This deck gives an overview of: the problem we're solving at accuRx; our journey so far; what we value as a team and our "rhythm" (what happens weekly, quarterly, yearly etc).
4. 50 years ago, healthcare was a knowledge
business, delivered by individuals.
Today, healthcare is a communication
business, delivered by teams.
5. Our mission is to bring patients and their
healthcare teams together.
This will transform how healthcare is
delivered. It will make people healthier and
staff happier.
6. Everyone involved in a patient’s care
(including the patient) should be able to
communicate in one place.
Sounds simple, right? It’s not.
7. • Healthcare is delivered by around 10,000 organisations in the UK.
They all have their own systems, processes and management
• The demand is continuous and the workforce are too busy to try
something new
• It’s very difficult to be agile. You can’t ship buggy code when lives
are at stake
• People expect all IT in healthcare to be rubbish
• Healthcare serves the 100%. Many staff and patients struggle
with technology
9. …letting GP practices send ad-hoc SMS messages to their patients (instead of letters, phone calls
or not communicating at all).
In February 2018 we launched Chain SMS…
The first ever self-service software setup in healthcare. We’re fully integrated with the
dominant GP IT system. Users can text a patient in under 30 seconds.
10. Our users love us!
• “If this were a man, I’d want its babies”
• “Patients are delighted we have finally moved into the 21st century.“
• “Accurx is the best thing that has happened in the last 10 years!”
• “It is bloody brilliant!!”
• “Our patient adherence to to our Drug Monitoring processes have gone from 24% to 98%!”
• “So I think this is just about to make working life a whole lot easier!!!”
• “I can't praise enough this software, we are blown away by accuRx- simply the best bit of GP IT software
we’ve seen in years – so elegant and simple and has developed with user input rapidly, and it just
works!...The capture of data is of great interest and the possibilities to extend its use are considerable.”
When surveyed, our users estimate we save them 37 minutes each per day on average.
We’ve got an NPS score of 85. Here are some snippets of feedback we’ve had…
See some more reviews at practiceindex.co.uk/gp/accurx or twitter.com/accuRx
11. And we’ve changed how they work..
Chilwell Meadows Surgery Attenborough Surgery
See more case studies at accurx.com/case-studies-main
Staunton Surgery
now texts patients as an
alternative to letters, saving
time and postage costs
now uses SMS messages to
engage ‘hard-to-reach’
patients
now texts patients to
reduce the number of time
consuming phone calls
12. In its first year, Chain SMS went from being used
in 0% to 22% of GP practices in the country
98% of these practices started using us because
of a recommendation
They use us to send a message to a patient every
two seconds
13. We don’t have users…
we have fans
GP practices even put us
in their job adverts
15. Back in 2016 Laurence and
Jacob met on Entrepreneur
First (EF) and started working
on tackling antimicrobial
resistance.
accuRx was incorporated (”Rx”
is the medical shorthand for
prescription, i.e. Accurate
Prescription) and we started
developing decision support
software
16. Q3 2016: We learnt how to do User
Research, started integrating with the
main medical record system and
pitched at the EF demo day
Q4 2016: We moved to our first office,
Ben joined as the first hire and we
were awarded an Innovate UK
government grant
Q1 2017: We installed Chain Decision
Support in the first practice (breaking
their NHS smartcards in the process),
closed our angel funding round and
welcomed Lydia, Lorna and Jafar to the
team
Q2 2017: We kept improving Chain
Decision Support, installed in a further
10 practices and learnt how much time
pilots can waste
Q3 2017: We tried everything we could
think of to improve usage (and failed),
we tried selling to 15 CCGs (and failed)
and Calum joined the team
18. Q4 2017: We stopped developing antibiotic
decision support, worked intentionally unscalably in
one practice, moved office and were awarded our
second Innovate UK grant
Q1 2018: We developed six products (and turned
off antibiotic decision support), launched Chain
SMS (the first ever self-service software in
healthcare) and Vivek joined the team. We tried
15+ marketing strategies – the only thing that
worked was a letter with a handwritten Post-it note.
