H1 Insights: Improving Patient Outcomes By Changing How Doctors, Pharma and Patients Find Each Other

healthcare platform

In healthcare, increasingly, data is critical for addressing inefficiencies in a system that is nearly 18 percent of U.S. GDP.

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    And perhaps, most critically, matching patients with the right doctors, and various healthcare professionals with the right pharmaceutical companies during research and trials can speed treatments and new drugs as they move from concept to real-life therapies.

    Healthcare, of course, is top of mind these days, for obvious reasons.

    In an interview with Karen Webster, Ariel Katz, co-founder of H1 Insights, which offers a platform connecting healthcare professionals to life science firms, said that his firm’s goal is to create an active database that features information on each of the world’s healthcare professionals from doctors to nurses to pharmacists and administrators.

    No small task.

    As Katz told Webster, “we believe there are 14 million individuals in the world that could be considered healthcare professionals, or academics, such as professors, related to medicine.”

    The depth and scope of practice, he recounted, can range from chiropractors through acupuncturists to neuroscientists, to name just a few specialties.

    In the U.S. alone, he said, there are 4.3 million such professionals, he said.  All told, he said H1 Insights had profiled each of the healthcare professionals in the U.S. – and of the other 10 million across the globe, the firm has profiled half of them.

    Though at first glance, the parallels to LinkedIn might be drawn, the depth of information is an important distinction.

    database healthcareThe data collected by H1 includes everything from where they went to medical school to the types of patients they see to what insurance plans they accept (and what percentage of their work comes from specific insurance companies) and the clinical trials with which they are involved.  Contact information and social media details are also included.

    The company’s databases contain more than one billion data points.

    As Katz said, some of that data is public information, and some is not.  And, by gathering all that information in one place, the firm can help spotlight medical professionals on the cutting edge of, say, combatting pandemics.

    The most immediate use case for the firm was to help pharmaceutical, biotech and medical device companies, who spend about $60 billion a year on research.

    The studies take place at, for example, Harvard University, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center or Stanford University. The biotechs and healthcare firms, said Katz, “need to know which institutions they should be partnering with, which healthcare professionals they should be with — the user data can help answer those questions,” as they seek to educate various markets about new healthcare products and treatments.

    Consider also the case where a company needs to educate a given market why one treatment for prostate cancer is better for patients between the ages of 24 to 36 with certain pre-existing conditions is better than might be seen with patients between the ages of 55 to 65 with different pre-existing conditions.

    Finding The Thought Leaders

    As might be expected with the most pressing healthcare issue of the day, Katz said that in response to the ongoing pandemic, the firm has compiled 80,000 individuals who have published research on the coronavirus.  Generally speaking, citations — and even mentions across social media — can help illuminate thought leaders, or in this case, key opinion leaders.

    Each individual receives a score based in part on expertise and experience. There’s also an index that takes the total number of publications to which a healthcare professional has contributed divided by the number of citations.

    For healthcare practices, Katz said the rankings are “used to identify the physicians to increase the ‘right’ referrals to their specific departments.”   He also noted to Webster that H1 Insights does not collect patient-level data.

    “But there are certain things we need to comply with,” he added, “such as if a physician tweets about an adverse effect of a drug — then we need to report that to the FDA.”

    In the end, he told Webster, “if you build an ecosystem where people are connected, but there is more transparency around data — then generally, a better connection is made.”


    Bank of America Focuses on Turning Payments Breakthroughs Into Consumer Habits

    Highlights

    Success in payments hinges not on technical possibilities but on widespread user adoption, which depends on shifting behaviors — not just adding features.

    Payment platforms succeed by applying behavioral science, making complex systems feel intuitive and secure.

    The next wave of adoption will be driven by embedded, anticipatory experiences, transparent and trust-driven design, and 24/7 availability.

    Watch more: Bank of America on Turning Payments Breakthroughs Into Habits

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      From QR codes and tokenized wallets to instant settlement networks and blockchain rails, the technological underpinnings of payments are evolving faster than most adjacent sectors.

      Yet, for all the feats of engineering, true success in this domain is dictated not by what is possible but by what is adopted. The most lasting innovations in payments can frequently center on a deceptively simple question: Will people actually use this?

