Our Approach

At Medium, every engagement begins with an attempt to thoroughly understand the client: current strengths, areas of expertise, short-term objectives, long-term vision, and expectations from Medium. We believe it is critical to offer an outsider’s perspective, as this helps ensure a greater sense of objectivity.

An in-depth review of available secondary data helps us to then establish a broad context and tailor a unique plan of action to guide further research. We also invest heavily in conducting our own primary research, spending hours “pounding the pavement” to engage with multiple stakeholders throughout the healthcare delivery chain.

Our distinct interview methodology constantly blends science with art, which often gives us the freedom to follow the data where it leads us. We tend not to dwell on superficialities and obvious symptoms, but in identifying the root cause.

By balancing structure with an open-ended format, we draw out the underlying meaning from our interviews, sometimes even discovering instances of apparently contradictory statements coming together to form a coherent picture.

The strategic directions we advise are hence always guided by a rigorous analysis of both quantitative and qualitative data.

With the objectives of our client foremost in our minds, we aggregate the insights collected from our research to understand the constraints in capitalizing on discovered opportunities. We then brainstorm rigorously with our client, combining our insights with the client’s expertise. The design process then moves from concrete research conclusions to meticulously blueprinting the shortlisted interventions.

Our recommendations usually exceed the client’s current operational capacity only when it is truly necessary. Expensive interventions can be exciting in presentations but, in our experience, throwing new money and more human resources at a problem rarely solves it. We produce inventive solutions because we chart a route to our goal that calls for extra resources only when it is strategically necessary.

An overarching element of Medium’s design process is our commitment to sustainable differentiation. We fundamentally believe in the need for a genuinely superior product or service. This differentiation must begin at the root: in the very DNA of the product or service and carried faithfully through to execution.

The final step of the Design process is to generate detailed blueprints for each solution to clearly define the scope, goal and outcomes of the intervention, as well as the resources which will be required to implement it.

At Medium, we believe in the value of assisting our clients in the implementation of our recommendations. We therefore actively encourage our clients from the start to structure engagements to include implementation assistance. The blueprints, which concisely but comprehensively delineate the identified interventions, are actualized in this phase, coordinated by an all-encompassing implementation guide.

For large-scale projects, implementation usually begins with pilot programs, to test out the assumptions and innovative elements of the new idea. We place great importance in generating a buy-in from stakeholders at various levels in the value chain, which helps to avoid a typical ‘top-down’ enforcement culture.

Pilot projects, as well as step-by-step implementation, create multiple occasions to solicit and integrate feedback from employees and customers. This iterative adjustment results in streamlined processes to achieve the stated objectives as efficiently as possible.

Medium also assists with the capacity building, be it training existing staff or recruiting new team members required to follow through on full-fledged implementation. If external agencies play a role in execution, Medium aids clients in sourcing, selecting and supervising appropriate partners for branding, architectural design, advertising, digital marketing, interior design, public relations, IT services, and other outsourced activities.

In our experience, the involvement of agency experts greatly adds to the effectiveness of the final product.

Following the implementation of our recommended pilots and interventions, we conduct a thorough and rigorous impact evaluation to assess the degree to which our proposed solution succeeds. The scope and method of impact assessment is determined prior to implementation in order to ensure unbiased results.

Based on the impact assessments and feedback from the client and other stakeholders, we then create a fine-tuned iteration appropriate for continued use. This debugging process is generally in incremental shifts, as unique aspects of the operations design or the consumer revealed in the impact assessment, are integrated into the core design.

After this debugging process has been completed, we create templates for future implementation to guide ongoing operations. In addition to providing written documentation of all processes, we also assist in training necessary personnel from the client team in overseeing and troubleshooting the process from then on.