Britain’s troubled National Health Service (NHS) is not at its best, according to estimates. Victims of chronic underfunding and understaffing This leads to unbearable long waiting time and health care professionals striking.
But amidst the chaos, opportunities often linger. A growing number of start-ups are taking advantage of the UK’s struggling healthcare system to raise funds for platforms offering private medical imaging services, or to address staff shortages in part.
After that medical crya London-based company that bills itself as a “one-stop app” for reporting deficiencies in hospital operations, allowing employees to track status updates and new orders, similar to how people handle Uber rides or Amazon orders.
Founded by Dr. Ash Kalraiya in 2013, MediShout unifies all helpdesk and medical providers in one app. Kalraiya continued as a full-time plastic surgeon, initially as a side project, but Kalraiya brought in the doctor Alibaba Launched MediShout as a full-time business in 2020 as Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer (CPO). The startup went on to raise £167,000 ($211,000) in angel funding before closing a £1 million ($1.25 million) pre-seed round from Episode 1 in September 2020.
Kalraiya told TechCrunch he expects MediShout to be profitable next year, and to spur the next phase of growth, it has now raised another £4.3 million ($5.4 million) in seed funding.
MediShout founders Ash (CEO) and Ali (CPO) image credits: medical call
“Like ordering on Amazon”
Under the hood, MediShout basically aggregates providers, help desks, and operations, and seeks to replace existing tools like fax, email, paper forms, and help desk software (such as ServiceNow).
“As a surgeon on the front lines, I witness operational issues that prevent optimal patient care every day,” Kalraiya said. “Patient care is often delayed or Cancel.”
At a time when healthcare providers are already under tremendous stress, equipment failure is an additional burden they really don’t need.For example, a glitch endoscope able up to nine hours Fix multiple different employees, partly due to the workflow of multiple departments and equipment suppliers. This can involve paperwork, phone calls, and countless logistical steps to arrange the delivery and collection of equipment. And all this is before taking into account unexpected roadblocks and bottlenecks.
“The biggest problem is not only that staff’s time is wasted, but (medical) procedures are often canceled because communication is too slow and equipment is not returned quickly enough,” Kalraiya said.
In this case, Kalraiya said, MediShout was able to cut the time in half to around 4.5 hours, with all reports and updates submitted digitally through the app and all relevant stakeholders automatically notified.
“The providers send back messages and status updates in real time, which are visible to all hospital staff,” Kalraiya said. “There’s no paperwork required, and employees don’t have to call their suppliers to follow up. The process is now like ordering on Amazon, everything is digitized and the data can be viewed in real time.”
Medishout app image credits: medical call
The main problem MediShout wants to solve is that hospitals often use hundreds of different systems from different , human resources, etc.
“This makes the healthcare ecosystem extremely complex and difficult for staff to navigate, so they can’t provide effective care to patients,” Kalraiya said. program to solve this problem.”
MediShout’s largest customers are medical equipment and facility management companies, which pay MediShout via monthly subscriptions to access its platform, which then digitizes and bridges the services they provide to hospitals, most of which are part of the NHS.
“One provider is currently expanding us to over 100 hospitals in the UK and abroad,” says Kalraiya. “We also sell directly to hospitals, especially the NHS.”
Kalraiya also said it has some AI work currently in development that, when commercialized, could help predict when future problems are likely to occur. To do this, the company can look at all of the hospital’s medical equipment data, including details of equipment that has failed over the past 15 years.
“Based on usage and frequency of repairs, we’re starting to predict when devices like ECG (electrocardiogram) machines are likely to fail,” Kalraiya said. “Then you can do planned maintenance to prevent breakdowns occur“
MediShout currently employs 22 people and currently operates in the UK and Ireland, although with the fresh cash infusion it hopes to expand further into continental Europe.
“I’ve worked as a surgeon in many countries and these (surgical) problems are everywhere,” Kalraiya added.
MediShoud’s seed round was led by Nickleby Capital, with participation from KHP Ventures, Episode1 and several participants in the Atomico angel program.
