South Africa-based healthtech startup Link Health Technology (Link) which’s redefining the healthcare experience for patients and clinicians has secured R5-million in investment funding from an undisclosed investor. Link’s aim is to develop patient empowering health care technology in Africa. Providing organizational efficiency for businesses and data insights for clinicians and patients.
Link Health Technology
Founded in 2017 by biomedical engineering duo Daniel Rimbault and Abrie Coertze, Link is a healthtech startup that has created a unique software that provides a 360 view of a patient’s status and condition extending outside of biological indicates to include both psychological, and social health.
Daniel Rimbault, co-founder of Link in a recent interview provided insight into what led to the creation of the South African-born healthtech.
”Link, was inspired by Abrie’s battle with cancer, and the inadequacies he experienced first-hand in the healthcare system. Abrie worked on some of the core design concepts of the system as he was recovering, and with the hope of making the idea behind Link a reality, Abrie went back to specialize in Biomedical engineering at UCT. That is where Abrie and I met, with the same drive to bring the idea to a reality. Since then we have been consumed with the goal to build a tool for patients to take an active role in their healthcare journey and in parallel to redefine the dataset that informs their and their clinicians’ understanding of their health state. This is done by incorporating the biopsychosocial model.”
The healthtech startup’s overall system and approach is rooted within the biopsychosocial model as it considers the interplay between a patient’s biological, psychological, and social health.
“Typically doctors look at a narrow set of data on their patients to inform them of how well the patient is doing; the blood results, imaging scans, etc. These biological indicators are incredibly important, and a central part of Link, but they don’t paint the full picture. There is a growing body of research that suggests that psychological and social factors both directly and indirectly influence treatment prognosis and outcome. And until now they have been largely ignored clinically,” adds Rimbault.
With this in mind, Link has created a mobile application that acquires, stores and processes this critical data for patients. Both users and their doctors are provided feedback on their real-time state of health.
Benefits of the Link app
With access to the application via a web application, not only do doctors have access to details on a patient’s health status but it also assists them in making informed decisions during a patient’s treatment or check-up.
Rimbault indicates that this is a service that is direly needed by South African doctors along with the shift towards employing digital analysis tools within patient treatment.
“This is something in high demand; 64% of healthcare professionals in South Africa say they don’t have enough digital patient data to influence patient outcomes (2). A major pillar of the company’s development philosophy is interoperability from day one. For most people (and companies) medical data is fragmented and siloed. Only 40% of South African healthcare professionals are even utilizing some form of Digital Health Record at their practice (1). And most patients have no way of accessing medical records from a doctor that they saw even a year ago never mind ten. In the digital age, we simply need to do better. Link is built to interface with electronic health records of numerous types and even wearable technology by using the latest set of interoperability standards. It’s aimed at creating a complete health record.”
In addition, the application handles the day-to-day tasks of healthcare organisations including setting up appointments and handling other administrative-related activities. With a holistic approach in mind, the healthtech startup’s app will include a support network that facilitates a sense of community, enabling users to engage with individuals that find themselves in similar health-related circumstances.
Security first
According to reports, the healthtech startup is ready for scale and is adhering to global best practises in security and data privacy within its application. Link has ensured that patients have full control of their data and how it is being used as it has prioritised safety for all its users.
