Rethinking Healthcare from Scratch

We can make healthcare radically cheaper and better

Healthcare is complicated. AI and tech can improve it a lot. But integrating AI and tech into the current system is messy. Even if you can sort the technical integration, the really hard bit is the change management: using the new tech to it's full, which requires a change in daily working.

Let's make a new healthcare provider, with exceptional systems harnessing tech from day one, without compromising the human touch. Build the processes around the tech, AI, physical space and medical professionals from the start.

We'll leverage AI to the maximum, increasingly so as it improves, leading to a medical service which can improve at the rate AI develops at (so, fast!)

We'll recruit people who are excited to work in this new way to reduce the change management problem. SpaceX for healthcare, dare we say?

a16z thought of it a few years ago but perhaps we're the ones to actually do it?

The efficiencies stem from a whole new model of service provision. It's easier to make a new system if it can be smaller and more self-contained. So we wouldn't want to start with something huge like a hospital. The service we choose as the starting wedge should be smaller.

The Process

  1. Decide which service to start with (e.g., private GP surgery)
  2. Design the service. It should be easy to replicate - a template or cookiecutter which can scale well
  3. Create one instance of the service, including buildings and equipment if needed
  4. Run the service: implement processes, hire staff, build software, acquire customers, learn learn learn
  5. Replicate the service
  6. Repeat steps 2-5 for the next most attractive service
  7. Integrate systems across services
  8. Scale up across more systems. As expertise and reputation grows, consider larger systems which we wouldn't have been able to credibly approach early on (such as an entire hospital)
  9. Continue scaling and integrating, and create services in other parts of the healthcare stack (e.g., if/when to create our own insurance provider)

Various factors influence the approach, including telehealth attractiveness. The idea for this company came from asking "what is healthcare for?" The answer: make sick people well, and stop well people getting sick. As our company evolves we may be able to better do this by creating a new class of service.

Selection Criteria

Criteria to select which service and country:

  • How self-contained the system can be (lots of interfaces makes it harder to change how it works)
  • More efficiencies to be had with the AI-native approach, including other efficiencies this enables (e.g., telehealth)
  • Big enough market (total TAM)
  • Ease of getting started, due to regulations, etc.
  • Ease of customer acquisition
  • Ease of replicating instances of the service
  • (For subsequent services) positive interactions with services we've already established

Want more info? Tolerant of plans in less polished form? Read on (and comment)..

Initial research suggests Dermatology, Occupational Health, and Private GPs as the best services meeting these criteria. More research is needed to narrow this down.

Hi! I'm Adam :)

I'm a tech founder who spent over a decade in the civil service, trying to make the world better from inside government. Now I'm seeing if I can do it as a founder.

What makes us different from other healthcare startups? A track record in delivering exceptional software to make the public sector work better, across transport, finance, energy and social care.

Naturally, you can find me on LinkedIn.