Bristol, United Kingdom, February 14th 2013 – DocCom, provider of the first cloud-based enterprise social networking platform exclusively for healthcare, today announces that it has been awarded a grant totalling £207,000 by the Technology Strategy Board (TSB). The grant award, made as part of the TSB’s ‘Smart’ scheme, will be used to accelerate development of DocCom’s network and speed the introduction of its Clinical Alerts & Responses Extended via Social Media (CARES). DocCom’s CARES project will harness – for the first time – secure social networking technology to improve clinical workflow by sending alerts and responses directly to clinician’s smartphones.
The Smart scheme (previously known as Grant for Research and Development) is specifically designed to support innovation and stimulate the UK economy. The scheme offers funding to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to engage in R&D projects in the strategically important areas of science, engineering and technology and fund successful new products, processes and services. The selection process is highly competitive, and companies are assessed against rigorous criteria. DocCom scored exceptionally highly in all assessment areas, leading to the major grant award.
TSB grant assessors recognised the clear business opportunity created by DocCom’s innovation of enterprise social networking for healthcare. Currently, real-time communication between hospital staff is achieved primarily through the use of pagers. This is often slow, unreliable and does not allow remote collaboration. Moreover, tracking of people and the accurate delivery of key data is simply not possible via these outmoded channels, and so clinical and operational decisions are frequently made without access to accurate and timely information. DocCom’s CARES Project will demonstrate the capability of DocCom’s secure enterprise network for healthcare to significantly improve support for clinical and operational activities in hospitals.
DocCom’s founder and Managing Director Dr Jon Shaw comments: “As a doctor, I have experienced first-hand the difficulties that clinicians face in accessing clinical data in an efficient and timely fashion – and the dire results that lack of clinical data can have for patient care. This Smart funding of the CARES project will mean that, for the first time, clinicians will be able to have critical information sent securely to their smartphone, allowing more informed decision-making and better care for patients.”
Founded by doctors, DocCom is harnessing the very best social and enterprise networking technology and applying it to the unique requirements of healthcare professionals – empowering healthcare teams to securely find, collaborate, communicate and share with each other effectively, and giving healthcare organisations the tools and insight to solve specific business problems.
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Notes to media:
If you would be interested in scheduling a briefing with DocCom, please contact Nicky Denovan at nicky[at]evokedset[dot]com.
About DocCom: (http://www.doccom.me/)
DocCom’s cloud-based enterprise social networking platform has been developed specifically for healthcare. The DocCom platform provides an online presence for healthcare professionals using social networking architecture. It facilitates collaboration and communication both within and across organisations using smartphones and existing infrastructure. It can be integrated with clinical and operational systems to push information to the right people via any device and enables real time conversation to be had in a secure and compliant way.
Clinical Social Network (DocCom.Me)
DocCom’s core product is an Enterprise social network for health with secure, smartphone enabled user messaging and a broader enterprise communications campaign system (‘DocCom Campaign App’) which provides enhanced central communication capabilities.
The platform enables secure messaging through multiple, user preferred communication channels and specifically a native iOS App enables secure push messaging and multi person conversations via smartphones and tablets. The platform provides a dynamic directory of people within an organisation and ensures everyone remains connected, regardless of their device or location.
DocCom’s core platform is a stepping stone that underpins the delivery of enhanced functionality in the clinical work flow specifically related to clinical team collaboration.
Clinical Alerts and Responses Extended via Social Media (DocCom CARES)
DocCom’s unique enterprise social network for health provides a gateway for the distributed management of role-based clinical information flow. The gateway uses data algorithms to combine clinician roles and responsibilities with notifications from clinical and operational monitoring systems to ensure the timely delivery of the required information.
DocCom was the winner of the Microsoft Bizspark award 2010 for best cloud application and chosen as one of the top 20 emerging health tech companies in the UK by the Technology Strategy Board and UKTI. DocCom’s customers include Guy’s and St Thomas’s NHS Foundation Trust, NHS Lothian, UCLP and the Health Foundation.
About The Technology Strategy Board: (http://www.innovateuk.org)
Our role is to stimulate technology-enabled innovation in the areas which offer the greatest scope for boosting UK growth and productivity. We promote, support and invest in technology research, development and commercialisation. We spread knowledge, bringing people together to solve problems or make new advances.
We advise Government on how to remove barriers to innovation and accelerate the exploitation of new technologies. And we work in areas where there is a clear potential business benefit, helping today's emerging technologies become the growth sectors of tomorrow.
Our vision: For the UK to be a global leader in innovation and a magnet for innovative businesses, who can apply technology rapidly, effectively and sustainably to create wealth and enhance quality of life.
The Technology Strategy Board is an executive non-departmental public body (NDPB), established by the Government in 2007 and sponsored by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS).
The activities of the Technology Strategy Board are jointly supported and funded by BIS and other government departments, the devolved administrations and research councils.
Press contacts:
DocCom
Nicky Denovan
EvokedSet PR
nicky [at] evokedset [dot] com
Phone: +44 (0) 7747 017654
Distributed on behalf of EvokedSet by NeonDrum news distribution service (http://www.neondrum.com)