Dot Health, a mobile platform that finds and stores medical records, and Maple, a platform for on-demand access to healthcare providers, have partnered to create a virtual healthcare solution. Dot Health said in a statement the partnership will give Canadians full visibility to past health records, enabling patients and healthcare providers to tap into existing medical records that are often underutilized.
“We want to give them the information they need to be active, engaged participants in their own care.”
-Huda Idrees
The partnership will allow users to join their existing profiles from each app, and share their full medical history with Maple’s network of online healthcare providers. Medical records from Dot Health will be updated with notes, diagnoses, and prescriptions, following a consultation with Maple. Huda Idrees, founder and CEO of Dot Health, said this partnership is a big step towards connecting and democratizing healthcare information.
“Patients have a right to their health information, and yet there are so many hurdles in the way that prevent them from accessing it,” Idrees said. “We want to give them the information they need to be active, engaged participants in their own care.”
Maple connects Canadians with a variety of healthcare providers through their phone, tablet or computer. Its service is designed to address the long wait times that have become commonplace when accessing healthcare. Last year, Maple raised a $4 million CAD Series A, and is a client of MedStack, a Toronto-based compliance solution for healthcare apps, which itself raised a $2.4 million oversubscribed seed round earlier this year.
Idrees, well-known in Toronto for her work designing products at companies like Wealthsimple and Wave, founded Dot Health in 2016. Dot Health allows patients to request their personal health records for free via its mobile app, countering the traditional method of visiting a healthcare provider in person to obtain copies of records.
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This partnership comes after the Virtual Health Task Force was launched last month. The task force’s mission is to examine virtual care technology and how it can improve access and quality of care for patients across the country. It is looking to identify any regulatory changes that will be required for physicians to deliver virtual care to patients across provincial and territorial boundaries.
The announcement also comes amidst many recent moves in the virtual healthcare, from Akira opening a tech-enabled clinic in Toronto, to OnCall Health raising a $2 million CAD seed round, and Montreal-based VirtualMED partnering with US-based HealthTap to offer AI-powered virtual care to Canadians.
“In the ER, I constantly run into cases where I need to access a patient’s medical records but can’t see any of their past history, even with the hospital’s electronic medical records system,” said Dr. Brett Belchetz, CEO and co-founder of Maple.
“Similarly, I often wish there was an easy way for all of a patient’s healthcare providers to see the notes from their ER visit with me. This integration solves for both of these needs. We’re empowering Canadians to receive the same, and in some cases better, quality of care from the comfort of their home as they’d receive at an ER or walk-in clinic,” he stated.