Q2 2018: We struggled to shift workload from GPs
to other staff, realised we needed better focus, and
had an epiphany that healthcare is now a
communication problem. We introduced referral
incentives and Chain SMS adoption hit 200
practices.
Q3 2018: We focused on improving Chain SMS and
the onboarding journey, we started working on
communication within a practice, and Chain SMS
adoption hit 630 practices
Q4 2018: We released Patient Thread in beta (the
first ever patient-centred instant messaging
platform), Annie joined us and Chain SMS adoption
hit 1130 practices.
20. Team Values
• Mission-first: make healthcare better
• Collaborate: work as a team
• Ownership: take pride and be responsible
• Kaizen: keep improving
• Balance: look after each other
N.B. We didn’t sit around a whiteboard and
dream these up. In summer 2018 everyone gave
a list of Reasons we work well and Reasons I like
coming to work (see photo right) and these
clustered into the above groups
21. Values: Mission-first
Everything we do should contribute to making
patients healthier, staff happier and health systems
more efficient
e.g. we avoid building features already provided by other companies even
if we can make them better, and focus on unmet need
• If a decision isn't optimising for mission, it's your responsibility to flag it
• If we're unsure, we discuss it as a company
22. Values: Collaborate
We optimise for team success over individual success.
Everyone’s problems are my problems
• We help everyone be the best version of themselves
• We're team players, we support each other to learn and develop and
we're open and honest (e.g. we do 360° feedback every 6 months and
share our personal goals)
• We don't have time for office politics
• We care about what we do, but often disagree (because we care so
much). When we disagree, we rely on data, the team (not hierarchy),
and trust of each others' judgement to make an informed decision
• We bring together different skills, perspectives and experience. Where
we lack diversity, we make a conscious effort to correct for this. The
healthcare workforce is diverse, and the patient population even more
so. We're building for them, not us
23. Values: Ownership
We enjoy what we do every day and take pride in our
work, individually and as a team. We act responsibly,
even when nobody is watching.
E.g. Every two weeks we demo what we’ve been working on to the rest of
the team
• We don’t avoid hard challenges. We're problem solvers with a bias for
action.
• We're handling peoples' most sensitive data, diverting money from
elsewhere in healthcare and supporting life-and-death workflows. We
take this responsibility seriously, maximise the value we can create, and
don't cut corners.
24. Values: Kaizen (Continuous Improvement)
We’re always iterating to make things better: culture,
processes, products… When things don't work out as
planned, we learn from it. These improvements are
everyone's responsibility, from the day they join.
E.g. Every two weeks we reflect on what has and hasn’t gone well, and put
in place improvements to address these
• Everyone stays close to the frontline, understanding users and patients.
We build for the real world and experience the difference we make first-
hand. (e.g. Everyone visits a GP practice at least once each quarter.
Some of us go every week, and share the learnings with the team)
• We challenge the status quo, because if we don't who will? (e.g. We’re
the first ever self-service software for GP practices)
25. Values: Balance
We know that we do our best work when we're also
happy outside of work
e.g. we don’t have a ‘long hours’ culture and trust our team to work hard
and deliver
• Everyone in the team is supported by great family (and friends), and
they're all part of the wider accuRx family. (e.g. We invite partners to
the weekend of our summer retreat and to our Christmas dinner)
• We also don't let work get in the way of staying healthy. (e.g. We
provide a fitness bonus to spend on whatever sport/fitness activity you
like, and regularly go on team runs)
27. We build fast, then focus*
Live products, being actively developed
• Chain SMS: lets practices message patients
• Patient Thread: lets practices communicate internally about patients
Live products, development paused
• Florey – Lets practices collect structured data from patients
• Reception – Knowledge management
Decommissioned products/prototypes
• Antibiotic decision support
• Huddle – direct instant messaging (prior to Patient Thread!)
