You must have seen that telehealth is growing all over the world and we have a new digital healthcare startup named Patient21 that has just raised a round of $108M in funding and this funding will be used to expand their services outside Germany. The main idea behind Patient 21 is that it combines digital healthcare software with brick-and-mortar stores which means that people can visit their clinics but all of the patients are managed via their software and they can then be sent to outpatient clinics. At the moment, Patient21 is mostly focused on dentistry with 80% of its clinics related to oral health. However, the digital startup offers gynecology and GP services as well. Interestingly, Patient21 does not offer telehealth services at the moment.
Patient21 CEO Chris Muhr said, “Dentistry inherently requires in-person consultations for comprehensive diagnosis and treatment.” “The nature of dentistry involves visually inspecting oral health, utilizing diagnostic tools like x-rays and addressing emergencies promptly. These aspects are best served through onsite consultations to ensure the highest standards of care.” He added, “As we continue to expand and develop our presence in human medicine, we are actively exploring the integration of telehealth solutions into our offerings”. Talking about the challenges, he said, “In a sector that is increasingly supply-constrained due to staff shortages, an aging health workforce and surges in chronic illnesses, our focus is on supporting healthcare professionals and making sure their time is used as wisely as possible.” “We’ve developed a suite of clinic-facing software that accommodates the needs of our healthcare professionals and local clinics — it frees our clinical teams up from tedious administrative tasks so that they can focus on what they are best at taking care of patients.”
Talking about the funding and their long-term plans, Muhr said that “Long-term we believe there will be an opportunity to form partnerships or to run clinics in the form of a franchise model, providing franchisees with software and services offering that is unique in the market,” and added that “most of the funding goes towards software development to further enhance our platform capabilities.”