Search
Close this search box.

Liz Ashall Payne: Leading the way to Demystify the Healthcare App Market

Liz Ashall Payne
Liz Ashall Payne | CEO | ORCHA

On average, adults spend around two-to-four hours on their smartphones in a day. These devices in our pockets, with thousands of apps to help everything from banking to travelling, have significantly changed our lives. With over 365,000 health apps in app stores, and more than five million downloaded every day, mobile apps have the ability to change the health and social care industry.

However, healthcare organizations face several hurdles to adopting these apps. The apps need to be evaluated for safety, effectiveness, usability and system integration, not to forget ROI.

The first question that comes to a healthcare professional’s mind is, finding the right app. How can you find the right one in such a crowded space? Secondly, trusting an app. How do you know it is clinically assured, safeguards data, and will be easy to use for the patient? Lastly, integrating into care. How can apps work along with other services you use?

Liz Ashall Payne, CEO, ORCHA has built a unique platform and service to help answer all of these questions. Her brainchild, ORCHA tests more apps than anyone worldwide, covering more conditions, and on top of new releases. Under her leadership, the organization has reviewed almost 6,000 apps to date.

ORCHA is home to the world’s only library that lets people find and compare the evaluations of health apps. Users can search from a range of criteria such as health condition, price or phone platform; and are given the relevant top scoring apps.  It helps health professionals and patients to find or recommend the right app with confidence.

An Idea to Help Masses

After Liz’s early years as a speech and language therapist, she led a range of transformation projects across the NHS. And that too across the digital health agenda. Within the digital space, Liz learned that 93% of health professionals believe that digital health will enhance NHS services. Driven to help them safely realise this, Liz created ORCHA to overcome the barriers.

Keeping Pace in a Fast-Growing Market |

According to Liz, in a fast-growing market, every new day brings new opportunities. She spends her time involved in market studies, sales leads, product, and service development options and team growth. Here, she cites her biggest hurdle, juggling her and ORCHA’s priorities. Liz understands that it’s impossible to pursue all opportunities, but also appreciates that this challenge is born out of a good situation.

Keeping market scenarios in mind, Liz makes the decision with the best information she has. She finds it tough but has learnt that she can’t wait for all data to come to her for some decisions but must make the best of what she has.

Further, Liz cites the universal work-life balance to be another challenge. She is grateful for her amazing family and although frequently travelling to multiple countries each week, Liz makes sure that she maintains a balance between her work and personal life.

Liz motivates herself and ORCHA through its mission to unlock the power of digital health. She asserts, “It’s a real opportunity to change the health of people and to improve our health services. There are incredible mHealth solutions out there; we help to find these and connect them with the systems and patients that will truly benefit from them.”

ORCHA- Assisting Health Bodies and Organizations

ORCHA helps organisations to drive the uptake of health apps, often targeting specific communities. It provides intelligence reports on specific markets, for national health bodies across the world, and delivers national health app accreditation schemes.

At a local level, the company provides locally branded and tailored app libraries to Clinical Commissioning Groups and NHS Trusts. This can include a recommendation tool, to enable health professionals to recommend health apps directly to patients.

To help bring more quality apps to the market, ORCHA also provides services to app developers. It provides assessment reports, advice and introduction to special providers to improve their apps.

Further, to educate the next generation, the company works with the local authorities and schools to deliver the ‘Digital Healthy Schools Programme’. It engages and motivates pupils to stay healthy with lesson plans, learning resources and interactive tools. Digital Healthy Schools supports the STEM and Child Health agenda with highly interactive and engaging materials and modules.

Transforming Lives

Liz is proud of the achievements ORCHA has made by enabling health organisations to find health apps. Its unique approach has enabled organisations to pinpoint and integrate apps quickly. Further, Liz is happy about the approach being recognised internationally. ORCHA now works with health bodies around the world, including those with limited healthcare infrastructure, where health apps make an immense impact.

A Promise for Tomorrow

ORCHA will continue to grow and work with more health bodies and organizations. The firm will adapt as technology evolves and will continue to help overcome the industry’s challenges.

On the personal front, Liz will continue to lead the amazing team at ORCHA, which includes IT experts, data scientists, clinical leads and health economists. She will also work on more collaborations to build international offerings. With an office in the Netherlands, Liz envisages having many more worldwide, as ORCHA grows.

Visit www.orcha.co.uk to know more.

Share:

Facebook
Twitter
WhatsApp
LinkedIn

Copyright 2023 © Insightscare Magazine ( a Digital Ink brand ) All rights reserved.