      “Innovation alone doesn’t create impact. Adoption does,” Dani Lugo, the U.S. payments strategy lead at Bank of America, told PYMNTS. “And adoption is achieved when behaviors [change, not just when the features ship].”

      Adoption in payments follows a U-curve. Innovators try first and laggards follow last, but the inflection happens only when the middle masses see the system as mainstream. Behavioral economists call this “social proof.”

      “Building the product isn’t the same as building the habit, and that’s where the best ideas can fall short,” Lugo said. “The job of the product team is not to just build what’s possible. It’s to make what’s possible feel natural.”

      Designing for Scale Without Losing Simplicity

      Understanding that adoption is behavioral leads to the toolkit of behavioral science. The most successful payment platforms in the last decade have not simply been technical marvels; they have been behavioral triumphs.

      Technical brilliance is a correlation, not a causation, of widespread usability. One standout example in payments Lugo cited was Zelle, the peer-to-peer payments platform launched by a consortium of major banks.

       

      “Technically it was strong, it was fast, it was secure,” she said. “But at launch, the adoption really lagged despite the strong technical infrastructure.”

      Users didn’t understand what it was or how to compare it to existing habits like using Venmo or paying with cash. It wasn’t until Zelle unified its branding across banks and invested in education that adoption took off. That pivot helped the platform surpass $1 trillion in payments in 2024.

      “Infrastructure is table stakes, but the adoption truly depends on three Cs: clarity, consistency and confidence,” Lugo said.

      Still, in enterprise-scale products, the temptation is to conflate complexity with completeness. But Lugo’s approach flips that logic.

      “Simplicity is not necessarily doing less,” she said. “It’s about surfacing what matters most.”

      Case in point: Bank of America’s work in Europe on pay by bank, a method allowing users to authorize payments directly from their bank account without card details. Behind the scenes, the back-end mechanics are complex, but what matters most to users is feeling secure and confident.

      “Can I check out quickly? Is this safe? Do I know what I’m doing and what I can expect next?” Lugo said.

      The Future of Payments Innovation Is Empathetic and Behavioral

      As the lines between commerce, content and payments continue to blur, the challenge of adoption will grow more complex. In financial services, where complexity is often assumed as a given, empathy helps product teams build intuitive and relevant experiences.

      For example, on CashPro, Bank of America’s digital banking platform for commercial and corporate clients, user feedback inspired several enhancements, including QR sign-in, intelligent transaction search with integrated investigation capabilities, and real-time approvals through the mobile app.

      “The goal wasn’t to truly simplify the work [CashPro users] were doing, but to make it more usable and human,” Lugo said. “We respected our users’ time and expectations.”

      That respect paid off in the form of increased engagement, faster decision making and deeper client relationships. The shift reflects the broader consumer expectation that business tools should feel as seamless as personal apps.

      “Adoption isn’t a one-time event,” Lugo said. “It’s a habit that we build through ongoing empathy, experimentation and evolution of the product.”

      Trends Reshaping Product Adoption

      As FinTech and payments advance, Lugo said she sees three trends reshaping the future of product adoption: embedded and preemptive experiences; trust by design; and real-time, always-on expectations.

      Users expect financial tools to appear contextually — whether in a checkout process, a business platform or a messaging app. But embedded isn’t enough; it must be smart. Through contextual cues like user history, behavior or device type, financial platforms can anticipate preferences, reduce friction and build confidence.

      “It’s about presenting the right option at the right time,” Lugo said.

      Separately, in an era of digital fatigue and fraud, familiarity and clarity are critical drivers of adoption. When users understand where their money is going and why, trust — and usage — follows. That means that trust is no longer passive. It must be built in through transparent design, intuitive flows and visible safeguards.

      “Trust is now an active product feature,” Lugo said.

      Ultimately, as the economy becomes 24/7, users expect financial platforms to operate at all hours. This is especially true in the disbursement space. Whether it’s a gig worker getting paid at midnight or a corporate client issuing payments over the weekend, the demand for real-time responsiveness is a business necessity.

      “The ability to deliver consistently across channels and time zones isn’t just an operational challenge,” Lugo said. “It’s an adoption imperative.”

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