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What The HealthTech?, a podcast from Radar Healthcare, creates a space for health and social care professionals to join honest conversations about current trends, challenges in the sector and making an impact on people’s lives.
In our bi-weekly Thursday episodes, we’ll be chatting to industry leaders, inspiring organisations, and our own team at Radar Healthcare, to share insight and learn alongside you.
Listen today to discover something new, and don’t forget to subscribe!
00:00:00:00 - 00:00:30:04
Unknown
I What the hell? Listeners, I'm your host this week, Hailey Levine. This is the podcast where we tackle some of the trending topics, ideas and best practice in health and social care. This week we're talking to Paul Johnson and Lee Williams, both business owners and technology experts at the center of the health tech world. I want to talk to them today about their journey to today's radar health care.
00:00:30:06 - 00:00:49:18
Unknown
Paul and Lee started right on health care ten years ago in 2012 with a vision to make health care safer, both from a technology background and with a passion for health care. They really wanted to make a difference to people's lives by bringing a fresh, modern take to health technology. Outside of work, they've been friends for 20 years.
00:00:49:22 - 00:01:16:08
Unknown
Like traveling, including skiing, married with kids. In fact, Paul's daughter actually gets married in three days. Congratulations, Paul. Thank you very much, I think. So thank you so much for joining us on Health Tech today. We're going to start from the beginning. So where exactly did radar health care come from? Why did you start the business? Shall I go first on that one?
00:01:16:10 - 00:01:38:23
Unknown
I think initially what we quickly realized was that it doesn't really matter what organization you are. If you are regulated, then you have fundamentals that you have to worry about. Those are people. So you want to make sure you've got a competent, compliant workforce. You've got things that occur and reportable incidents, events that you need to manage and report against.
00:01:39:04 - 00:02:07:05
Unknown
You've got you need to validate, you need to evidence to the regulator. You need to evidence internally. Externally, you've got policy, you've got all these fundamental elements of an organization to help you deliver a quality service. So that's kind of step one, the kind of the Segway into health care. Was that okay? Then if we're going to build this really smart call system to worry about all those things and make a difference, help people deliver a better outcome.
00:02:07:11 - 00:02:33:23
Unknown
Where better to do that than within health care? So a little bit of discovery, exploration. And we quickly realized that this sector is in desperate need of this kind of technology line that to our passion to build something really cool, to make a difference in health care and deliver a quality outcome. That was the catalyst. And yeah, we were committed and and launched ten years ago to start developing red eye health care.
00:02:34:00 - 00:02:56:04
Unknown
I can imagine starting a business is challenging at best, never mind in the health care sector obviously with all the regulation. So tell me a little bit about those early challenges. Welcome to you again, Paul. I think any business owner or business founder right at the beginning, the biggest challenge is convincing people and getting those early adopters on board.
00:02:56:04 - 00:03:20:23
Unknown
And I think we've held true to it right from day one. So from our very first customer, our commitment to them was to help them deliver a better outcome within their organization, to their service users, patients and confidence in people by building this and helping them on their journey to deliver a better outcome. That was the biggest challenge because you don't have anything at the beginning.
00:03:21:00 - 00:03:46:16
Unknown
So you know, you're making a commitment and you get people to invest in you. And yeah, I think that was probably the biggest challenge from a conceptual perspective. What about for you? Yeah, I think having those partners early on actually help you define what the product's going to do is really important. We had some really great early adopters that helped us really build that vision of what what the product is, how it will work in health and social care.
00:03:46:18 - 00:04:09:24
Unknown
And that was key for us having those. And we had a good two or three that really helped us push the product on really quickly. So if you say you're the brains behind the technology, so I'm just the brains and the brains. So how easy was it for you at the start to make? Obviously nowadays the customers talk about the products as really intuitive, easy to use.
00:04:09:24 - 00:04:38:24
Unknown
So how did you come up with that concept? I think just really, again, on understanding and working with those early customers is a is a really key thing. When you're building any product, you have to have that involvement from the end users and the people who's going to who are going to be using the product because anybody can sit there and think, I've got a really great idea what this product can do, what it should look like and the things that it's going to help these organizations achieve.
