Who Will Renew Your Digital Health Contract?
A user expecting a result gives you an opportunity to build a service they return to. The opportunity brings an obligation to deliver consistently and understand what it costs.
This post is a translation of the original Arabic article.
One moment I remember from Cura's early days was users becoming frustrated by doctors taking too long to respond. Our earlier conversations had centered on explaining the idea and building trust. Now we had users who wanted the service and expected a particular standard of delivery.
For me, that was an important sign of demand. It also created another job: operating at the quality that demand expected. In Rimthan, I explained how this stage helped me identify the need for investment, full-time commitment, and stronger operations.
Every founder should pay attention to that moment. A user expecting a result gives you an opportunity to build a service they return to. The opportunity brings an obligation to deliver consistently and understand what it costs.
When selling to a cluster or another large organization, I like to start with the renewal meeting. After a year, what will we present that gives the budget holder a reason to continue and expand?
For a follow-up program, we need to define the population, the work we take responsibility for, and the result we will measure. Some results sit directly within the company's control, such as the time taken by a task it manages. Others depend on the clinician, medication, patient participation, and additional factors. The contract needs to clarify each party's contribution and responsibility.
Then we need to connect the product to workflows, data, and decisions. Who uses it daily? Who reviews alerts? Who acts when a process stalls? How do we know the patient completed the required step? The answers appear in operations after signing.
The company's economics follow. Revenue needs to cover integration, training, support, clinical work, and operations, allowing for collection times. Each customization adds work that deserves an explicit estimate, so expansion remains within the company's capacity to deliver.
I want a baseline and a measurement approach agreed before launch. Then we can review results during delivery, address problems, and document the change achieved.
At renewal, the company's case rests on what improved for the client, what that improvement cost, and the service it has demonstrated it can sustain. The budget holder needs that information to defend the purchase inside the organization.
