Increased demand for pathology testing solutions, the rise in people taking personal responsibility for their wellbeing and the Government’s ambitions to ‘scale digital health self-help, diagnostics and therapies,’ have led digital healthcare company Medichecks to unveil its new business-to-business solution, Plasma.
A year in development, Plasma plugs a gap with its end-to-end diagnostics service for both the public and private sector.
It marks a shift in diagnostics that will enable GPs, pharmacies, retailers, digital health companies and practitioners, to mitigate the challenges of logistics, funding and regulation – widening access to laboratory testing.
Plasma provides flexible solutions from finger prick and venous tests to co-branded test kits and user comms, as well as the ability to plug into its APIs for easy test ordering and results delivery.
The level of support required can be scaled up or down, depending on requirement and in-house capabilities, and can include the option for expert analysis from one of Medichecks’ doctors and recommendations for follow-up tests.
Businesses can tap into a ready-made catalogue of around 100 tests or can have tests tailor-made for them. They can also access over 200 nationwide partner phlebotomy clinics, if needed.
Helen Marsden, co-founder and director of Medichecks, explains: “The digital health sector has evolved, and people are more invested in their health and wellbeing than ever before. Whether you’re seeing a nutritionist to optimise your diet, working with a GP to diagnose an ailment, or trying to conceive, blood testing delivers many of the answers to inform the correct course of treatment.
“Plasma is right at the forefront of this new industry, as a solution that allows organisations to set up blood testing as part of their offering quickly and easily, without having to make the financial and logistical investments needed to be a blood testing provider.
“In launching our diagnostics-as-a service solution, Plasma, we’ve drawn on our wealth of medical and technological knowledge to create something that’s slick, easy to integrate, user-friendly and cost-effective – and we look forward to seeing how the market responds to it.”
The first direct-to-consumer blood testing company in the UK, Nottinghamshire-based Medichecks was founded more than 20 years ago. It already has enviable business-to-business credentials collaborating with household retailers, pharmacists, GPs, and nutritionists, with over 1,000 customers including Boots, Benecol, St John Ambulance and previously the NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) service.
During the pandemic Medichecks saw the role that they could play in delivering remote diagnostic testing and monitoring for a range of organisations, including the NHS.
Marsden added: “What’s important is our proven track record in delivering this kind of service. Our proactive approach to the pandemic allowed us to become more visible, not just with consumers but also businesses that wanted to provide hassle-free blood testing to their own customers. We’ve created a series of solutions that can be adopted and rolled out quickly and can scale with their business."
One such organisation is St John Ambulance, which called on Medichecks and Boots Corporate Healthcare to speed up results and access more convenient hepatitis B immunity testing for its employees and volunteers.
A clinical project officer with St John Ambulance said: “By working with Medichecks, we could provide hepatitis B immunity testing kits posted directly to our volunteer’s homes. Centralising the process saved countless volunteer hours and gave us peace of mind knowing that the results are easily accessible in one place."