00:04:39:05 - 00:04:59:16
Unknown
Actually, until you sit down with them and build those early concepts of what the product's going to do and give them access to it and and let them be really involved in that journey of of the product realization that that's the key thing. And the hardest thing is try to do that as a small business because the beginning and those tools.
00:04:59:18 - 00:05:20:23
Unknown
So to do that and do all the other things that you need to do as a business owners is obviously quite difficult. So having that buy in early on from those those early customers is is the key to any product design. I know those customers still will here today. Yes. Yeah. Slightly in different ways. So some of them have changed.
00:05:20:23 - 00:05:47:15
Unknown
But the actually our our earliest customer one that one of our biggest early customers involved in those design sessions is still a customer just in a slightly different guys. And the biggest thing for that early customer was that it could not only and it was supported living, there was care homes, there was children's services. So actually to have that breadth of use of the product was really important for us.
00:05:47:15 - 00:06:06:07
Unknown
It wasn't just so it meant we didn't kind of go down one route just looking at care homes or just looking at care at the home. I just looking at an NHS trust because it covered three big services and it was a big organization. It really gave us a good understanding of how the product would be used in different settings.
00:06:06:09 - 00:06:36:09
Unknown
But yet there still, still a customer said just in a slightly different guys. And I think that's one of the things we if you look at our story and journey, I was on a session a couple of weeks ago that was diverse set of business founders and they were saying about the, you know, your story and I was telling a story from our perspective, which was when Lee and I, as you mention, there was two of us, you know, with a laptop and a concept and one of our very first customers, I just tell the story.
00:06:36:09 - 00:06:59:22
Unknown
And I think we should visualize it in some way, which was balancing a laptop on a tin of roses, chocolate and lead given a demo. So our first customer and one of the directors of the business said, Here, can you hold this? And just me, a small child, so I'm holding a baby. Please. Balancing a laptop on top of a Rosie's chocolates.
00:06:59:22 - 00:07:21:01
Unknown
And now it's a really great story. And that was the foundation because it became our first one of our first customers. And that was, you know, we built a business on the back of that. However, what I really like is, you know, when we talk about user experience and engagement, our commitment to help them deliver a better healthcare outcome as an organization from that first customer hasn't changed.
00:07:21:03 - 00:07:43:16
Unknown
Now that we're in hundreds of customers across the whole healthcare continuum, same commitment to every single healthcare provider. Are you right that that partnership approach is something that Radar Healthcare prides itself with, and that's reflected in the ratings that you get from customers. So and staff as well. You know, you rated around 4.9 on on Glassdoor by your staff.
00:07:43:17 - 00:08:06:17
Unknown
You raise it 4.7. And Sarah, your customers and your staff rate you highly. Why do you think that is? Do you think it is the partnership approach or is there something else? It's probably a mixture of things. We've got two things I think that we got ourselves by one is that partnership approach and understanding what is it that they are looking to achieve, not just selling them a piece of software internally.
00:08:06:17 - 00:08:30:16
Unknown
It's a culture thing. We've right from the very off leave, we have a very open culture. We want to be honest, you know, empathy for people within our organization and external. And I think when you combine those things that people can be compassionate as well because they're not just writing code for a piece of software that you're going to sell the writing code for a piece of software that's going to make a difference.
00:08:30:18 - 00:08:55:21
Unknown
You know, and some of these differences are very tangible and, you know, significant health care outcomes 100%. The people behind the brand obviously said you start to it's just the two of you I think in a bedroom was or two in a house and kitchen and dining room. Let's go for that. He cited a kitchen and dining room and you've built a company now 60 plus people.
00:08:55:23 - 00:09:22:08
Unknown
Tell me about those people. I mean, it's interesting because Lease declared himself the brains of the operation of the brand and looks. But so so we kind of manage it was a good fit in terms of from a business perspective because Lee is very technical, understands delivery, product realization, customer service. So both passionate about customer service and then operational commercial, things like that on my site.
