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Everyone who has undergone medical treatment, or who knows someone who has, is aware that patients too often lack control over their healthcare. How do patients comprehend what is happening? Do they really comprehend their diagnosis and treatment strategy? Can they function independently? It seems like they don’t in a huge number of instances. Erik van der Zijden, CEO of Synappz Digital Healthcare, was inspired by this to continue working towards his professional goal of using digital innovation to put healthcare back in patients’ hands.
A passion for digital possibilities in combination with his experience in life sciences led Erik to form Synappz Digital Healthcare in 2012. He is an excellent business leader with prior to Synappz over 16 years of professional experience in several international roles in pharma, ranging from business analysis, to export sales, marketing, and innovation. In academics, he earned a BSc in Medical Biology, a BS in International Management, and an MBA.
“We want patients to have more power over their healthcare experience. We want people to receive accurate information, be able to use data to gain insight into their own health and receive professional coaching along the way. Preferably, by visiting the hospital or caregiver only when absolutely necessary,” Erik explained.
He continued, “We make our digital health platform ‘Clinicards’ available to hospitals and other care and cure organisations so they may remotely monitor, educate, and coach patients for any disease. We help them by creating a patient journey or care pathway, often for a specific clinical domain, and configuring the platform based on the outcomes. By having insight into the data, the healthcare professional can guide the patient along the journey and provide feedback via various digital communication methods. Because Clinicards is built on a single platform, it is very simple for it to expand to other conditions or care pathways.”
There are numerous other platforms that enable hospitals to make active use of digital health. However, none of them combines the primary use cases of monitoring, education, and coaching. The platform enables hospitals to build their own content ecosystems and care pathways.
Beginning of Erik’s Journey towards a Successful Venture
Erik’s journey in digital healthcare began 12 years ago when the passionate leader left his job in the pharmaceutical industry to take control of his own destiny. That was a bold plan, and it took years to understand the dynamics of innovating in healthcare, which is a conservative market. Initially, they created what they call “point solutions,” which are digital services for a single clinical domain. For instance, ‘diabetes’ or ‘breast cancer’. After a while, they realized that they were constantly reinventing the wheel. They started from scratch each time, but the result was the same: a digital solution that assisted patients in that specific domain in monitoring their symptoms, educating them about their medical condition, or allowing healthcare professionals to coach them. That’s when they had the idea to create a single platform that does all three of these things combined: remote monitoring, education, and coaching of patients regardless of their condition. It should be configurable so that hospitals can use it for any medical condition. Consider it a Lego kit that is infinitely scalable.
Having an idea is one thing; developing a product is something else entirely, and building a company around it yet another league. It took a couple of years to develop and launch Clinicards. Going from one iteration to another, testing, rebuilding, again testing, rebuilding, rinse and repeat. And at the same time, they needed to build the business with what little money was left because that all went to product development. That’s when Erik learned the true definition of entrepreneurship!
“Late 2019, we were ready with our first version of our Clinicians Platform and proud that we found a few hospitals to give it a try. In that year, we were making some progress in a number of medical fields, from post-surgery vitals monitoring to post-limb amputation coaching to prenatal education, each on one single platform. Then we ran into a brick wall. Actually, COVID, like a wall, hit the entire world. As a business owner, you can and should prepare for a variety of scenarios, but none of my business plans included this one. All hospitals, which make up our main clientele, stopped investing in new technologies and entered a situation akin to hibernation for innovation, where they exclusively dealt with the influx of COVID patients. One might think that COVID spearheaded digital health, creating the possibilities for remote care. That is essentially true, but not for the first year. It took some time for society to regain control and begin to be more open. We needed to get by in the interim”, quoted Erik.
Erik and his colleagues have recovered from that period a year after COVID. They gained a lot of knowledge, and digital has established itself on the agenda of most hospitals. They continue to work towards putting their goal into practice by using digital technology to put healthcare back in the hands of patients.
Overcoming the COVID Crisis
As previously stated, their primary clientele, hospitals, were closed for business from one day to the next. Of course, you strive to reduce expenses first. There wasn’t much to gain from that, given that Synappz was already quite an agile company with a virtual office rather than a physical one. Fortunately, they expanded their market so they weren’t solely dependent on healthcare for people. The veterinary industry is one of Synappz’s additional Life Science section endeavors. The healthcare needs of humans and animals are essentially the same because they are distinct species. The main distinction is that they are not discussing patients here; rather, they are discussing farmers or pet owners. Because veterinarians were still in business, Erik was able to maintain that enterprise. In addition, there was sound financial support from the government that helped tremendously.
The Accomplishments and Milestones Along the Way
Back in 2013, Synappz Digital had the first CE-certified medical app in the Netherlands. That spearheaded their focus on quality and safety. The company continued that journey by becoming the first ISO 27001-certified digital healthcare company in 2015. From the get go, they have won various awards and prizes. End of this year their Clinicards platform is present in more than 40% of the Dutch hospitals. But what Erik is most proud of is seeing what patients are doing with their products in real life. They have one application built on the Clinicards platform that helps parents who’ve lost a baby during or shortly after birth. There you see what truly matters.
Erik’s Piece of Advice for Aspiring Entrepreneurs
An idea is not yet a product and a product is not yet a company. Each phase requires different skills. As an entrepreneur, you must obtain many of these skills or, better yet, surround yourself with people who have these skills. It’s teamwork that makes the dream work, so build that team as soon as possible. Believe in your vision and stick to it. Even when you fall into a black hole and all trust in yourself, your team, your product, and society as a whole seems to have vanished (and boy, you will fall into many black holes), stay true to your vision. Have mentors—elderly people who have seen it all and have joy in sharing their knowledge and experience with you. Believe me, there are many of these people. Be open to their advice, any advice, and be curious about it all. Ask questions. The only way to learn and grow is to have an open mind. And finally, enjoy the ride. Not many people can say that they took control of their own lives instead of living someone else’s.
