Patient engagement platform (PEP) supplier, DrDoctor, has secured £10m of investment.
The funding will expedite its plans for delivering patient-initiated models of care to integrated care systems (ICS).
These include making integration enhancements to the platform to meet the needs of all providers, and implementing a new AI tool to help the NHS predict and prevent missed appointments.
Tom Whicher, Co-Founder and Chief Executive, DrDoctor, said:
“The NHS backlog includes more than 7 million appointments. We need to see a wholesale shift in the way we approach healthcare if we are going to tackle this number and relieve the pressure on stretched NHS services.
“This latest investment means we can move faster on our journey to digital-first, personalised care, which will help release clinical capacity and improve productivity across regional footprints rather than just individual acute trusts.”
DrDoctor is to focus on extensive product development to provide the latest patient-engagement tools and remote data collection to help its customers improve productivity, clinical outcomes and patient experiences.
The company will also be enhancing its integration abilities and developing key industry partnerships to broaden its capabilities for backlog management, including working with virtual wards and remote monitoring suppliers.
Already, DrDoctor is integrated with 80 per cent of electronic patient records (EPR) and patient administration systems (PAS) in the NHS.
These new relationships mean that they can create an ecosystem that provides an end-to-end solution for ICSs.
The investment will also support the rollout of a new predictive AI tool to identify and respond to patients that are likely to miss their outpatient appointments.
The company is already helping trusts to reduce DNAs by up to 30 per cent, and this new functionality is expected to increase this by a further 18 per cent.
Helen Villiers, Investment Director at YFM Equity Partners, who led the round, said:
“Today the NHS is under supreme amounts of pressure.
“Coming off the back of a global pandemic, health inequalities have been exacerbated and major system inefficiencies revealed, meaning patients and clinicians alike are in need of solutions such as DrDoctor’s more than ever.”
Whicher added:
“In the next few years, the health service will be transformed by digital first models, and end to end pathways across care boundaries. This funding will play an important part in our journey to helping the NHS work better. We’re incredibly grateful for the support.”
