Can start-ups revolutionise care?

Two start-ups want to digitize the care market. This could save a lot of time - now all that's left is for care services and health and care insurance companies to play along.

Pen, paper, forms. This is what the daily routine of many care workers still looks like today. Almost 40 percent of their working time is spent not on caring for those in need of care, but on documenting care. This is important in order to record the course of treatment, to write down prescribed medication and then to be able to invoice it later. But it should be done quickly at best.

Michael Aleithe and Philipp Skowron are among those who want to put an end to the mountains of files. Two years ago, they founded the Leipzig-based start-up Sciendis and developed the nursing app Wundera. This is intended to relieve nursing staff of the task of documenting chronic wounds. Such wounds occur, for example, when patients lie in bed a lot or have diabetes. It saves customers 70 percent of their time, says founder Michael Aleithe. "The nursing staff can also use the app via voice input and take photos of the wounds."

The fact that Aleithe and Skowron have declared war on the care bureaucracy has to do with their studies. Both received their doctorates from the University of Leipzig in 2016, their topics: AI and security in digital health applications. They wanted their doctoral theses not to simply disappear in a drawer, but to make a lasting improvement to the lives of people in need of care. The founders sensed a potential worth billions. With the app, they are focusing on outpatient care services in rural areas in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, and want to equip as many care services as possible.

Comprehensive approaches are lacking so far

Because digitalization beyond one's own care business, that hardly fit together so far. "Yet the care sector can be digitized well," explains Peter Tackenberg. He is deputy managing director of the German Professional Association for Nursing Professions and an advisor for digitalization in the German Nursing Council. Tackenberg can name many companies that successfully switched to digital 20 years ago, for example, for tour or duty scheduling of employees, but these are all isolated solutions. In particular, there is a lack of comprehensive approaches to data exchange. "Especially in long-term outpatient care, we have a tangled mess of bureaucracy." Digital documentation would also be optimal for handovers from one caregiver to the next.

So far, however, many care services have shied away from a costly changeover. Although the savings potential is high, the conversion to apps and tablets costs many too much time and money, says Tackenberg: "It changes all kinds of workflows and processes." In addition, the data would have to be well secured and managed. Patients first have to trust a digital solution, and convincing them again costs time - if it can be done at all.

A digital care service saves a lot of time

Kenbi demonstrates how a modern care service can already function today. The Berlin start-up is considered a digital pioneer in the care market. With its own care service, the company now provides 450 patients with outpatient care in rural areas. 160 nursing staff in twelve local teams are on the road for Kenbi. Five more teams are planned by mid-year. The first started in November 2019 in Emmerthal, Lower Saxony. "The most important thing at the beginning was to digitize the care plan and plan the tours digitally," says Katrin Alberding, co-founder and co-CEO of Kenbi. In addition, there is a dedicated messenger platform that caregivers can use to network. "Now it's also faster if a caregiver drops out and we need a replacement quickly," says Alberding. When the start-up expands into new German states - like North Rhine-Westphalia recently - Kenbi buys out an existing care service. Otherwise, the start-up grows organically and tries to push into gaps in care, Alberding explains.

Kenbi has about 20 percent time savings compared to conventional care services and can thus care for patients more intensively, the founder calculates. With a digital logbook alone, a caregiver saves more than an hour of time a week. However, printed forms still have to be sent to the health insurance companies for billing. That continues to eat up time.

Peter Tackenberg of the professional association for nursing professions criticizes the current procedures for billing. "They are the eye of the needle for digitization," he says. For two years, there have been rounds of negotiations on electronic data exchange between health insurance companies and service providers, such as mobile care services. But so far no progress has been made, the nursing expert complains. Things would go faster if an initiative came from the Federal Ministry of Health.

Until that happens, start-ups that focus on the digitalization of the care sector still have a hard time. Kenbi and Wundera are still only small players in the care market. Investors, however, see potential in such concepts. Kenbi, for example, only received seven million euros in a seed round in January. "Through the combination of technology and organizational innovation, the start-up fulfills all the requirements to counteract the shortage of skilled workers in Germany," said new investor Michael Sidler of Zurich-based VC Redalpine at the time. Wundera was also able to enjoy more money recently. In May, there was a seven-figure sum from the lead investor, the Technologiegründerfonds Sachsen. In addition, the app has been nominated for the Saxon Founder's Prize. Prize money of 30,000 euros beckons.


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