Add to that the fact that there are ever-higher numbers of patients for fewer healthcare professionals available and the workload continues to grow. One main challenge for workers in the sector is the amount of administration that comes with each new case or patient. Flux Medical Systems, a startup from the YES!Delft ecosystem was created to lessen this administrative strain and let healthcare professionals focus on what really matters – spending as much time as possible with their patients.
Less time spent on admin, more time spent with patients
Maja van Dijk, a co-founder of Flux, knows just how time-consuming administrative work can be in the healthcare sector. As a physical therapist herself – and the owner of a clinic – she is no stranger to long workdays. So, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that she decided to take matters into her own hands and create a solution to this problem.
As healthcare professionals, we are already busy and we also have to do all the administrative work, she says. Quite often, I’ve had to finalize my paperwork on weekends.
This is not what Maja and many of her fellow colleagues want to be spending their time on. “Admin should never take away from doctors’ time to treat patients,” she is convinced. “With Flux, we want to alleviate the pains of administrative work for healthcare professionals.”
Launched at the end of 2019, Flux has seen a number of milestones in just over two years. Together with her co-founders Thomas Schiet, a mathematician, and Jan Ferdinand Henseler, a medical doctor, Maja developed a solution that she could already test in her own day-to-day work.
“Since I’ve been using Flux in my own work, I have had 30% more time,” she says. “Each professional can choose how to spend this extra time, but for me, it is about spending it with patients.”
The first step that Maja and her team took was to create a solution that can automate the revenue cycle, as bookkeeping and financial administration is a rather time-consuming endeavor for healthcare professionals and small clinics. Then they continued on to optimizing other processes, too.
“Our goal is for businesses in the healthcare sector to gain insights into their work through process optimization,” Veerle de Brouwer, Customer Engagement, Sales & Marketing Developer at Flux, explains further. “Next to lowering the manual effort that goes into administrative tasks, our solution can also facilitate the exchange of information so professionals can securely access patient information and grow their business in the way they want to.”
At the moment, Flux is targeting mainly physiotherapy and dental hygiene professionals but has plans to expand to hospitals and perhaps even the pharma industry as well. The product is already fully compatible with the tools the Dutch healthcare system works with, so scaling it will only be a matter of time.
On to new milestones and further growth
Because of the need to make the healthcare system more efficient – and quickly so – Maja and her team have not wasted time rolling out their solution. They currently have several paid pilot projects underway, the benefits of which are two-fold. On the one hand, they provide initial revenues to the company, while on the other, they are a great way for the team to learn and improve their product.
“Pilots are great for collecting feedback and designing a solution that really works for healthcare professionals,” Maja says.
Next to these initial revenues, Flux has also been funded by family and friends and a loan from InnovationQuarter. The team is also in discussions with other parties, so they sure have big plans ahead of them.
While they want to establish themselves in the Netherlands first, they are already looking into the possibilities of expanding abroad. “Our commercialization plan is ready and once our solution has been embraced by the Dutch market, we will look to other countries with similar healthcare systems, such as Denmark, Germany, France, and the UK,” Veerle says. The platform is even available in multiple languages so when the time comes, it wouldn’t take long to roll it out.
Of course, having progressed so quickly hasn’t been without the help of experts and fellow entrepreneurs from the YES!Delft community. Having been through a number of YES!Delft’s programs, including AI/Blockchain Validation Lab, the Accelerator, and the SocialTech program, the team of Flux has learned a lot about what it’s like to run an innovative business.
Perhaps the most important learning was to never stop validating, Maja says. We’ve learned to keep an open mind, accept new ideas and talk to our customers on a regular basis.
It has surely been an exciting journey for Maja, Veerle, and the rest of the team so far, and by the sound of their ambitious plans, they have plenty more to look forward to in the future.
