An update from a European health tech firm has underlined the sheer scale of growth and opportunities for those firms able to successfully deliver combined clinical expertise and digital convenience.
HealthHero was formed in Autumn 2019 when Marcol, a pan-European investment house with healthcare interests, joined forces with Ranjan Singh, an entrepreneur with over 20 years of experience targeting sectors ripe for transformation.
Weeks later, in December 2019, the first known case of COVID-19 was identified in Wuhan, China, and the enforced global acceleration of healthcare digitisation began.
In the months that followed the number of digital health providers and the volume of remote interventions exploded. In the US, for example, just 0.1 per cent of Medicare (federal insurance) primary care appointments were delivered via telemedicine in February 2020. By April 2020 this hit 43 per cent.
According to data published in May 2021, over 50 per cent of digital health firms experienced greater than expected revenues in 2020.
In Europe, “over 20 per cent of startups [in healthcare] actually emerged in the first few months of the pandemic,” Benedikt Blomeyer, director for EU policy at the global network Allied for Startups, told the EURACTIV publication. “That’s not conceivable in any other economic sector,” he added.
Against these conditions, HealthHero, as announced this week, has built up a 30 million-strong population of patients who are covered by its digital health services.
In the currency of world populations, this has the firm’s empire approaching the size of Malaysia.
When Health Tech World interviewed co-founder and CEO Ranjan Singh two years ago (‘One to Watch: HealthHero’) it was serving 4.5 million people.
Patients in its reach now include those represented through corporate and insurance partners, the NHS in the UK, and those served directly through the group’s sites and apps.
HealthHero aims to make it easier for people to manage their health, with more convenient access to a holistic range of health services and better outcomes for patients.
Partners recently signing up to HealthHero’s healthcare services include Santéclair and Groupama in France, plus Lime Insurance and Medipartner that are using HealthHero’s GP Services in the UK.
Ranjan Singh says: “By combining digital convenience with clinical expertise we can serve a huge number of people that national health services cannot always support, whether that is by providing virtual or remote consultation directly to patients, or through employers, insurers and other partners such as wellbeing providers.”
The company now aims to achieve further growth by targeting several areas of surging demand. Addressing the global shift towards preventative care, the mental health epidemic exacerbated by lockdowns and self-isolation and greater awareness among employers of the need to more closely focus on staff health and wellbeing could all influence its further success.
“We are looking to expand our reach even further across Europe, particularly through mental and physical wellbeing services for employers and insurers, as well as moving into preventative care,” says Singh.
HealthHero handles thousands of patient interactions per month, including teleconsultation and virtual GP calls, online triage referrals for GP surgeries, EAP and mental health calls via employer benefits, 111 helpline calls for the NHS and symptom/health risk assessments via digital clinical tools.
As Singh explains, it is also succeeding by providing an alternative to the “silo” mentality so often deep-rooted in healthcare systems.
“Healthcare can be frustrating, time-consuming and operate in silos. We seek to improve people’s lives by giving patients a better experience and outcome from their healthcare interactions.
“We also seek to tackle the problems of cost and capacity within healthcare systems, which are exacerbated by inefficiency.”
It is also mindful of its role in taking on personnel challenges in the wider healthcare landscape.
“The chronic shortage of clinicians in Europe is only getting worse and we believe that the answer is to deliver healthcare solutions in a smarter and more efficient way through technology.”
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