Why smaller suppliers shouldn’t be written off by the NHS

More patients are waiting for care than ever before, and NHS staff are more burnt out than they have ever been. The NHS is looking for ways to increase capacity and improve the healthcare experience for staff and patients - and this is where digital tools can help. Healthtech companies are developing solutions to the most pressing healthcare problems, but trusts can be cautious about partnering with a start-up or scale-up, over a large, well-established company.?

With limited budgets and patient safety at the core, it can understandably be unnerving for an NHS trust to put their faith in a small team with a handful of trusts to their name. It might appear easier and safer to go with a 500-strong company whose tool has been used across millions of patient interactions. But smaller companies shouldn’t be written off; they have much to offer that larger companies aren’t always able to. They’re:

Flexible and agile

There is a misconception that small means less powerful, but they can be more efficient because they are small. According to the Ringelmann Effect , there is a tendency for individual team members to become less productive as the size of a group increases. Smaller teams have scope to innovate quickly, bringing team members in, and with less bureaucracy and approvals slowing them down.?

A common complaint with Electronic Health Records is that, when bugs are highlighted, they have to wait until the next round of updates to be fixed, so users can be stuck with a known issue for months at a time. With Infinity, this simply does not happen - we can fix things fast.?

Dedicated to individual customer needs

Smaller companies are often closer to their customers, so they can be attentive to their needs. Startups want to spread the benefit of their solutions and they rely on their reputation with their customers. Quite simply, they go the extra mile.

In our case, we map the complex as-is and to-be. We’re a task management platform so we map the current tasks of core staff groups to identify the longstanding challenges they face. We do touch-points mapping; looking at the places where tasks may be recorded such as handover sheets, patient notes, and on their smartphone. Often there are many touch-points already in use, so it is important for a new product to fit seamlessly into the existing ecosystem. We also look to understand the current systems embedded at the trust, such as patient administration systems (PAS), electronic health records (EHR) and technical interfaces that are currently available. Ultimately, we dig deep into who will use Infinity, the challenges we can help to solve, and how we can seamlessly integrate with existing systems.?

Post-launch, we continue to work with trusts and are on hand to deal with any issues promptly and respond to needs of frontline staff, developing features that they need. And to prepare for any issues that may happen, we have business continuity plans in place and all our code goes into a real-time repository that a trust can access.

High-performing, dedicated people

Startups are built by skilled people, at the top of their game. They have often built experience across different companies and have the skillset and passion to help a purpose-driven company scale. The founder has spotted a niche and brought in the team members they need, in a lean way. While larger companies might lose their culture as they grow, smaller companies are building the culture around the individuals, driving their passion for the company. They take success very seriously and everyone is fully bought into the mission. If they don’t do well as a team, the business will fail.

Big-name companies need to focus on consistency and have more people to consider in their process changes, which can be to a detriment. In fact, Amazon Web Services - who host Infinity’s tech - actively try to find ways to emulate smaller companies’ ways of working as they know it’s effective. They have a ‘two pizza rule ’ which means they try to create teams that are no larger than can be fed by two pizzas, as they feel the smaller the team, the better the collaboration.

Filling the gap, cost-effectively

Start-ups exist because larger companies are not serving customers effectively. Some larger corporates may have become complacent or haven’t evolved to meet modern challenges, while smaller businesses are constantly focused on innovation. They aren’t ‘comfortable’ yet and so are highly motivated to evolve all the time. There are no assumptions safe from being challenged and improved.

We can also make a huge difference by complementing existing major systems. Replacing big systems like patient administration systems (PAS) and electronic patient records (EPRs) costs millions and is a huge change burden. Furthermore getting systems to all use one major digital system is an expensive pipe dream that can result in huge delays to essential improvements. Using a flexible tech provider that is designed to integrate and bring different systems together allows rapid and significant progress without providers having to compromise on changing their own systems.?

Customer perception that bigger is better could also mean there is a bigger cost associated with that. Smaller companies have smaller overheads and are able to pass the savings on to the customer.?

Built on impact

For a startup to succeed, evidence of impact on the NHS, patients and staff is needed. This means working closely with NHS customers to set goals, measure impact and extract the maximum value. Processes and solutions will evolve to meet precise challenges and deliver the best outcomes. Small companies know they have to justify their inclusion by evidencing benefits - and rightly so. They are happy to do, either themselves or by working with independent partners such as an AHSN or analytics company. They understand they will be held to their performance targets in contracts and will strive to meet them.

This isn’t a criticism of big businesses, as we each place a critical role in the health sector. The point is that smaller companies shouldn’t be disregarded. They fill niches that larger competitors might overlook and are building solutions to fit healthcare needs, while complementing and integrating with other systems.?

To find out more about Infinity Health ’s care coordination solutions and how we can work with you, go to infinity.health or drop me a line [email protected].