and money (limited financial resources). D2 team works hard to listen to the clients and develop solutions that solve real-world problems.

Adding to that, Dean said, “The good news however is that as our solutions continue to be embraced by more and more clients, the results we attain continue to be significant, providing significant, measurable ROI. Our solutions are focused on helping organizations drive revenue opportunities, enhance operational efficiency and decrease exposure to regulatory risk. We are enabling organizations to get more done with less human resources not necessarily because they want to, but because in today’s environment, they have to.”

Bringing together pharmaceutical manufacturers, pharmacies and patientsD2 has the privilege of working with different entities representing different types of organizations (pharmaceutical manufacturers, payers, pharmacies, and support providers) in the delivery of healthcare services. As such D2 has the knowledge about how different organizations struggle with the same issues. D2 brings them together by enabling them to see where they have similar goals (ex: Manufacturers and service organizations are trying to ensure patients attain a certain speed to therapy in order to drive measurable clinical outcomes), however, they do not necessarily need to be on the same page relative to attain the desired results.

Key solutions and services offered by D2

By combining strategic consulting and tactical execution with enabling technology, D2 brings forth a wide range of services. Their consulting services are focused in 2 areas.

Firstly, D2 works with pharma manufacturers to enable efficient product distribution and use their unique market access team to enable accelerated product coverage. Also, they ensure significant efficiency in organizing disparate information into tool sets enabling manufacturers to understand and evaluate information, enabling more real-time decision-making. Manufacturers tend to drown in information, D2 helps them organize it for real-world use.

Our solutions are focused on helping organizations drive revenue opportunities, enhance operational efficiency and decrease exposure to regulatory risk.

Secondly, D2 works with services providers (pharmacies, hospitals, HUBs) to leverage consulting with technology that takes friction out of the patient experience, enabling organizations to get more throughout with less human labor.

Sustaining challenges

Setbacks are part of a growing business. Dean puts forward the challenges in three generalized categories, saying, “Firstly, organizations must admit they have a problem. Secondly, resistance to change. We have to accept that change is difficult but necessary. We have always done it in this way but that doesn’t mean we can’t get results using another process. Thirdly, IT infrastructure. Technology must enhance your business, not force you to revamp business that results in significant risk to an organization. D2’s technology focuses on workflow efficiency and easy-to-incorporate solutions that help organizations to capture more revenue, enhance operational margin, and diminish exposure to potential business risk.”

Employee recognition model

At D2, everyone works in a remote environment. And as the company operates in a high-service model, employees are challenged by very demanding clients. So, D2 is working every day to create an environment where employees understand and are recognized for the great work they do and the difference they make. In fact, the company is currently introducing a new recognition model whereby they provide real-time incentives to recognize the hard work and innovation that so many employees provide on a daily basis.

Unique factor

What is interesting about D2 is that they not only develop software solutions but, in some cases, they also use their own solutions. The regulatory tracking tool keeps them up to date on many of today’s emerging issues (i.e., biosimilar legislation, state reimbursement changes etc.) and helps to bring more value to their client partners.

Dean said, “I always believe that what makes us different is our people. We have been blessed to have on our team incredibly dedicated people who can listen to the problems in the market, and the problems of our clients and develop solutions. We have also benefited from great client relationships, from working with clients/partners who have helped us to understand, develop and implement real-world solutions for real-world problems. We measure our success by the feedback we get from our clients and the churn we have regarding our solutions.”

D2 team works hard to listen to the clients and develop solutions that solve real-world problems.

Future Vision

D2 is singularly focused on addressing workflow efficiency that can take cost out of the healthcare delivery model while creating an extremely positive patient experience. Continued issues in and around drug costs, labor cost/ labor shortages, administrative burden, and worker burnout, among others, must be addressed – and can only be addressed via technology.

These issues put at risk the ability of organizations, such as pharmacies, hospitals, and clinics, to provide high-quality care to an increasingly elderly US population. D2 can absolutely be a part of helping organizations solve for these issues. At this point D2 has over a hundred instances of various platforms deployed in the market and numerous case studies demonstrating mensurable results that make a difference.