Transforming Healthcare with AI and Digital Platforms

Healthcare today faces mounting challenges, from aging populations and stretched resources to rising patient expectations. In this pivotal moment, digital platforms and artificial intelligence (AI) are offering innovative solutions for redefining healthcare delivery.

People have grown accustomed to choice, convenience, and speed thanks to the platform economy, explains Laure Claire Reillier, Co-Founder and COO of Launchworks & Co. Yet a significant gap exists between these expectations and current healthcare systems. In the UK, the NHS employs 1.5 million people—a 30% increase since 2009—but remains chronically understaffed. It’s a vast healthcare system, fragmented and operating in silos, burdened with inefficiencies and complexities.

“Our healthcare systems are on the cliff edge. The question […] is how digital platforms and AI can help solve the healthcare crisis”

Laure Claire Reillier, Launchworks & Co, Co-Founder & COO

These technologies are already reshaping healthcare, driving efficiency, and supporting better health outcomes for millions worldwide. With a clear focus on collaboration, ethical AI integration, and scalable business models, a new generation of healthcare providers is leading the way in building a healthier, tech-powered future.

Bridging healthcare gaps with platform innovations

In such a complex sector as healthcare, there’s a need for a wide range of solutions. Digital platforms can close gaps in accessibility, efficiency, and patient care – turning challenges into opportunities through cutting-edge technology and human-centred design.

Health services platform MeditSimple streamlines patient pathways by guiding users from symptom input to optimal care recommendations, explains Mathilde Konczynski, MeditSimple’s Chief Medical Officer. “The idea is to empower patients to make sustainable and informed decisions about their care,” she says. “The ultimate goal is to optimise resource allocation and reduce waste on healthcare.”

Patient advocacy is also a driver for platforms like THIS Labs, a spin-off from Cambridge University, which connects providers with meaningful, real-world insights from patients and front-line healthcare workers. “The best products and services often fail in healthcare because they don’t take the needs of patients and staff and the public into account,” says Ruth Cousens, Co-Founder and CEO of THIS Labs. “We run an online platform [that uses] qualitative research methods in order to gather insight from patients and staff at scale.”

“The best products and services often fail in healthcare because they don’t take the needs of patients and staff and the public into account”

Ruth Cousens, Co-Founder and CEO, THIS Labs

Staffing is yet another industry pillar that healthcare innovators are working to transform. “One of the most existential issues we have to deal with in our society is how we build a workforce to support this impending demographic tide that we’ve got coming,” says Charles Armitage, Co-Founder and CEO of Florence, a platform that matches healthcare workers with available roles or shifts. “We help healthcare organisations build a flexible workforce and help them support some of their supply challenges,” he explains.

Uniquely platform-driven business models

For new entrants to the healthcare sector, platform-based business models are key to driving scalability. “Attracting participants to take part in insight-gathering projects and matching them with the right clients is fundamentally a platform job,” notes Ruth. “The platform [model] enables us to do that at scale in a way that wouldn’t be possible [otherwise].” THIS Labs’ insights platform not only attracts clients by scaling qualitative research, but also creates opportunities for patients to meaningfully contribute. “We always focus the work we do on a really concrete problem,” Ruth says. “We’re not asking people to throw ideas into the air – we’re focusing them on actually developing and designing specific things.”

At Florence, platform technology has enabled operations and growth in three specific ways, says Charles. “One is to build trust through things like credentialing and onboarding to make sure the person who is doing the work is qualified and safe to do so. Two is to match supply and demand, [for example,] to make sure that when you’ve got the demand for an intensive care nurse of a certain level in a [certain] postcode area, that it finds the right person to fulfil that role,” he explains. Thirdly, the platform is set up to streamline accounting processes such as billing and payments. “The technology enables that to happen in a really seamless user-centric way,” Charles adds.

