Telehealth start-up secures funding to improve care for ethnic minority patient groups
Doctoria wins Innovate UK funding to accelerate innovation and reduce the likelihood of misdiagnosis
Liverpool-based telehealth specialist, Doctoria, has been awarded £50,000 in funding from Innovate UK to develop its teleconsulting app with the aim of providing better support for ethnic minority groups for whom the language barrier can result in a poor service or misdiagnosis.
Doctoria’s video consultation platform for registered medical professionals is run by a team of digital entrepreneurs with direct personal experience of the many challenges faced when accessing healthcare services as a non-native speaker.
Building on the success of its current teleconsulting service, the app aims to provide patients and remote healthcare professionals with a real-time verbal translation of a clinical consultation while also providing visual communication aids to support dialogue between both parties.
Commenting on the award, Doctoria co-founders said: “The funding from Innovate UK will help our team jump to the next stage of development and allow us to progress more rapidly in conducting a two-month pilot test of the app with two target patient groups; Romanian and Punjabi speakers.
“This research will help us to understand the patient requirements, while also enabling us to develop and test the effectiveness of the app.
“We have already seen the success that our current platform has brought to healthcare service providers such as the Northway Clinic in east London and are delighted that Innovate UK will be supporting us as we expand and enhance the service.”
Doctoria’s service will improve the dialogue between health professionals and patients, regardless of background or ethnicity.
Dr Stephen Katebe a practising GP, member of the Royal College of GPs, and clinical advisor to Doctoria, said: “This application is focused on the development and realisation of more-effective ways of delivering healthcare services to patient groups who often fail to interact with healthcare services effectively owing to linguistic, cultural, or socio-economic factors.”
