There is a significant amount of ambiguity concerning the future of healthcare, given the drastic changes and the new challenges of our times. Of the many arguments on this subject, “Digital Communication” seems to be one that everyone can see eye to eye on—it is the key to efficient medical care! Whether it be an inter-hospital, intra-hospital, or patient-physician interaction, the need for effective communication hovers high in the medical realm in order for them to thrive. Though its efficacy was never up for debate, the pandemic exposed its significance. But more than a year into this crisis, we still see the healthcare industry dawdling over the adoption of new technologies. Even to date, the way doctors communicate and manage patients has remained relatively unchanged. Most professionals rely on decades-old methods—phone or fax—to share sensitive patient information and consult each other. The use of such archaic technologies places an enormous burden on the healthcare system, costing providers time and money while making proper care inaccessible for patients.

Established to help the medical community mitigate these challenges and deliver the best experience to their patients is Werq, Inc. This New York-based leading communication and collaboration solution provider aims at enhancing patient management and communication by providing industry-best solutions that help practices save time, increase revenue, and focus on care.

In an interview with MD Tech Review, Neil S. Patel, CEO and Founder of Werq, Inc.; Javed Badshah, its CTO; and Saurabh Katyayan, its COO, shares their insights on how the company leverages its expertise and experience to build unrivaled patient management and communication solutions for clients.

Could you elaborate on the genesis of the company?

Founded in 2015, Werq was the result of our exigency to solve communication challenges faced by physicians, primarily at New York Ophthalmology, a busy practice with five locations around New York City. Though appreciated for exceptional eye care services, they often found it hard to reach other doctors, contact patients, and send patient information. Identifying that such inefficiencies could disrupt the overall business flow, they decided to build solutions that can bridge the gaps in healthcare communication. This led to the inception of Werq, and the development of a whole suite of HIPAA-compliant practice management solutions that comprises of a platform, Werq Space and tools—Werq Chat, Werq Referrals, Werq Reviews, and Werq Telemed.

With such a robust product suite, we have now evolved into a leader that disrupts the way doctors, patients, and medical professionals communicate globally. At Werq, we’re always driven by a mission to modernize daily operations of medical practices, helping them save time and deliver better care.

What are some of the challenges medical community face, and how does Werq go about mitigating them?

Though healthcare professionals come across several operational challenges, the inability to have an efficient inter-hospital and intra-hospital communication emerges to be the most critical among them.

This is precisely where Werq Chat comes into play, helping doctors and healthcare workers establish a hassle-free, real-time communication with each other. Our proprietary, platform-agnostic chat solution allows them to send individual and group messages and exchange files, regardless of their existing EMR. At Werq, we also go a step ahead in helping clients mitigate referral leakages that cause them a direct revenue loss and lead to inefficient delivery of care. Healthcare facilities can leverage Werq Referrals, a healthcare collaboration network, to eliminate the growing number of missed referrals. Designed to simplify referrals, it allows doctors to send, receive, and manage referrals and reduce no shows and increase patient traffic.

Furthermore, as a company born in a medical facility, we understand the need for seamless communication with patients in order to make them more engaged. Werq Space, our web-based patient management platform is built to meet this need. It helps medical practices receive and send text messages directly to their patients, schedule and change appointments, send alerts, and see patients’ previous visit notes, helping them improve the way of healthcare delivery. This way, it serves as an end-to-end patient management solution that allows practices to handle patient relationships, referrals, communications, reviews, telemedicine, and more. In addition to streamlining medical facilities’ patient management operations, we go the extra mile to improve clients’ online reputation with our Werq Reviews tool. Practices can leverage it to write message for their audience with our customizable prompts, connect to their directory and make review prompts easily, and receive information about past SMS through our easy-to-read graphs.

How did the pandemic and subsequent changes in the medical industry pan out for Werq?

It’s no secret that the advent of Covid-19 and the subsequent fear of Healthcare-associated Infections (HAI) had made medical care inaccessible to most patients, creating a significant surge in the demand for telehealth services globally. To help our clients tap this growing need, we built Werq Telemed, a secure telehealth platform in three weeks, providing patients with uninterrupted access to care. Developed with a unique, secure architecture and advanced technologies, it helps doctors see more patients safely. This manifests our ability to quickly align ourselves with the changing tides and add value to our clients’ operations, helping them serve their patients better. Not surprisingly, our Werq Telemed system has successfully performed over 5000 visits in its initial months.

Could you provide us with a case study that really exemplifies Werq’s value proposition?

Having such a powerful value proposition, we serve a broad customer base that encompasses several single-doctor practices and multi-specialty hospitals. The company’s collaboration with its first client that lacked an efficient communication tool well exemplifies its value proposition. As a growing healthcare practice, tracking and managing their referrals were also out of their core competencies, which hindered their operations and growth. Collaborating with Werq and leveraging our comprehensive suite of solutions, they were able to have seamless communication, even with professionals at different locations, providing the best healthcare experience to their patients. The client also had a significant rise in referrals—from 20 to 50 per day—and gained a competitive edge in effectively tracking and managing them.

Furthermore, the client was able to enhance their online reputation, improve their Google rating, and accelerate their organic growth with our Werq Reviews tool. They also used our Werq Space web platform to interact with more than 2000 patients per day. This resulted in a significant surge in the inflow of patients, augmented their overall business operations, and ultimately kept their growth graph hovering at the top of the curve. More importantly, they had evolved from a two-location facility with 100 conversions a day to a five-location practice serving more than 400 patients in a span of two years and they’re now heading towards expanding their footprints globally.

How does the future look for Werq?

With several such instances of success, the team at Werq continues to keep a close watch on the latest trends and technologies and enhance its capabilities. At the same time, the company intends to identify new growth areas to establish itself as a trusted partner for a wide range of customers. With innovation embedded in our DNA, we’re driving towards developing new solutions that add value to the healthcare delivery. The next big thing for us is the launch of our new product, Werq Patients app that aims at giving the power and control over personal medical information and planning to the individual. With this, patients will be able to find doctors, fill out forms, store medical history, communicate with their doctors, and manage their prescriptions. We’re also working on introducing Werq Conference, our virtual meeting technology that allows medical practitioners and healthcare providers to meet securely in large teams and access to important and informative virtual events featuring different keynote speakers. It will help an experienced medical practitioner share his knowledge to a network of enthusiastic professionals who are indenting to make a world of difference in the healthcare delivery landscape. Moving ahead, we aim to carve a unique niche in the medical space by bringing a paradigm shift in the way the medical community perform their daily operations.