NHS hospitals do an extraordinary job of caring for patients with the available tools, but the technology in the other industries has improved by quite a few folds. The reality is that in 2019 you can book a flight, hotel and your entire vacation online, but a hospital appointment can take 5- 6 letters and a potential waiting period of around 3 months. This can result in a negative patient experience and distance patients from their own care. A London-based company named DrDoctor stepped in with a mission to create a platform which catalyzes technology led change in hospitals and healthcare systems. Its cloud based patient management tools automate and virtualize processes and care, so that Doctors can focus on their patients, and patients can engage as true partners in their care. The organization’s vision is to provide all the care based on the needs of the patient and his/her condition.
Uniquely, DrDoctor is not backed by any venture capital. It has grown organically, by focusing on its customers, and doing a great really strong focus on delivery, with an in house transformation team who it deploys as part of DrDoctor’s managed service to make sure all their partners get maximum value from the platform.
The organization works with its partners to really understand the problems faced by their staff, and delivers technology which helps them in their day to day activities, and automates their routine tasks. This enables its partners to focus on using their hard-earned skills to care for patients.
Connecting Hospitals and Patients
DrDoctor has built a platform that connects hospitals and patients. The organization calls this the Patient Layer, and it underpins everything it does. By enabling real time communication one can allow all sorts of exciting, more efficient, and more patient centric ways of working. DrDoctor often starts with relatively simple but impactful rollouts, like filling all the empty slots in clinics, and slowly bringing on board more advanced functionality, using its algorithms to automate care so patients can get a better experience.
A Company That Focuses on Listening to Patients
Tom Whicher, the Founder of DrDoctor believed the answer to innovation in healthcare was to focus on listening to patients and the teams in hospitals, and build something that really helped them. It was because of this, the first version of DrDoctor was based on onboarding patients via SMS — according to patients this was their favored way to get information. The organization has stayed true to this, keeping as close to the coalface as it can, to make sure what DrDoctor builds really delivers for the users.
According to Tom, in order to succeed in healthcare one needs a unique combination of skills. It’s an area where process and people combine, so one needs to understand both, along with lots of patience, tenacity, and most of all kindness.