Amnexis targets first acquisition as it aims to help solve the global healthcare staff shortage

Amnexis, a Dublin-based business, is targeting its first acquisition.

The Enterprise Ireland-backed firm also plans to add 16 staff this year and is in the process of closing a bridge funding round of €1.5 million, following on from €1.15 million in seed funding already raised.

The company develops voice assistant technology to help reduce medical administration time. Its patient data management platform uses mobile technology to allow nurses and doctors to manage patient information in real time. Founded in 2019, it currently has eight staff and is based in the Guinness Enterprise Centre.

“Worldwide, 40 per cent of the time of medical staff and caregivers is wasted on administrative tasks that could be automated. The reality of the situation is they have to move from patient to patient and haven’t got time to get in front of a PC in between,” Joachim Mueller-Wende, founder and chief executive of Amnexis, told the Business Post.

“We help them record everything in detail and at the quality they need, taking the stress out of it. Nurses in particular are under extreme pressure, they are stressed about losing documentation.”

Healthcare providers can record patient data through a specialised headset to send information directly to the cloud.

“It means that they can document information hands-free while they move or while they are between patients. They don’t have to do it in front of the patients but the key is that they generate a speech and text transcription file that they can look at for quality control later on,” Mueller-Wende said.

“The stress is gone because they don’t have to worry about whether they have done the documentation. That issue has been dealt with.”

Mueller-Wende’s prior start-up, Clinaris, was focused on healthcare-acquired infections, and again used a data approach to try to address the issue. It was during the work on this technology that he discovered the extent of the administrative challenge for healthcare professionals.

Originally from Dusseldorf in Germany, he decided to base his business in Dublin due to the access to talent in Ireland.

“The start-up ecosystem in Ireland has no comparison in Europe. We have a global ambition with the product. To realise that, we need to be in an English-speaking country. Ireland has all the infrastructure and is the digital front-runner in Europe,” he said.

“In the next round, €500,000 is earmarked for an acquisition we are making in Germany based around sensor technology. We have the virtual assistant aspect already, but this will add 24/7 monitoring into the same service.”

Mueller-Wende said he believed Amnexis could play a role in helping tackle international issues caused by a lack of healthcare workers.

“We want to make a contribution to solve the global shortage of medical staff, meaning we want to use mobile technology, combine it with voice recognition and AI, to allow mainly nurses but also doctors to document patient data in real time, and have access in real time,” he said.