Mainstream market and the barriers to adoption

Stages of adoption and the adoption curve 

    The mainstream market has an adoption curve followed by most technology startups which encompass the challenges and steps that new technology has to go through through to become adopted by the mainstream public. We will now look at how the Sepsis Watch technology will operate through these stages of adoption in order to be a prevalent detection method in the global battle against Sepsis.  

The Adoption curve encompass;

1) The Early Market 

    This includes the innovators and early adopters who are classified as the tech enthusiasts. These are the individuals and organizations who invented the sepsis watch, gave the initial seed funding, and spread the new technology though the early market.   

2)   The Chasm 

    This is considered the area where it is do or die for the new technology. It represents the 'gap' between the early market and the mainstream market. As of right now the Sepsis watch is in the early market stage where it has only been used at the Duke Health Care Center. 

3) The Mainstream Market 

    For an idea to make it to the mainstream market it needs to be adopted and used by the Pragmatists (early majority), the conservatives (late majority), and finally the skeptics (Laggards). For the sepsis watch this would mean hospitals and health care professionals across the globe are under the agreement the technology is better and currently the most efficient way to detect sepsis. 

 Barriers to adoption the Sepsis Watch will face 

1)      The leap over the chasm

               The initial barrier that the sepsis watch will face is the ‘leap’ from the early market testing at duke University health care facilities to widespread mainstream market adoption. This is where it is important that the visionaries and technological enthusiasts show health care facilities across the country that the technology is more efficient than their current diagnosis system.

2)      Finding early adopter

 A       After the mainstream market sees the value that the sepsis watch can provide to their patients its important to establish a relationship with the leaders of the health care provider industry. Creating partnerships with companies such as Cigna Medical and United Health Group will help hospitals implement the technology as the health care providers will establish the most efficient way to pass the cost of the technology along to the consumer in forms of health care packages. The sepsis watch will also gain social credibility from these industry specific relationships.

3)     Providing a cost analysis

          It will be important to show the early adopters there is a cost benefit from using the sepsis watch due to the decrease in face to face time the doctors will need to spend trying to diagnose potential sepsis patents.

4)     Getting medical professionals comfortable with the technology

           The final barrier to a compete mainstream market adoption will be to ensure medical professionals are comfortable using the sepsis watch in practice. This can be overcome with the creation of a conference or retreat to teach the proper application of the sepsis watch.