00:09:22:08 - 00:09:49:01
Unknown
So whilst we engage with different sides of the business, there is there's an we are an integrated business. So in the way that we communicate, in the way that we do things within work, outside of work, and I think those people are all bought into the journey and that so, so every single person within the organization is very passionate about what we trying to achieve here.
00:09:49:05 - 00:10:07:12
Unknown
Even the new people that come in, they get the buy into it very quickly. And how does that make you feel, for example, especially, you know, being being the man behind the products, how does it make you feel when you bring in developers or testers and they get so bought into that product? I think it's down to the to the people.
00:10:07:14 - 00:10:31:15
Unknown
It's not just us, it's it's the other people in the organization. So it's the the people heading up those teams right down to the person who's answering the phone or on the support line. It's really important that everybody buys into it. And as we're talking about partnerships, you can have a great product. If you don't have great people supporting that product, then the business won't work the both equally as important.
00:10:31:17 - 00:10:50:02
Unknown
So it's it's really, really important that the people are bought in, right, right from the top to the bottom. But as the business gets bigger, it's a bit more difficult to do that because it's not myself and Paul doing it anymore. It's the people that we brought in to head up those teams and to make sure that that culture stays the same.
00:10:50:04 - 00:11:15:05
Unknown
It's a really good coaching staff and you can tell just by speaking to the people and seeing the posts that they put on social media and so on. But being the CEO, you're the face of radar, health care. How does it make you feel? Oh, I mean, I am you know, you get bought into this. You know, in those early days, whilst we had a passion to make a difference in health care, you know, just immensely proud, you know, to see where we've come from.
00:11:15:07 - 00:11:36:22
Unknown
You know, when we talks about, you know, the the chocolate town and the baby story, you know, we spend the whole health care continuum now. So, you know, from clinics to GP's to dentist and NHS trusts. So the whole health care continuum across social care, you know, to see the product being used are making a difference in delivering those outcomes.
00:11:36:22 - 00:12:01:15
Unknown
And then how passionate all of our staff are. Yeah, just immensely proud. It's really good. And that again reflects on the fact that you were not like one of the top 50 fastest growing companies in the north. How why do you think, especially recently you've had such growth? I think I mean, there's two elements to that, I suppose.
00:12:01:15 - 00:12:21:10
Unknown
One is that you've got to have a great product and it's got to deliver real value and then if you start delivering that real value, kind of word gets about people speak to people and it's just whilst it's a huge, you know, sector, it's also really small. So people do talk and word gets around about the value and the benefits that you derive.
00:12:21:12 - 00:12:48:15
Unknown
And then the second part is by circumstance. So the circumstance are that health care as never you know, we're in an unprecedented era in terms of the pandemic, the challenges that are on the NHS, the challenges that social care face. So the demand for systems like ours to come in and help drive efficiencies, help drive better outcomes, support them in this challenging period, I think that contributes as well.
00:12:48:17 - 00:13:25:07
Unknown
You know, and as we know, it's what we know over two years that those challenges have increased. So I think demand has increased as well. I think there's a massive difference as well in the way that social care organizations look at health tech now. So maybe two or three years ago, it wasn't one of their top priorities, as you've seen recently from the the things that have come out from the Department of Health and everywhere else, there is a big push now because people are really starting to understand the value and the outcomes that that health tech can deliver not only to these big NHS trusts but also to the small social care organizations.
00:13:25:07 - 00:13:49:14
Unknown
So I think there's a massive change in how health tech is viewed across the whole country. Yeah, it's a really good point. It's that and I think there's recognition that we need to level up a little bit, you know, the, the focus and lens on social care because for social care to get things right and to have a positive impact ultimately has that positive impacts on the NHS.
00:13:49:14 - 00:14:09:14
Unknown
So we can reduce hospital admissions, stop people developing chronic conditions. These are the things that further compound the NHS. So if they work together, I think that's a fantastic opportunity and we're in a great position, you know, to contribute to that as we span both, both the NHS and social care. And on that point, what do you think about integrated care systems?
00:14:09:14 - 00:14:39:03
Unknown
Do you think that's going to help health and social care? Do you think it's you know, we're obviously right in the center of that, having so many different types of health care organizations. What what are your thoughts? I think the the idea is is great, and I genuinely hope that we all deliver against it. I'm a little reticent because I just hope that it doesn't become, you know, lots of individual oil tankers that difficult to make decisions and are no longer agile.
