Vinehealth
Vinehealth’s platform uses behavioural science and AI to increase the quality of life of cancer patients through highly personalised patient support programmes. The Vinehealth mobile app allows oncology patients to track, manage and understand their care, as well as integrate with devices, wearables and clinical software to optimise self-management and outcomes.
Through this, the platform generates highly valuable real-world data to inform healthcare delivery and drug development. The VinehealthPRO web application connects patients to their oncology teams to support clinical decision making, enable more informed appointments and provide better care from home. It also enables clinicians to see real-time data on how their patients are coping at home.
Scroll down for our interview with the co-founder:
Interview with:
Rayna Patel, Co-Founder & CEO
Why did you start Vinehealth?
My co-founder Georgina and I had both seen that there was a real issue with how we engage with cancer patients and support them on a day-to-day basis. So from my background as a doctor, I was seeing people coming back into the clinic time after time who were really not sure what they should be doing at home: how they should be managing their care, what they should be doing with their medications, whether they should be reporting things to their care team etc.
There is a lot of research that very clearly highlights that this lack of confidence and lack of support tangibly affects outcomes. So if patients aren’t confident with what they should be doing, that really affects their quality of life and their survival.
What has been your happiest moment so far as a startup founder?
The first bit of feedback we got from a patient who said Vinehealth was helping them was probably my happiest moment so far. You spend such a long time developing something and hoping that it will have a real-world impact but that first time we got some truly heartfelt positive patient feedback, that the app was really helping the patient to manage their chemotherapy better and that it was changing their quality of life day to day, was a wonderful moment.
What is the most important thing you’ve learned to date?
Perhaps the very fact that whatever stage you’re at you will always be learning. It is really nice that there is a massive community of founders and business leaders out there that you can tap into and there will always be the answers out there. I think it is in the nature of being a founder that every day you might be doing something you’ve never ever done before. Knowing that that’s normal and ok is the biggest thing I’ve learned and am increasingly comfortable with.
What is the quality you most admire in a colleague?
There are many but one that is top of mind is the one I most admire in my co-founder and that is perseverance, which she has in bucket-loads. I know that we could have any problem in the world and she would be there solving it with me; day-in, day-out. She isn't someone who would let things go if there is a chance of a positive outcome and I really admire the optimism and grit that can lead people to achieve something they care about, even when the odds are stacked against them.
What is your current state of mind?
I feel excited! We’ve been building this company for a little while now and a lot of that time has been spent making sure the product really fits the needs of patients and clinicians, that it does what we say it’s going to do, that it works in practice, is usable and operates seamlessly, and is really useful to patients and clinicians. Over the last few months we have had some really exciting contracts come through from huge life science partners that mean we can scale this across countries to many thousands of patients and so there is a real opportunity to grow at an incredible pace. It’s exciting to be at that inflection point.
What has your experience been like so far as an NHS Clinical Entrepreneur?
I think it is really important that you have clinicians heavily involved in how these tools are developed. It is a relatively new reality that we have clinicians at the forefront of development and it’s so important when you are building things that have real world use. It’s a privilege to be a part of that. How you operate as a clinician is very different to working life outside of the hospital so there is a lot to get used to and to understand in terms of moving between those worlds but I think clinicians are really well placed to do that. I think for me, it is incredibly satisfying to work with both clinicians but also technologists and developers and bridge that gap. It’s an exciting place to be.
Why did you decide to partner with KHP Ventures?
We truly believe that our technology can enable better patient care & reduce burden on the clinical workforce. It's therefore essential that we, as a digital health company, work in close collaboration with our clinician & provider partners.
KHP is perfectly positioned to facilitate deep collaboration between the developers of digital health tools & those intended to use them - this was too good an opportunity to miss!
Looking to the future, what do you hope Vinehealth will achieve?
Our vision for the company is to create a world in which every cancer patient receives truly personalised treatment and support. I believe we can really change the lives of people living with cancer through our technology.