• Appointment optimisation
• Workforce planning
• Training management
*We’ve got much better at focusing – we used to be pretty poor at it
28. Current Team
• Annie: User Ops Specialist, ensures responsive and user-centred support, oversees our community of users
• Ben O: VP Engineering, keeps our engineering team running like a well-oiled machine
• Ben S: Growth Analyst, expert in data analytics, drives our product growth
• Calum: Product Engineer, with particular expertise in security and open standards
• Dan: Operations Manager, who drives our projects forward and oversees our company processes
• Jacob: Co-founder and CEO, oversees the non-technical side of the business
• Jafar: Software Developer, full stack dev (and SQL/Excel whizz)
• Kulsuma: Executive Assistant, oversees the smooth running of all executive activity
• Laurence: Co-founder and CTO, oversees the technical side of the business
• Layla: Office Manager, drives everything behind the smooth running of our office, events and team logistics
• Lorna: Head of User Research, expert in gathering user needs, testing new designs and products
• Mike: Senior Software Developer, with particular expertise in both infrastructure and enterprise software
• Vicky: User Ops Specialist, ensures responsive and user-centred support, oversees the scaling of support processes
• Vivek: Clinical Lead, GP, provides clinical oversight to the team and throughout product development
29. Annual: The Team Retreat
Every summer we go away as a team.
In 2017 we stayed in an old mill in the
Brecon Beacons. In 2018 we stayed
on on a lake in the Cotswolds.
We spend the week shaping our
vision for the year ahead, learning
new skills and eating well. Previous
sessions have in included a design
workshop, our vision told through
patient stories, a hackathon, 360
feedback, standup paddleboarding,
roadmap planning, ultimate frisbee,
capturing our values, BBQs, a
retrospective of the year, lake
swimming and some very competitive
team cooking.
Partners are invited to join for the
weekend. In 2017 we all went hiking
and camping. In 2018 we were joined
by a 6-month-old and 18-month-old
so opted for nearby activities.
30. Quarterly: Offsite Days
and Hackathons
Offsite days: Where we plan the
roadmap for the next 3 months,
set our OKRs and unpick larger
business challenges. We do these
in GP practices to stay close to our
users
Hackathons: Where we split into
teams to build interesting new
ideas, prototypes, and test out
new technologies
31. Monthly: Team Dinners
Usually it’s a restaurant, but here
are some of our favourites…
1. Pasta-making in the office
kitchen (top left)
2. Summer-roll-making and
Codenames at Laurence’s home
3. Five-course Christmas dinner at
Jacob’s home (partners invited
too!)
32. Fortnightly: The Sprint
We work on two-week sprint
cycles. At the start of every sprint,
we…
• Have a company-wide kickoff
• Run through the work items
planned for the sprint and any
key events
At the end of every sprint, we…
• Demo what we’ve built or been
working on
• Review our progress against
the quarter’s OKRs
• Celebrate our wins and learn
from our challenges over the
past sprint (retrospective)
33. Weekly: 1:1s, Team Lunch, Town Hall and
Windups
Everyone has weekly 1:1s with their line manager.
Every Thursday we have team lunch.
Every Friday afternoon we have a ‘Town Hall’ where we go
through general business updates, and any questions or
concerns the team have. After, someone does a ‘windup’ on a
topic they find interesting, and we bring out the drinks and
snacks.
Highlights from previous windups have included Designing a
Wind Farm from Scratch, The Secret History of the Potato,
Mindfulness 101, Food and Wine Pairing, and How Visual
Illusions Work and CPR (bottom left)
34. Daily: Standups, Runs
and Gym
We have a standup every
morning where everyone runs
through their week’s goals,
yesterday’s achievements and
today’s work.
Every lunchtime, some of the
team go for a run or go the
gym, or have lunch together!
