Research for Healthcare Organizations
Praxia Insights runs research for healthcare organizations, health technology companies, and health-focused nonprofits, including clinician and patient research, market and competitive studies, program evaluation, and recruitment of hard-to-reach medical audiences.
Healthcare research runs into problems that most market research never has to deal with. The people you need to talk to are clinicians with fifteen minutes between patients, the topics are often personal enough that people won't discuss them in a group, and anything touching patient data brings privacy requirements along with it.
Those constraints are why healthcare studies stall. It's rarely the questions. It's getting the right people in the room and handling the research properly once they're there.
Our team has recruited radiologists for interviews about imaging technology, HR leaders running menopause and women's health benefit programs, and clinicians for a federally funded study. We know what these audiences cost, how long they take to reach, and what they'll actually agree to.
Discuss your healthcare research
What We Work On
Clinician research: interviews and surveys with physicians, specialists, nurses, and allied health professionals about workflow, technology, and decision-making.
Patient and caregiver research: understanding experience, barriers to care, and what people actually need, handled with the care these conversations require.
Health technology market research: competitive analysis, positioning, pricing, and buyer research for companies selling into healthcare.
Program evaluation: assessing whether a health program is working, for whom, and what to change.
Benefits and workforce research: studies with HR and benefits leaders about the programs they run and buy.
Participant recruitment: sourcing and screening hard-to-reach medical audiences for your own research team.
Recruiting Medical Audiences
This is usually the hard part, and it's where healthcare studies most often fall apart. Panels will tell you they have physicians, and what frequently arrives is somebody who works at a hospital.
We verify that participants genuinely qualify instead of trusting what a panel reports about them. We also set incentives at a level that reflects what a clinician's time is actually worth, because under-incentivizing a specialist doesn't save you money, it just extends your fielding period.
Recent healthcare recruitment has included radiologists for one-on-one interviews about imaging technology, HR and benefits leaders responsible for menopause and women's health programs, and clinical staff for a federally funded research study.
Privacy and Research Ethics
Health research carries requirements that other research doesn't, and we work within them. Our researchers hold current CITI certification in the responsible conduct of social and behavioral research, and we've taken studies through IRB approval before, so we handle submission and management where human subjects review applies. That includes the protocol, consent and assent materials, and responses to reviewer questions.
For studies touching protected health information, we'll agree the data handling approach with you up front and work within your compliance requirements. If your organization has its own IRB or privacy office, we'll go through them.
Project Examples
A NIH-funded study examining neuropsychological predictors of adaptation after trauma.
A five-year randomized control trial (RCT), funded by the U.S. Department of Ed, to study individualized math instruction.
Led a national survey study in partnership with Berklee BEATL & Adobe to study AI use in the music industry.
How We Work
1. Initial consultation and plan
We'll meet to talk through what you need and confirm that this is the right approach for the decision you're facing.
2. Project scoping and budget
You'll get a custom scope of work with tasks, due dates, and budget before any work starts, so the price is fixed and there aren't hourly surprises later.
3. Project execution
You'll get updates on progress throughout, including where recruitment stands and when each milestone is hit.
4. A true partnership approach
We share insights with you as they come up throughout the project, so your team can start acting on what we learn long before the final report is finished.
5. Project completion
We'll deliver the final insights in whatever format your team will actually use, whether that's a written report, an executive presentation, or a working session.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Yes. Our team has recruited radiologists, specialty physicians, clinical staff, and HR and benefits leaders in healthcare. We verify credentials and role ourselves instead of accepting what a panel reports, and panel self-reports are where most physician recruitment goes wrong.
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Considerably more than general consumers. Hard-to-reach professionals and specialists typically need incentives well above the general range, and physicians cost the most of anybody. We'll scope specific figures with you based on the specialty and the time commitment.
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Longer than general consumer work, usually two to four weeks for specialists and sometimes more for narrow specialties. Incidence rate drives it more than sample size does. If your timeline is fixed, tell us early and we'll tell you what's realistic.
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Yes. We prepare and manage IRB submissions where human subjects review is required, including the protocol, consent and assent materials, and responses to reviewer questions. If your organization has its own IRB, we'll work through it.
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We'll agree the data handling approach with you before anything starts and work within your compliance requirements. Plenty of healthcare research doesn't need identifiable patient data at all, so it's worth checking whether your question actually requires it.
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Yes, and these usually call for one-on-one interviews instead of focus groups, because people won't speak candidly about a health condition in front of strangers. We'll design the approach around what participants can reasonably be asked.
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Yes. Our team has run market research for an enterprise healthcare technology company ahead of an AI feature launch, covering market trends, competitor positioning, and pricing, using secondary research, mystery shopping of competitor demos, surveys, and focus groups with current customers.
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Yes. Program evaluation is core to what we do, including formative evaluation while a program runs and summative evaluation of outcomes. Our team has managed a federally funded health study from launch through reporting.
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It depends on the audience, the methods, and the incentives, and clinician research costs more than most because of what participant time is worth. We'll give you a fixed-scope quote after an initial consultation.
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Yes. Recruitment is available on its own. Some clients have their own moderators and analysts and just need somebody who can actually reach the audience, handle screening, and manage scheduling and incentives.
Our Experience
More than 60 studies designed, including case study, quasi-experimental, RCT, and mixed-method designs
More than 100 focus groups and in-depth interviews conducted
More than $4 million in grant-funded research managed
Clients spanning Fortune 500 companies, startups, nonprofits, universities, and federally funded programs
Our researchers hold doctorates in educational neuroscience, psychology, and related fields
Need research in healthcare?
Tell us who you need to reach and what you're trying to learn, and we'll advise on the approach, the timeline, and what it would take.