The UK’s tottering NHS is not in the best shape by any estimate, the victim of chronic underfunding and staffing which has led terribly long waiting times and health professionals hitting a lot.
But in the midst of chaos, opportunity often remains. A growing number of startups are capitalizing on the UK’s struggling healthcare system, raising money for platforms that provide access to private medical imaging services or contribute in some way to solving staff shortages.
and then there is MediShouta London-based company that claims to be a “one-stop app” for reporting operational deficiencies in hospitals, allowing staff to keep track of status updates and new orders in a similar way to how you could with an Uber ride or an Amazon order.
Founded by Dr. Ash Kalraiya in 2013, MediShout unifies all healthcare providers and support services in one app. It started as a side project while Kalraiya continued his role as a full-time orthopedic surgeon, however, Kalraiya hired the doctor ali bahsoun as Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer (CPO) in 2020 to grow MediShout as a full-time business. The startup raised £167,000 ($211,000) in angel funding, before closing a £1 million ($1.25 million) pre-seed funding round for Episode 1 in September 2020.
Kalraiya told TechDigiPro that he expects MediShout to be profitable next year, and to spur its next phase of growth, it has now raised an additional £4.3 million ($5.4 million) in seed funding.
MediShout founders Ash (CEO) and Ali (CPO) image credits:MediShout
‘I like to order on Amazon’
Under the hood, MediShout essentially aggregates vendors, help desks, and operational departments, and seeks to supplant existing tools like faxes, emails, paper forms, and help desk software (for example, ServiceNow).
“As a frontline surgeon, I witnessed operational issues preventing the best patient care every day,” Kalraiya said. “Patient care would routinely be delayed or canceled due to preventable issues like faulty light bulbs, broken printers, or missing equipment.”
At a time when healthcare providers are already under significant pressure, equipment failure is an added burden they don’t really need. For example, a failure endoscope can take up to nine hours to correct between multiple different staff members, due in part to the workflows of multiple departments and equipment vendors. This can involve paperwork, phone calls, and countless logistical steps to arrange delivery and pickup of the device. And this is all before we even consider unexpected roadblocks and bottlenecks.
“The big problem is not just that staff time is wasted, but often (medical) procedures are canceled because communication was too slow and devices were not returned fast enough,” Kalraiya said.
Kalraiya says that in this case, MediShout can cut the amount of time in half to around 4.5 hours, with all reports and updates archived digitally via an app and all relevant stakeholders notified automatically.
“The provider sends messages and status updates in real time that all hospital staff can see,” Kalraiya said. “There’s no paperwork required and staff don’t have to call your vendor to chase you down. This process is now like placing an order on Amazon, where everything is digitized and the data can be seen in real time.”
medshout app image credits:MediShout
The main problem that MediShout seeks to solve is that hospitals typically use hundreds of different systems from different vendors, each with vastly different processes and communication approaches: this spans facilities, porters, equipment, sterile services, IT, human resources, and more.
“This makes healthcare ecosystems extremely complex and difficult for staff to navigate, so they are unable to provide efficient care to patients,” Kalraiya said. “We solve this problem by providing the world’s first app that unifies all helpdesks, vendors, and operations.”
MediShout’s main customers are medical device and facility management companies, who pay MediShout through a monthly subscription to connect to their platform which then digitizes and bundles their services for hospitals, most of which are part of the NHS.
“One provider is currently expanding us to over 100 hospitals in the UK and abroad,” Kalraiya said. “We also sell direct to hospitals, in particular to the NHS.”
Kalraiya also said that it currently has some AI work in its R&D phase, which, when commercialized, could help predict when future problems may occur. To do this, the company can query, for example, all hospital medical equipment data, including details of equipment that has failed in the last 15 years.
“Based on usage and frequency of repair, we began to predict when equipment like ECG (electrocardiography) machines were likely to break down,” Kalraiya said. “Then you can do planned maintenance to avoid breakdowns happening.”
MediShout, which currently has 22 employees, is currently operational in the UK and Ireland, although with its fresh infusion of cash it is looking to expand further into continental Europe.
“I have worked as a surgeon in many countries, and these [operational] problems exist everywhere,” Kalraiya added.
The MediShoud seed round was led by Nickleby Capital, with participation from KHP Ventures, Episode1 and various individuals from the Atomico’s Angels program.
