Getting the message out

A Lancashire company specialising in secure messaging for the health service has seen a four-fold increase in uptake of its product since the start of COVID-19.

Hospify offers a communications platform that allows healthcare professionals to communicate securely while sharing confidential information with other clinicians and patients.

The system combines a free messaging app with a paid-for team administration tool, and the company reports a quadrupling both of individual downloads and a similar uptake in the number of sites trialling its paid-for admin Hub.

Hospify was approved by the NHS Apps Library earlier this year, the only messaging service of its type to receive such approval. The library helps users find trusted apps that have been assessed as clinically safe.

And in the last few weeks the company has seen its platform rolled out at London North West University Healthcare NHS Trust. 

Hospify Co-founder and Chief Executive James Flint said more than 150 health and care sites had adopted the system nationwide, including around 20 in the North West Coast, since the company’s launch four years ago.

“The pandemic has underlined the need for a secure system that’s easy to use and inspires a lot of confidence. Hospify not only protects any data belonging to a patient, it also protects the privacy of the clinician when communicating with a patient.

“COVID is bound to accelerate the uptake of secure messaging and we’re very proud that we’ve played our part in combatting the pandemic.

“Hospify is sometimes described as the WhatsApp of health service messaging, but, while it offers a similar user experience, it uses a very different underlying ‘data architecture’ that is much more secure and it complies with all the relevant legislation.”

To earn NHS Apps Library approval Hospify had to satisfy a number of criteria covering, among other things, clinical safety, data protection and technical stability.

Health Innovation North West Coast supported Hospify by ensuring the company was represented at a number of training and networking events and by introducing the company to NHS decision-makers.

Innovation Agency Commercial Manager Steve Adams said:
“We could see the emerging need for a product like Hospify, which is why we have supported them and are continuing to introduce them to our networks.”

Mr Flint added:
“Health Innovation North West Coast has backed us over several years now and we’re really pleased they’ve shown so much faith in us. If it hadn’t been for them I’m not at all sure we would have made the progress we have.”