Experiences from our youth shape what we do later in life. – Jan Koum, American entrepreneur
These words of wisdom perfectly resonate with Nicolas Baudelot, Co-founder and CEO of Medicalib, a prominent home care service provider in Paris.
Nicolas completed his education and later decided to pursue his career as a trader. During this time, he had a strong desire to put health at the heart of economic science. Also, his experience as a volunteer firefighter since the age of 18—and still active—had a deep impact on his views of healthcare and at-home care, which further led him to found Medicalib.
Today, Medicalib has become one of the prominent home care service providers helping find patients right health care professionals through its online platform. It has helped more than 30000 patients in Paris every month to quickly and easily organize health care professionals to provide care amid the cosy environment of their homes.
In the following interview, Nicolas talks passionately about his desire to leverage technology to make healthcare easily and widely accessible; how he, through Medicalib, and how has been making home care easily accessible to the patients.
Below are the highlights of the interview:
Please brief our audience about your company, its values, and the key aspects of its international stronghold in the medical device manufacturing market.
Medicalib is one of the best platforms for nursing care coordination in France, an innovative company based in Paris. Our algorithm helps users find a state-registered health care professional practicing near the patient home in less than 1 hour (20 min in general). Since 2017, we have helped 500 000 people to find the right healthcare professional to meet their needs.
Tell us more about your home care solutions that make your company stand out from the competition?
Medicalib has an operational scope of more than 20,000 active liberal nurses throughout France. Our service is acclaimed as the best solution for e-health appointments for this reason and we use an algorithm to find the available healthcare professional (nurse, physiotherapist, and midwife) closest to the patient’s home.
What is your opinion on the impact of the current pandemic on the global healthcare sector, and how has your company fared during the pandemic and subsequent lockdowns?
The pandemic has been favorable to the health domain from an economic point of view. For Medicalib, the pandemic was an opportunity because people stayed at home and they were apprehensive of visiting hospitals and clinics due to the risk of infection. For this reason, our activity was doubled during the lockdown. We are now available 24/7 to manage all the activities.
What is your opinion on the necessity for healthcare service providers to align their offerings with newer technological developments, especially when it comes to catering to changing patient preferences and needs?
We have consolidated our team of developers to respond in a more optimized way to our patients. Adapting to demand and technological evolutions make this aspect the core of our priorities. We wanted to simplify the search for health professionals and relying on technology.
In your opinion, what could be the future of the healthcare services sector post the pandemic? And how are you strategizing your company’s operations for that future?
In my opinion, e-health and telemedicine are the two areas that are emerging, without excluding the human aspect, which is dear to our company. We call ourselves a phygital service. The speed and simplicity of our digital tools enable us to provide more optimized physical care for our patients. Patients will need more and more home care, physical care, and that is where Medicalib aims to play an increasingly important role in the care process.
As an established leader, what would be your advice to the budding entrepreneurs and enthusiasts aspiring to venture into the healthcare services?
Healthcare is a complex and sensitive sector, with regulations and ethics aspects that makes it different from traditional business development.
How do you envision scaling your company’s operations in 2021?
As the demand for healthcare is growing, we are strengthening our teams to work on two fronts. First is the demand for home care, which is at the core of our business. Every day we are increasing our network of private nurses, optimizing the demand for care and the patient journey. We also tend to prioritize our areas of development following current imperatives such as COVID-19 screening or vaccinations.