00:14:39:03 - 00:15:05:00
Unknown
But the premier says, look, if we can place best care, population, health management, all the things I just mentioned about if you start to integrate, all of that can have holistic oversight. We can genuinely make a difference, a positive impact on patient service users. Again, stopping people coming to hospital, stop people developing chronic conditions, reduce waiting lists, reduce delayed transfers of care so people stuck in hospital when we need to get them out.
00:15:05:02 - 00:15:26:14
Unknown
All of those things. The idea of an ICS can deliver against that, but everybody has to be a part of that problem. 100% taking you back to that journey again. So looking back, so that you've been here almost ten years, ten years in December, in that ten years, I'm coming to you first. Tell me what moment has made you the most proud?
00:15:26:14 - 00:15:52:18
Unknown
Looking back, I think there's this is a few key moments. Probably the first one was the first time you go alive with the first product because it's all it would be go in ten years. It was probably took us three years, I would say, to get to get the product out into a live environments or seen that product actually working and the benefits that it could bring and then having the great sessions afterwards going, what else, what should we be doing now?
00:15:52:24 - 00:16:16:20
Unknown
How can we help improve the product? What what's going to help us and what's going to help you with this product was one of them, I think. And then the next one really for me was probably that our entry into the NHS and having our first system in the NHS, because for us that was a big milestone. We decided to, to wait quite a few years before we started to look at the NHS and, and the outcomes that the system could bring.
00:16:16:22 - 00:16:34:20
Unknown
So when we made the decision that actually this is something we think we should do and the product ready for, and we also did a lot of research and around the product and what it needed to deliver that. That was a big that's a big milestone for us as a business because it was being used in a different setting that we hadn't hadn't used before.
00:16:35:00 - 00:16:55:12
Unknown
And there was also a big incumbency, big systems that have been used for years and years, 20 years in some cases. So to actually go in and be able to replace one of those systems was was a really big achievement for us. So that probably the two the two biggest ones for me pulled, I think, crikey, there's many milestones along the way.
00:16:55:14 - 00:17:33:20
Unknown
You know, when you hear directly from your partners saying that, you know, we love the software, it's making a difference. You know, it makes it incredibly proud. I'll cite one one. It was quite so. There's an organization called Guernsey Cloth. Guernsey Clifford, that found that from the regulator, the QC, that identified significant areas of improvement. And so it was a big challenge, you know, and they got somebody really strong into that organization that was passionate about making a change, but identified that he wanted to partner with Red our healthcare to help underpin that change and that journey that we went on in an incredibly short space of time.
00:17:33:20 - 00:18:06:02
Unknown
So I think it was something like within three or four months, you know, taking somebody from an an adequate to outstanding the incredible achievement. And when when you hear that outcome, you get that call saying we kind of did it, you know, and I could not have done that without red eye healthcare. Yeah, yeah. So really proud moment that yeah, I was talking to one of our partners the other day and they said that and before rate our health care it's like play all the services would have been rated as inadequate or requires improvement and now every single service is rated as good.
00:18:06:04 - 00:18:29:23
Unknown
And to hear that kind of feedback, it must make you just think, Wow, we are making such a difference in this industry. And, you know, with with Martin as well, this modern take that we're bringing. Yeah, definitely. You know, there's I used to have this old adage in my former roles where I was kind of head of operations was people would get really stressed about certain things.
00:18:29:23 - 00:18:49:18
Unknown
And I would say, look, you know, guys, just relax a little bit. You know, we're not saving lives here. And then over time, I know we're not clinical systems. And I you know, I'm not saying that we're at the level, but fundamentally we can make a real positive difference and potentially save lives, deliver better outcomes, you know, and that that again, fills you with immense pride.
00:18:49:20 - 00:19:16:01
Unknown
Definitely. So let's look at the present day. So ten years, what's happening now in the organization that you'd like to talk about? It's not with you. Lay out. I think for us it's just at the moment we're building the teams and building again, building the for me, the customer success team at the moment, we've had some really great customer feedback on on the service that we provide.
