DNV attracts more healthcare market share by leveraging healthcare commercial intelligence

DNV is committed to helping hospitals improve quality of care and patient safety practices with their outcomes-based accreditation and certification programs. DNV’s sales organization used Definitive Healthcare to:

  1. Pre-qualify leads
  2. Map sales territories
  3. Engage prospective customers

This enabled the team to be more targeted in their approach, reach decision makers quicker, generate more qualified opportunities and close more business.

Key results

  • Improved speed to access executive contact information by 12x
  • Uncovered 1,200 new contacts in recent state-level campaign
  • Expanded outreach capabilities across all 50 states

Helping hospitals improve quality of care and patient safety practices

Accreditations and certifications are essential in keeping hospitals and health systems in good financial standing. For hospitals, accreditation loss means Medicare payments cease. And with 63 million Americans currently covered by Medicare, this would put any hospital at severe financial risk. As such, it’s critical for hospitals and health systems to follow healthcare standards and prioritize continual improvement in their quality and patient safety practices.

DNV is dedicated to helping hospitals improve quality of care and patient safety with their efficient and outcomes-based accreditation program. After receiving Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Deeming Authority in 2008, DNV has accredited over 650 hospitals nationwide. The company also provides many certifications, including stroke center, orthopedic and cardiovascular programs. They are the first and only accreditation program to integrate the CMS Conditions of Participation with the quality management system, ISO 9001. Additionally, their collaborative survey teams visit hospitals annually, which helps these facilities adapt and standardize improvements across the entire organization.

DNV’s philosophy is that accreditation should enable a broader culture change towards high performance and continual improvement so that hospitals and healthcare professionals can focus on patient-centered care.

The challenge

Accessing robust intelligence on prospective hospital and health system customers

Since 2008, DNV has been building awareness and partnering with hospitals, health systems, payors and state hospital associations nationwide. As one of the fastest-growing accreditation organizations, their customer base evolved from early adopters to early majority. As the structure and needs of these opportunities changed, DNV realized they needed access to deeper healthcare commercial intelligence to facilitate a more targeted approach to finding qualified leads, identifying prospect pain points and tailoring conversations to solve those needs.

To gather this intelligence, the sales team spent considerable time researching public websites, news publications and LinkedIn. Getting their foot in the door meant casting a wide net of calls and reaching out to front offices to try to book meetings with executives. Hunting and gathering this information proved to be time-consuming and inefficient, taking up to 60 minutes per lead.

Additionally, DNV needed to grow their lead funnel to drive their weekly accreditation campaigns. The sales team needed a better way to piece together the fragmented healthcare market, understand the health systems and hospitals within it and stay on top of all the changes in the industry like affiliations, partnerships, executive hires and mergers and acquisitions.

The solution

Using a data-driven approach across the entire sales process

The Director of Sales first learned about Definitive Healthcare in 2015 at a conference. After seeing a demo of the platform, he knew the depth and breadth of our healthcare commercial intelligence was exactly what was needed to accelerate their growth. Choosing Definitive Healthcare was an easy decision, and it has been a trusted data source ever since. In fact, over the years, they have added more and more seats to grant access to the platform across the sales organization. Data including executive contact information, financial performance, payors, employee counts, quality metrics, news and intelligence, maps and LinkedIn profiles have been particularly valuable to the company. Specifically, the sales team used Definitive Healthcare daily to:

1. Pre-qualify leads: The sales support team leveraged Definitive Healthcare to build their lead funnel. The team used the platform to research inbound leads and determine hospital type, network affiliations and key executives. Then, they sent the most qualified leads to sales representatives so they could focus and prioritize their time with prospective clients who were the best fit for DNV’s services.

2. Map sales territories: The area account managers used Definitive Healthcare to identify their territory’s available market and then segment by factors like geography, specialty areas or hospital type. The managers also took these analyses a step further by layering on other intelligence such as executives with roles like Quality Director or Chief Nursing Officer. This data helped them to be highly targeted in their campaigns, outreach and messaging.

3. Engage prospective customers: The sales team leveraged Definitive Healthcare for both inbound and outbound leads. Before following up with inbound leads, the area account managers researched the organization using Definitive Healthcare’s hospital and health system profiles to gain a comprehensive understanding. This gave the team a strong foundation going into each prospect engagement with a well-rounded idea of their services, size, complexity and key contacts. The team also used Definitive Healthcare data for campaigns, accessing a large volume of contacts that could be filtered by specific information so they could expand outreach to a granular level.

The impact

Key result: Attracting greater market share with quicker access to decision makers, increased lead volume and more business closed

The team at DNV reported Definitive Healthcare allowed them to win more business faster than ever before. Prior to Definitive Healthcare, they had limited visibility into key information at a hospital or health system. This meant they were casting a broad net and relying on cold calls, which could take the team up to 60 minutes per lead to complete. After Definitive Healthcare, the team could access key contact information within minutes, gain a more comprehensive understanding of the account and engage the right people with a message that resonates.

The team leveraged Definitive Healthcare data in 100% of their weekly accreditation campaigns, and the team has been able to reach out to a greater volume of contacts while being more targeted. In one recent state-level campaign, they reached an additional 1,200 contacts. They also reported success in reaching hospital decision makers across all 50 states and U.S. territories.

Definitive Healthcare’s comprehensive healthcare commercial intelligence has also helped the team open markets that would otherwise be inaccessible or slow to enter. The team could quickly uncover a lead, size the opportunity and identify the decision makers with a few clicks of a button.

Additionally, DNV used our data to navigate the COVID-19 pandemic. With insights into the market and specific healthcare organizations, the sales team was able to consider different approaches and adapt to their prospects’ changing needs. Ultimately, the team was able to be more targeted in their approach, gaining quicker access to decision makers, generating more qualified opportunities and closing more business.

DNV is committed to continually developing and improving healthcare quality and patient safety, and their hospital clients appreciate DNV’s education-focused accreditation approach and partnership. As the organization continues their impressive growth trajectory helping providers achieve excellence through accreditation, certification and training, Definitive Healthcare is thrilled to continue to be their trusted source of healthcare commercial intelligence.

Definitive Healthcare has been a valuable resource that our team uses daily. We can get to the decision makers quicker, generate more qualified opportunities and close more business.”
Barry Smith Sales Director at DNV Healthcare USA Inc.
Definitive Healthcare is our go-to resource for intelligence. A common phrase on our team is ‘have you checked Definitive Healthcare yet?’"
Caroline Woodard Area Account Manager at DNV Healthcare USA Inc.