Enhancing the patient and provider experience

Across the MedTech industry, user experience is a critical theme. Florence’s approach emphasises transparency and performance metrics to create a self-regulating system where higher-quality professionals and organisations naturally thrive. “A key part of your [user] profile is your performance metrics around reliability, quality, and responsiveness,” Charles explains.

In contrast, THIS Labs mediates the user experience on both sides of their platform: for clients, by operating a customer service function, and for research participants, by carefully designing their user journey. In order for their research results to be as valuable as possible, THIS Labs focuses their efforts on streamlining user participation and simplifying complex research processes like surveys and consensus-building projects. “The ease of getting somebody through that process is absolutely critical,” says Ruth. Otherwise, she notes, research can be hampered by participant drop-off. “Our real focus is streamlining that experience to get that insight in as efficient a way as possible.”

User experience is similarly key for MeditSimple, agrees Mathilde: “Patients often come to the [MeditSimple] platform because they’re lost in the [healthcare] system – what we don’t want is for them to get lost on the platform.” As a multi-sided platform with different groups of users, including patients, providers, and insurance companies, MeditSimple works to optimise the experience for each user category. Whereas patients want transparency and support, Mathilde says providers are looking for visibility, clarity, and assurance that they’ll be matched appropriately with patients.

Scaling for system-wide impact

As they work to meet the significant and ever-expanding needs of their different users, healthcare platforms have been leveraging a variety of scalability strategies. Despite their unique models and goals, platform practitioners are unanimous when it comes to the value of a strong technological foundation, built with scaling in mind. “We’re very lucky to have very robust technology that has the capacity to take on a lot more than we’re demanding of it at the moment,” Ruth says. For THIS Labs, the task is more strategic than technological. “We are right in the throes of working out how to make scaling work,” she continues. In particular, Ruth notes how important it is to attract a critical mass of participants on each side of the platform. “We’re trying to take really deliberate steps to intervene in that scaling process with projects that we think are really attractive both to clients and to participants, in order to get the flywheel going.” 

Charles and his team at Florence have faced similar strategic pressures, particularly when expanding internationally.

“Whilst network effects are extremely powerful within an individual market […] as soon as you enter a new market, it’s all hyperlocal”

Charles Armitage, Co-Founder and CEO, Florence

“There are no network effects, and we’ve had to start from scratch again, relearning some of those acquisition funnels from our early days in the UK.” Operational differences have been challenging to navigate as the company has expanded into France and Canada, but Florence has also leveraged its core technology to establish a foothold in these new markets. And for MeditSimple, strategic partnerships with insurers have been key to accessing new patient populations, Mathilde shares: “The onboarding is a lot easier for everybody when there’s one communal actor involved.” 

The AI revolution in healthcare

Embracing digital transformations, such as AI, is yet another aspect of scaling healthcare platforms and moving closer towards accessible, efficient, and high-quality care for all. “AI has been built in from the beginning for us, although it has obviously evolved,” Mathilde says. MeditSimple initially used AI to match patients and providers, but today, the platform’s AI path guides patients through the whole user journey, listening to their language and building a better understanding of each patient’s individual needs. 

According to Ruth, THIS Labs uses AI to analyse free-text survey responses, enabling them to derive insights from large amounts of patient-supplied data. “When you ask people to give you their insights and opinion, you get lots and lots of free text,” she explains. For some organisations, this overwhelming volume can act as a deterrent against seeking input from patients and front-line workers, but AI allows THIS Labs to process responses efficiently. “If you’re aiming to make a quick, high-level but useful intervention in an immediate problem, then [AI] can actually be really useful for that,” advises Ruth.

To maximise AI’s potential internally, small measures can prove significant, in Charles’ experience: “[Using AI] is a learning thing, and people need to be really curious.” Although they’ve only just started piloting across the organisation, he’s convinced of its potential to solve complex tasks and problems. “As soon as you start practising with large language models, you realise the world of possibilities,” he thinks.