00:19:16:01 - 00:19:41:14
Unknown
And in terms of customer success and how we do it. And as Paul was saying, we don't. He's a system. This is what the system does. We said, What do you actually need? What what's the outcomes that you're trying to achieve? And that's the way that we go about customer success. But also there's also lots of people change in roles in the organization, which for me is is a massive positive as well because they're they're going into new roles, they're seeing new careers, and they've maybe been with us for three or four years.
00:19:41:16 - 00:20:01:23
Unknown
So people move on from customer success to be a product owner or to be a training manager. So so at the moment there's quite a lot of that going on, which is really great to see, but yet were significantly increasing across every department in the organized mission, which brings challenges as well. So that's, that's what we're doing a lot of at the moment.
00:20:01:23 - 00:20:25:11
Unknown
But again, where we want to go in terms of what the products doing is really start to look at how we start connecting with other systems within health and social care. Because one of the things that we've realized is and it's the same for any organization, if we can take some human element out of some of the things that happen and we can systemize it, that can make a massive, massive difference.
00:20:25:11 - 00:20:48:00
Unknown
So a simple, simple explanation of that would be somebody is in hospital and they have a pressure ulcer and that goes on to their care record. And in the hospital, we can ultimately through to our system to to raise an incident. So if we're taking not one nurse out that out that position where she's having to enter onto two systems, that's a massive benefit.
00:20:48:00 - 00:21:09:09
Unknown
Not only does it serve time, we know it will make the data accuracy 100% better because we've taken the human out of the situation where they're having to do two things. So that's a big focus for the product development at the moment. And is there anyone else out there doing anything like this? Because I can imagine that's going to have huge impact on the industry.
00:21:09:11 - 00:21:32:08
Unknown
It certainly happens a lot in in kind of health tech. So you will see lots of systems that are joined up and talking to each other. I wouldn't say there's a lot happen in the space that we work on kind of patient safety, risk management, and there's not a lot of that goes on. It seems to be kind of a bit siloed at the moment and where we think it should be an integral part to any health tech ecosystem.
00:21:32:10 - 00:21:52:05
Unknown
It has to be because there's all of these things happening that we know can make a real difference to the outcome for that person or that that resident or whatever session it is. I think also they what really excites me at the moment because we're building this kind of we referred to it as a first class community because we're spanning all that health care continuum.
00:21:52:07 - 00:22:33:08
Unknown
They're all driving demands, ideas, you know, requirements to drive our innovation and roadmap and some of the things that we're doing. So we've also expanded internationally. So a large project and partner in the in the Middle East with the Emirates Health Service. So it's quite significant. There's 17 hospitals, 72 health care centers across the Emirates. Now it's fantastic to see the system having a positive impacts, you know, on the population within the UAE, But doing some of the things for them which is, you know, integrating into Cerner, which is a patient record system to start identify niche, are triggers.
00:22:33:14 - 00:23:10:04
Unknown
Basically we're looking where clinical harm or patient harm has occurred to automate that process. And now to extend that, we're looking at data driven events and IOC driven events. What does that actually mean? Means that actually plugging in a machine learning, which historically has been quite scary and and limited to a few organizations, if you apply it in a practical term and you say, I want you to do the hard work and process this data for me and help me make some informed decisions, I think is super exciting because again, we're getting into avoidable harm and addressing that.
00:23:10:07 - 00:23:33:06
Unknown
So I get excited by that. And then the the efficiencies that looking into whether it's a smart meter in a home to identify somebody spoiling the catalyst, switching the lights on and off less as a sign of reduced mobility. Going back to the ISIS question, actually, what does that mean? Well, we can identify and send a notification to community nursing to say this person needs a visit.
00:23:33:06 - 00:24:04:22
Unknown
They've got reduced mobility. Let's stop them developing a chronic condition, commodity activity like checking fridge temperatures, that story, medicines and vaccines, that's ultimate that the is there now you know put something inside the fridge that monitors that temperature speaks to read our healthcare notifies of change our loss of comms and then we've just given a huge amount of savings back to the organization I think by are two met and it allows the carers, the doctors, the nurses to be doing what they should be doing, not spending time with the patient.
