Pocket Anatomy app aims to help communication with patients

A Galway entrepreneur has come up with an effective way to improve the clarity of doctor-patient discussions and he is about to embark on a crowdfunding campaign to raise a six-figure sum to help expand the business into the US.

Mark Campbell set up Pocket Anatomy in 2011 to help tackle a long-standing problem with the patient-doctor relationship – communications.

"We have developed a mobile, medical software solution to deal with the problem that patients typically absorb only about 14 per cent of what is said to them by the doctor," he explains.

Most people remember by seeing but exchanges with the doctor are almost always verbal. Mr Campbell overcame this by developing multimedia content and software for the doctor to show still images and video to the patient.

“This allows the doctor to show the patient and increase what they take up,” he says.

The software also allows the exchanges to be recorded and the system keeps the multimedia presentation and any voice exchanges between the two in a file that can go into the patient’s medical records, Mr Campbell explains.

Being able to demonstrate what exchanges took place is useful in Ireland but is a legal requirement in the US, he says.

Medical recordings

“The recordings must be in the patient records and it has to be demonstrated that the patient understood what was being said.”

The Financial Times included it as one of three featured companies at its FT Innovate 2014 event in London last month.

Mr Campbell was able to pitch to 300 potential investors and also announced a link-up with equity share crowdfunding platform Seedrs.

Investors don’t donate as with traditional crowdfunding but actually buy an equity stake in Pocket Anatomy, Mr Campbell says.

The goal is to raise the funds over the next 60 days.