Health tech startup FICUS Health, an AI-driven Berlin-based company, raised a total of €3 million from its pre-seed to seed financing rounds. The health tech startup is now fast-tracking development of its AI platform for rehabilitation clinics. The seed round was mainly financed by Redstone, a European early-stage Venture Capital firm. Besides, Merantix Capital and some healthcare and technology-oriented business angels also participated in the round.
After only 9 months since its inception, FICUS Health is among the top 5 most innovative AI-powered solutions in Germany. The rehabilitation sector is the focus of a severe crisis deepened by COVID-19: the shortage of the workforce and the rising demand. The company flagship software solution is a platform that automates core medical documentation tasks, facilitates communication among different clinical teams, and lessens administrative workloads by as much as 70% in numerous clinics.
While rehab centers have to deal with an increasingly large number of patients and severe staff shortages, FICUS is determined to help such a situation. According to the Federal Labor Agency, in Germany, there may be as many as 1.8 million healthcare jobs left vacant in 2035, which will result in fewer hands to manage the rising number of patients. At the same time, administrative tasks take up about a third of medical working hours, thus, the doctors are drawing less and less time for direct patient contact.
AI to Streamline Workflows and Strengthen Care Quality
The AI platform of FICUS Health serves to fill this operational gap. The system automates the performing of medical report drafting, therapy documentation, and multidisciplinary communication, these are the areas that are time-consuming yet give the patients’ experience the least value.
CEO Benjamin Pochhammer stresses that the company’s goal is not to merely digitize:
“AI is the solution to ease operational workflows, optimise cost structures, and at the same time raise the quality of care. By doing this, we alleviate the burden from the healthcare personnel as well as the decision-makers who have a digital and economically sustainable vision for their facilities.””
Mario Elstner, a co-founder and Chief Technology Officer with a deep background in AI and healthcare software, has been instrumental in architecting a platform that not only solves healthcare issues but also follows strict privacy and security norms satisfied by the medical sector. The FICUS platform is designed according to the best practice standards of ISO/IEC 27002, and any patient data is handled only on servers located in Germany, which, therefore, conforms to both national and EU-level data protection standards.
The company’s take-up in the German rehab market is a testimony to both the problem’s scale and immediacy that it has set out to resolve. In less than a year, the FICUS team already has a strong presence in Germany’s rehab market, essentially juggling close to 100 clinics and 1000 professionals on a daily basis. More than 100,000 paper works have been digitized from the platform till now.
Rehabilitation medical facilities, which are mainly composed of orthopedic and neurological units, as well as cardiology recovery centres, have to deal with some of the most onerous documentation needs due to their interdisciplinary nature. Doctors, nurses, and therapists such as physiotherapists, occupational therapists, and psychologists, as well as administrative teams, have to coordinate treatment plans, monitor progress, and fill in medical reporting forms. The volume as well as the fragmentation of these tasks make the sector one of the most suitable for AI-driven workflow automation.
FICUS has plans to broaden its AI functionalities throughout the whole patient journey including intake management, treatment planning, interdepartmental communication, and discharge reporting with the addition of fresh capital. The company is also looking forward to boosting interoperability with the leading clinical information systems as a necessary step to be able to integrate widely into the decentralized healthcare ecosystem in Germany.
Furthermore, the funds will be used to help the company grow and develop internally. This will include hiring new people in engineering, product development, and customer success as the company plans to increase its presence in the German-speaking region (DACH).
The growing demand for rehab services due to Europe’s ageing population hailing and the rise in clinic operational costs have made the need for innovative solutions like FICUS Health urgent. Even as little as one hour per clinician of daily administrative work automation can potentially release tens of thousands of professionals to be involved in direct patient care. This shift has a huge impact on both quality outcomes and economic sustainability.
With robust investor support and early market traction, FICUS Health is in a good position to spearhead a new wave of AI-powered transformation in one of the most resource-intensive subsectors of healthcare.
