District nurses and other healthcare professionals have since 1 March 2017 been able to order a wide range of healthcare products from multiple suppliers on one overarching platform: Duxxie. This new startup by NPM portfolio company Medux was turned from an idea into a viable platform for product solutions in just four months. Medux CEO Jan Gorissen and Duxxie lead Paskal van Lomm look back and forward. ‘There is still a lot of inefficiency in the healthcare market.’
What makes Duxxie distinctive?
Van Lomm: ‘Duxxie is the first platform that lets you as a healthcare professional order everything a homecare client needs at one place. This means you can order all the medical aids and healthcare products from all the suppliers on the platform. While only the suppliers Medipoint, Livit (soon also Bosman) and FocusCura have now joined the platform, we expect the number of participating suppliers to increase rapidly and for the number of products on offer to grow in tandem. It has been a conscious decision to focus initially on healthcare professionals. We’ve developed the platform in collaboration with healthcare professionals and Medux has invested tremendous time and energy in building strong relationships with them over the past few years. Our ambition is, however, to make Duxxie accessible to everyone later in the year. So that at that time clients and caregivers will also be able to place orders directly on the platform.’
How did the idea come about?
Gorissen: ‘Two years ago we redefined our long-term strategy and chose four themes that give us focus. One of these themes is disruption – a term that has now become a bit of hype. We asked ourselves within this context: imagine we were to re-enter the market, how would we set up our processes? This exercise led to the birth of the idea for an overarching platform focusing on convenience, transparency and efficiency. There’s still much ground to be gained in this area because there continues to be widespread inefficiency in the healthcare market.’
Van Lomm: ‘We closely examined other markets and segments and this automatically gave rise to the question: Where is the Funda of the healthcare domain? If you want to move house, you look on Funda to see if you can find the right house for you. Why isn’t that possibility available when you’re looking for the right assistance for your parents? We were struck by the fact that everybody we spoke with could immediately give us an example from practice, so it really is a puzzle for a lot of people.’
It’s remarkable as a healthcare products supplier you are opening the door to other suppliers. Aren’t you afraid this will cannibalise your own business?
Gorissen: ‘It’s indeed exciting uncharted territory. This was one of the reasons why we positioned Duxxie as a stand-alone startup within the organisation, with the freedom to act without feeling “weighted down” with the rest of the organisation. But Duxxie is able to tap into the strengths and relationships of our current organisation. Customer users, professionals and caregivers will choose the solution that works best for them. Duxxie aims to be the best solution for the choice process in the way that Medipoint has been meeting the needs of customers who need medical aids for years. Continuing to do this increasingly better than other suppliers of the same medical aids also opens up a real opportunity.’
Do you see Duxxie primarily as an investment in the future or is there a business model?
Van Lomm: ‘Duxxie is a stand-alone startup, which means we will ultimately have to stand on our own two feet. We want to generate income at the back of the platform by asking the other suppliers to pay a transaction-related fee. This is feasible because Duxxie also enables those suppliers to achieve cost-savings; orders can be placed directly in the system and as a result they don’t have to incur costs or incur fewer costs for a call center. The growing awareness of Duxxie will also work to the advantage of all the affiliated suppliers in terms of marketing and it will be easier for us to develop new functionalities in the future based on our data and everyone will benefit from them.’
How do the health insurers view this development?
Van Lomm: ‘I believe they view it positively. Because making the ordering process easier, more transparent and more efficient for the suppliers will also enable them to submit correct and complete claims to the health insurers. In that sense Duxxie is somewhat different from a traditional e-commerce environment in which you, let’s say, pick out a book and pay. If I order a bed for my mother at Medipoint, it submits a claim to my mother’s health insurer. My mother benefits from the fact that the process runs so smoothly and she enjoys the peace of mind that items won’t turn out not to be covered by her insurance or that incorrect claims will not be submitted. So the process works effectively throughout the entire chain the first time.’
Is there a chance that anybody and everybody will just start ordering healthcare products that they don’t even need? You are, after all, really lowering the threshold from where it stands now.
Gorissen: ‘In addition to convenience, we also focus a great deal of attention on privacy and security. Healthcare professionals can place orders with us based on their BIG-number in combination with a temporarily valid login code that they receive by text message. This means we can optimally identify them. Non-BIG-registered carers, such as homecare employees and caregivers will only be allowed to order certain products provided they have a referral from a GP. They just simply have to take a photo of the referral and upload it. We will, however, ensure that we offer a secure and user-friendly solution for non-BIG-registered caregivers before we provide them with access.’
Booking.com has now gained a very dominant position in the hotel sector. The same goes for IENS in the restaurant world. Can we expect Duxxie to be the same in a couple of years?
Van Lomm: ‘I look at it more like this: you can use Booking.com, but you can also go to the hotel’s own website. It’s the same with Duxxie. What’s more, the healthcare market is a good deal more manageable and transparent than, for example, the restaurant sector that encompasses thousands of restaurants. We believe we should grow based on relevance and added value and must stick to that principle. So becoming big is not a goal in itself.’
