Clinical assistance tools: the next generation of patient care
Kevin Bambury, co-founder of ONCOassist, writes about the new medtech developments that improve the patient journey while providing relief to HCP’s workflow.
When we started ONCOassist, we were motivated by one simple problem. Clinicians were spending too much time trying to find the tools and information they needed to make an informed decision. We heard stories of oncology clinicians queuing to get access to computers, printing off reference material which were then brought to patients’ bedsides to help with decision making. Highly trained clinicians were spending too much time on something other than caring for patients. This seemed like an inefficient process in our digital age and one we were primed to solve.
By focussing on bringing all the key tools and information oncology clinicians use daily into one platform, we have developed ONCOassist into an app used by oncology HCPs globally. We estimate nearly 45% of oncology HCPs globally now use ONCOassist, even after other apps that similarly assist clinical decision making have emerged. All are putting the needs of clinicians and their patients at the centre of what they do.
From the very beginning, we felt user feedback and engagement was a key part of our development strategy, we focussed on surveying our users, meeting them at conferences and engaging via emails. The information we garnered was critical to helping us grow and remain at the forefront of their needs. Even to this day, our mission statement is to help oncology professionals globally make more informed decisions. This is something we remind ourselves of every day.
Over the same time, we have been able to watch other companies with similar focusses on assisting clinicians and their patients emerge and grow; below are some examples.
Salaso Health
Salaso health allows clinicians to send evidence-based exercise programs to their patients to help them with their recovery. These are provided in the form of crisp, easy to follow videos which patients can follow from the comfort of their own home. This assists clinicians by giving them a platform from which to guide and monitor their patients, while empowering patients to manage their own recovery with the help of their clinician. Just like ONCOassist, Salaso Health focuses on the needs of the clinician and their patient.
Swift Queue
Swift Queue was founded to streamline appointment booking in healthcare systems around the world. Their online booking platform takes the burden of managing patients in the waiting room away from the clinical care team and allows them to focus on what they are best at. Again, the focus was on solving a common clinical challenge and leveraging technology to make what was an inefficient process streamlined.
MedxNote
A third company that is assisting clinicians and growing quickly is Medxnote. They provide clinicians with the right clinical data, at the right time, by connecting your hospital IT systems with chatbots. Medxnote is integrated with the existing healthcare IT infrastructure and sends key information to clinicians from these disparate systems, when and where it is needed.
For anyone developing a product in healthcare, I urge you to talk to users and find ways to engage with them regularly, whether it be via digital means or in person. This is critical prior to launch, but also after launch. It’s a complex space and products that are developed need to be constantly evolving.
The Irish medtech ecosystem
In navigating a complex regulatory environment, the community at the Western Gateway building in UCC was key, as was the regulatory affairs centre of excellence in Dundalk IT. We got commercial support from the Ignite programme in UCC as well as mentors provided by Enterprise Ireland and the UCC Ignite programme.
Finally, we were very fortunate that the Irish oncology community via ICORG (now Cancer Trials Ireland) were willing to engage and give us feedback on how ONCOassist could be improved to help them in their day-to-day lives as oncology clinicians.