5 minutes with Jack Francis, Founder and Managing Director, Pogo Digital Healthcare

Navigating regulatory #compliance presents a significant hurdle for emerging #healthtech innovators. To bring simplicity, we’re asking leading entrepreneurs to share their advice.

This week we’re talking to Jack Francis Founder and Managing Director, Pogo Digital Healthcare :

What is your innovation, who does it help and how?

After Jack’s father suffered a stroke, healthcare services gave Jack’s family lengthy yet irrelevant information, which brought confusion and made it hard to know what to do. Resolved to address this for others, Jack and the team at Pogo Digital Healthcare created Tailored Talks, to provide patients with information personalised to their needs.

Using the Tailored Talks platform, healthcare professionals build and send personalised presentations to their patients. These are curated from a library of 4,500 easy to understand, patient focused, and medically accurate slides developed in conjunction with Pogo Digital Health’s healthcare and charity partners. Patients can also log onto the platform’s citizen-facing mobile app, and after completing a symptom tracking questionnaire, receive further helpful information and guidance personalised to their responses.

The app also gives patients direct access to further support from charities, including Chest Heart and Strokes Scotland. Furthermore, service providers can access analytics, giving new insights into their patient’s demographics, symptoms, and response to care.

What markets do you sell into, and what standards do you need to enter these markets?

Right now we are working with health boards across #NHSScotland, and are in discussions with #NHS providers in England. We are fortunate as we work closely with NHS Lothian, who is very stringent in terms of what they expect for information governance and data protection. That has put us in a good position to have virtually everything we need to achieve DTAC, which we soon expect to meet.

What part of compliance did you find most painful?

The NHS can be complex to navigate. There are hundreds of channels where you can be procured, and each has different requirements. Thankfully I understand there is a move to reduce the number of procurement routes to 14, and we are applying for #G-Cloud14 right now, which I think is one of the primary routes.

As a small company, compiling the information for the frameworks can be painful too. It isn’t always clear beforehand what will be needed. Compiling information such as risk logs and activity logs was a lot of work for myself and my technical director.

What compliance advice would you give other innovators?

Do your research. Personally, I have found attending events to meet and speak with other innovators extremely helpful. It’s good to hear other people’s advice and learnings. In addition, the Health Innovation Network websites and events are a fantastic resource.

What will change now that you are part of the NIA?

It is amazing to learn from the other businesses in my Cohort. Many of them are further forward in their development and so it’s great to hear their advice. The team at the NHS Innovation Accelerator also present me with fantastic opportunities and introductions specific to what I need. I have been part of several accelerators in the past, but the NIA is very outcomes focussed and hands on.

I have also noticed a difference when people find out that I’m part of the NIA Cohort. I think that’s because its understood how much due diligence goes into selecting the participants. It’s a real privilege.