00:24:04:24 - 00:24:23:15
Unknown
So all of that automation that we can bring in and bring massive benefits, it's time save and it also allows them to focus on what they should be focusing on because we can automate a lot of it. It's really is the future of technology in healthcare. And talk to me a little bit about the future. Last question for you.
00:24:23:17 - 00:24:53:13
Unknown
Well, exactly. You know, what do you see right now? Healthcare in two, three, four years. I can tell you where I want it to be, you know, and I say it with conviction as well as I want red our healthcare to be the, you know, the prominent, you know, partner in health and social care. And because I know that we make a difference, we have a positive impact on the outcomes for service users patients, and that can only be a good thing.
00:24:53:13 - 00:25:23:21
Unknown
So spreading, you know, the the use of red eye healthcare across all health and social care in the NHS to become, you know, that leading provider within the industry are making a difference. Yeah I think I think for me it's continue those partnerships because we know that by partnership work and we will be able to develop the product, which means we can help more, more people, more our partners, the more the more we do that, the more we understand the challenges that people have can really help.
00:25:23:21 - 00:25:43:07
Unknown
Is not you talking about the eyes? Yes. The challenges that the ICC will have, How can we help that? And the only way we're going to be able to do that is by having that a partnership approach, definitely. So Allied, I do have one more question for you, but this question is a bit of fun. So now I'm going to ask you both to tell me what is your what the health tech moment.
00:25:43:09 - 00:26:21:07
Unknown
So what this means is tell me about a weird and wonderful story that's happened to you in the health tech world. Give you a second to think about it. Okay. So we have a lead story. Well, I don't know about a weird story, but I something was very impactful to me was I was fortunate to to be visiting the A&E department in Doncaster and Bassetlaw NHS Trust with them, with a partner and he took me through the department and he said, it's a good time because it's really quiet and there's not a lot of things going on.
00:26:21:09 - 00:26:55:04
Unknown
Within 10 minutes that at all escalated very quickly and this person's time was then taken away. Sorry, we're going to have to do this another time. And I was kind of left stranded in the A&E department and just looking around at how people responded. It was almost muscle memory and it was it was yeah, it was a moment where I thought, crikey, you just how skilled and passionate these people are that reacted from a almost relaxed moment, having a cup of tea, laughing and jerk into a very serious delivery of care in an extreme situation.
00:26:55:04 - 00:27:14:22
Unknown
And that was within 10 minutes. Things had escalated very quickly. So not weird, but very impactful. Yeah. Okay. Well, do you have a weird and wonderful story you want to tell us about? Yeah, I don't think I call it weird and wonderful. I think the biggest thing that I kind of picked up on, that's definitely not weird was we.
00:27:14:22 - 00:27:36:15
Unknown
I went and visited a care home group, a brand new care home, and to see people actually walking around and stuff, possible future residents looking around. And this care home, there was a wine bar and a cinema and I was kind of like you. You expect to go into the into a care home and you've got this kind of preconception of what it's going to be like.
00:27:36:17 - 00:27:55:23
Unknown
And it was like these, these people that walked into kind of a five star hotel and looking around and saying, Can you believe this? That every door they were open. I can't believe it. Oh, there's a there's a hairdressers and there's a full cinema room. And it was just unbelievable. It totally changed the way that I thought about care homes just in that one visit.
00:27:56:04 - 00:28:17:06
Unknown
Now, there's also a massive range of kind of care homes up. For me it was it was very much like a talk. I opened it to Care homes and the way that the now operate and and the benefits that a resident can have by by being in one that's a care home. I would want to be in a wine bar.
00:28:17:08 - 00:28:50:06
Unknown
No. Thank you so much for joining us this week. It's been really, really great to talk. Thank you, everyone for listening. So next week we're speaking to Big Ian. Big Ian is all about dementia, raising awareness for dementia, combating loneliness. So he's making a huge impact in the care industry. Don't forget to rate and subscribe. And if you've got any questions for us or our guests, please email what the health tech outrage our health care outcome.