Safe, ethical AI-powered healthcare

Still, there are unique ethical concerns in the healthcare space when it comes to the implementation of AI.

“As a medic but as a patient as well, I’d want to know that things are being used responsibly,”

Mathilde Konczynski, MeditSimple Chief Medical Officer

Mathilde and her team at MeditSimple opted to establish an external ethics committee to review product development and ensure that users’ data is handled appropriately. This is a way of “making sure that what we are doing not only fits in with expectations from all walks of life, but also is safe for everybody to use,” she continues. 

As AI continues to develop at a rapid pace, user expectations are also evolving.“Some of the work that we are now doing is starting to understand the acceptability of AI in these contexts to patients, staff, and wide groups of people,” Ruth says. In considering where and how to implement AI – for example, in triage – she thinks it is vital to understand the current state of decision making. “The reality is that there are a whole range of different motivations that go into making decisions like risk stratification,” she notes. “In the work that we do, [we’re trying to promote] a nuanced conversation about that.”

If we’re slow and resistant to use AI to try and augment that [healthcare] workforce, there will be much worse patient outcomes than if we’re brave about it.”

Charles Armitage, Co-Fouder & CEO, Florence

Charles agrees that thoughtful consideration and communication around AI is needed, especially in order to benefit from its potential. He compares the concerns over AI in healthcare to the debate about autonomous vehicles, which he says are “many orders of magnitude safer than a human behind the wheel,” yet public enthusiasm is still lagging. Similarly, Charles believes that public fear about the use of AI in the healthcare sector is somewhat misplaced. “The reality is that healthcare is really dangerous and is, in many ways, provided in a very unsafe way today,” he asserts, pointing to ageing infrastructure and overworked staff. “We don’t have the resources or the workforce to provide really high-quality, safe healthcare at scale.” Although the transition will take time and effort, Charles predicts that it will have positive results, adding: “If we’re slow and resistant to use AI to try and augment that workforce, there will be much worse patient outcomes than if we’re brave about it.”

The debate about privatisation – and a vision for a healthier future

Looking ahead, healthcare platforms are leading the call for a shift in how collaboration happens across the private sector, government agencies, and public institutions. “As a private provider trying to innovate within the government healthcare sector in the UK, it’s extraordinarily difficult,” Charles says. “The conversation about privatising the healthcare system is a huge political red mark, and that means that it all goes on very quietly behind closed doors.” In his opinion, private provision of specific services within the National Health Service (NHS) is being conflated with privatisation of the system itself and its funding. He believes that this distracts from the potential for private service providers to improve the quality of public care, and adds: “We should be talking about patient outcomes and quality scores.” 

For her part, Ruth advocates for broader public engagement and more detailed, active debate. “Every one of us is either a patient or a potential patient, and the tradeoffs that are made day in, day out are enormously complex,” she says. “And yet the only conversation that we have at the citizen level is: do we want the NHS to be free at the point of access?” She’s also of the opinion that the politicised discussion about privatisation doesn’t encourage enough productive thinking about how to improve the quality and delivery of healthcare services in the UK.

At MeditSimple, Mathilde has encountered barriers to participating in the public system as well, and she sees a role for private providers to play as part of the system, as long as policy makers allow more transparency about the financial side of ensuring public access to healthcare. “There is so much that can be done [to improve the NHS], but it has to be treated as it is what it is: a marketplace with public funding,” she thinks.

Fostering transparency and understanding will continue to be key across all aspects of innovating and scaling healthcare platforms, according to Ruth. “You really have to have compassion and understand how [new technology] lands with people across the system,” she says. “That’s how you get adoption.”

Join the conversation with Platform Leaders

This panel with Charles Armitage, Ruth Cousens, Mathilde Konczynski, and Laure Claire Reillier was part of the Platform Leaders event organised by Launchworks & Co on the 13th of November 2024 at Digital Catapult, attended both on- and offline by hundreds of participants from across the Platform Leaders community. 

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