The developers of a communication platform that offers secure digital access to healthcare services have received £200,000 of seed funding in a deal led by Mercia Fund Management and involving the NHS-backed West Midlands Academic Health Science Networks (AHSNs) fund.
The platform is designed to improve patient engagement and make it easier for clinicians to measure patient outcomes outside of a healthcare setting.
For patients, the service will enable them to spot patterns in their behaviour that affect their health, communicate with their clinician and empower them to practice self-care so they can take responsibility for their health and wellbeing.
Health Centrified will use the early-stage investment to support the development, evaluation and commercialisation of its software platform. As well as working with UK organisations, the Birmingham-based company is also looking to build relationships with US healthcare providers.
Experienced entrepreneur and CEO of Health Centrified Syed Abrar previously co-founded the multi-award winning mental health solution, Buddy App. Syed has built extensive client relationships across a number of sectors including telecoms, recruitment and finance.
Syed Abrar, CEO of Health Centrified, said:
“Because the best treatment is partially dependent upon timely and reliable information from patients, we are looking for ways to improve on the collection of that information. We are confident that by opening a communication channel between patients and providers using this platform, we can increase compliance for treatment plans and get a much higher level of data input from patients outside of regular visits. We also believe this could be a two-way channel, where providers can push information out to patients as well. Having better engaged patients, we expect to see higher health outcomes.
“We welcome the financial strength of working with Mercia Fund Management and the opportunity the WM AHSN offers – with access to health professionals and test beds within the NHS, to aid development of the solution.”
Dr Ashish Patel, Investment Manager at Mercia Fund Management, said:
“We believe this is a great opportunity to invest in a potentially high-value solution to a significant health and commercial problem. In the UK, around £700million is thought to be lost through missed NHS appointments alone. Healthcare IT solutions for care providers is a particular area of interest for Mercia and we are delighted to support Syed and his team as they continue to grow.”