According to the United Nations’ 2015 Sustainable Development Goals, universal health coverage is an aspiration to provide all people with access to essential high-quality health services. Along with this, it includes effective, safe, and affordable medicines while ensuring the financial risk protection by providing care regardless of person’s ability to pay. To achieve these goals, primary healthcare services provide great assistance.
Primary health care, which includes health promotion, illness prevention, health maintenance, education, and rehabilitation, is critical and affordable care that is available to everyone in the community. Treatment of diseases in their early phases reduces the chances of further serious concerns and safety of patients. During the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the awareness about health issues has increased significantly.
Today, healthcare sector has become immensely important, and the rise of telehealth is shifting the gears of this sector. Foreseeing this change, (med)24, the healthcare business situated in London, started its journey. (med)24 combines healthcare services with a state-of-the-art clinic.
In an interview with Insights Care, Jonathan Kron, the CEO of (med)24 sheds light on his company, its services, and the changing dynamics of healthcare sector. Below are the highlights of the interview:
Please brief our audience about (med)24, its values, mission, and the aspects that make it a global healthcare brand.
(med)24 is a concept, private healthcare provider offering immediate access to outstanding, primary healthcare at a state-of-the-art clinic in Central London, online and via visiting services. Created with a clear mission to offer fully integrated support services for personalized needs, we use a ‘See and Treat’ model to enable patients to feel better, faster.
Offering holistic treatments through our multi-disciplinary approach, our patients benefit from our breadth of expertise and services, all of which are conveniently offered under one roof. From same day and next day GP appointments, medical assessments, vaccinations and immunizations, mindfulness, podiatry, nutrition, and sports performance, plus much more, we ensure primary medical needs are met promptly, efficiently, and seamlessly.
Providing a premium experience at competitive price points, we pride ourselves in wrapping our arms around our patients and clients throughout every step of our service. Having just launched five months ago, we are proud to have already been shortlisted for a People’s Choice award by New London Architecture (NLA) in the ‘CARING’ category, for building a clinic of excellence!
Working from our flagship clinic in West London, (med)24 is making its physical presence known. We support our face-to-face care with online appointments, but this is just the first baby step, as our vision is to have a seamless and integrated physical and digital service across as many of our services as possible. Some of the tech is already out there for us to integrate, but the more exciting prospect is what’s still to be developed.
Tell us more about your offerings and the aspects that make (med)24 different from its competitors.
Our primary care offering is extensive. With five consultation rooms, two treatment rooms, point-of-care facilities, and a therapy suite within our Paddington clinic, we’re able to offer a wide range of services in comparison to other primary healthcare providers. Essentially, we’ve created a clinic which offers outpatient treatments, within a primary care facility. Our original motivation for developing (med)24 was to provide easier access to great private healthcare, with a serious step-up in customer service but at an affordable price point. This remains fundamental to everything we do.
One of our most unique aspects is our environment and considered space. (med)24 is designed to stand-out from traditional clinics and instantly feels, refreshingly unconventional. Complimenting the space is our team of experts and front-of-house. Our dedicated concierges not only greet every patient personally, but plan, organize and arrange all logistics where required. Every discerning detail is taken care of, so patients don’t need to endure wait times, admin or chase for information.
What is your opinion on the impact of the current pandemic on the global healthcare sector, and what challenges did you face during the pandemic and subsequent lockdowns?
The impact on the global healthcare sector has been significant. With the spotlight on how the public access basic healthcare, the last two years has shown the urgent need to transform the way public and private providers work together. With unimaginable waiting lists leading to increased illness and even premature deaths, it became apparent that the need to integrate the working relationship between both providers, has never been more essential – allowing pressure to be offloaded and shared to meet demand.
Mental health has also become a prominent and important subject. With many speaking out about the impact isolation caused, mental wellbeing is now an emerging issue with complexities on how best to treat it. The positive aspect of this is that it has brought health and wellbeing into the consciousness, which did not exist pre-pandemic to the same degree.
(med)24 was built and mobilized during the height of COVID-19. This alone presented many unforeseen challenges. From fit-out delays to additional costs and the inability to leverage on pre-marketing – all of which affected launch plans. The additional costs meant we had to compromise and put a backfoot on initial plans such as our digital services. However, we expect to be back on track with this in 2022.
In addition to the virus being the major talking point across all media and online channels, once lockdown started to lift, we were presented with a further challenge of learning new consumer habits and battling with other priority media stories from the hospitality focus to the reopening of schools and then summer holidays.
The pandemic distorted spending habits and we had to adapt as a business. When we designed (med)24 and started mobilizing it, COVID-19 did not exist, so it was never our intention to offer COVID-19 testing. But we quickly understood the need for this service, not only for the patients but for the business to drive footfall and get the public to see the space, even if it was taking tests in the car park initially.
Our priorities also shifted. Ensuring safety measures were in place for both our staff and patients, we tilted our business objectives to satisfy the growing need for reassurance in both the personal and professional environment. Our corporate offering has grown since launch, and we have seen good success through adapting to the needs of our partners.
Taking risks and making new decisions has steadily led us back to focusing on our original objective – being a one-stop-shop in providing outstanding primary care in-clinic and virtually, across women’s health, men’s health, children’s health, preventative care, wellbeing, and mental health.
With constant development in technologies, in your opinion, what could be the future of the healthcare industry, and how are you planning to adapt to that future?
With the growing demand for digital care, our plan is to integrate the data from our face-to-face, online and visiting services into one easily accessible hub for patients, enabling them to access their records, follow-up with their chosen GP and analyze their health data. As primary care is best placed to manage the patient journey, we are working with our healthcare partners and clients to record and manage the journey.
We are currently exploring wearables and how best to integrate data capture for both our clinicians and patients. We are finding that more and more patients are keen to understand their health data and compare results year-on-year. Alongside blood results, our GPs will be able to track data from wearables to understand the needs of the individual more closely.
Our 2022 goal is to launch our app and new website with a customer portal. This will give full control to the patients and enable them to benefit from any new technologies we introduce.
As an established leader, what would be your advice to the budding entrepreneurs and professionals aspiring to venture into the healthcare space?
Have vision, be bold, develop a thick-skin and understand how to build and lead a talented team who share a passion for innovation and customer service.
How do you envision scaling (med)24’s operations and offerings in 2022?
We will be diversifying our services to complement our current multi-disciplinary offering. By doing this, we will also be looking to build on the traction we’ve created for our preventative care, wellbeing, and mental health – all core services where we are continuing to see a growing trend for, especially post the isolation of COVID-19 lockdowns.
We will also expand our corporate partnerships and are currently speaking to organizations across several different sectors and areas of expertise to build on our multi-sector offerings.
In everything we are doing service-wise, we will explore an integrated tech solution to focus on a seamless, end-to-end digital patient journey.
About the Leader
(med)24 is co-founded by CEO, Jonathan Kron. Previously a corporate lawyer, Jonathan advised on contracts for both the private healthcare industry and the NHS for 17 years. He quickly learnt that many patients expressed frustrations with the lack of accessibility to basic primary care services.
Having seen the pathways available, he knew it was possible to build a clinic offering uncomplicated accessibility to healthcare considering each patient’s needs. From design to inception and mobilization, Jonathan has been pivotal in the creation and launch of (med)24 and continues to be a key driver in the long-term vision and growth of the company.
