Script Help, the SaaS platform now utilized by a number of the UK’s main medical hashish clinics and prescribing docs, is ready to launch a serious ground-up overhaul of its platform.
Following an 18-month improvement, Script Help is ready to launch a comprehensively re-stacked providing for its clinics and pharmacies, alongside a completely redesigned affected person app in what it describes as probably the most vital replace to its system since launch.
Whereas the UK’s medical hashish sector is likely one of the fastest-growing on the planet, in comparison with its stablemates in different non-public healthcare settings, it has usually fallen behind when it comes to its adoption of know-how and digitisation.
This lag not solely exacerbates the outsized calls for on prescribing docs, given their shortage, however all too usually impacts the affected person expertise.
Because the Co-founder and CEO, Ben Hamburger, advised Enterprise of Hashish: “Our trade is so tech-starved… The commonest criticism you hear from sufferers is that the info offered to them through a portal or an Excel file merely isn’t correct.
“From right this moment (Tuesday 26 August), Companions will really feel a step change in velocity, efficiency, and effectivity, and see it of their P&L from day one. The rebuild unlocks real one-to-many and many-to-one clinic and pharmacy collaborations and paves the best way for digital-pharmacy enhancements and a B2B wholesale market.
“That change alone goes to really feel as if the UK’s medical hashish market is modernising and maturing.”
Script Help
Based in 2019, Script Help (then known as Sana Healthcare) initially got down to present instruments for specialist docs to navigate the complexities of compliance throughout the newest tips from the NHS, NICE and GMC.
Its use all through UK clinics expanded quickly over the subsequent few years, as did its providing, incorporating new options and built-in instruments to handle all the pieces from onboarding sufferers to produce chains.
In June 2024, in response to the growing wants of the flourishing market, Script Help launched a brand new software program as a service (SaaS) platform, enabling clinics to customize the platform for their very own wants and branding.
By February this yr, Medicann (and its UK subsidiary), CB1 Medical, Cannim, Newgrove and Wellford, to call a number of, had built-in the platform.
With every consumer requiring a personalised model of the stack, Hamburger says {that a} rebuild of the platform was inevitable.
“The platform was constructed for personal docs, and since then, we’ve layered on countless diversifications and customisations.
“The additional we’ve moved away from that authentic use case, the additional the tech has drifted from what it was constructed to do. We at all times knew we’d finally must rebuild your entire system for what we truly do right this moment, and for what’s subsequent.”
Rebuilt from the bottom up
For the final yr and a half, Script Help has been overhauling from the foundations, taking the prevailing code and restructuring it into a brand new stack designed particularly for clinics, pharmacies and sufferers.
This, it says, will considerably enhance efficiency and allow growth and scalability into new areas, like robotics and wholesale SaaS instruments.
“It’s a whole ground-up rebuild. Round 80% of the code was proper, but it surely was all organized on a platform constructed for one thing else. This takes all that code, integrations, and all the pieces else, and rebuilds it in a brand-new stack.”
Some of the vital modifications within the new platform is that clinics and pharmacies every have separate, purpose-built toolsets that may community collectively. The legacy platform is centred on a single clinic–pharmacy workflow, usable both by a clinic with a single digital pharmacy embedded or as a trimmed-down pharmacy-only configuration.
Whereas the interface was designed to clean over this actuality, underneath the hood, all the pieces nonetheless ran via a single clinic–pharmacy workflow. In observe, the rebuilt framework means clinics are now not tied to a single pharmacy, and a variety of various industrial relationships may be supported throughout the system.
The rebuild additionally unlocks a sequence of sensible enhancements designed to make the platform extra versatile, like dealing with of short-dated inventory.
Beforehand, the system assumed pharmacies would by no means maintain merchandise with lower than 30 days’ expiry, which restricted flexibility. The rebuild removes that restriction, permitting short-dated merchandise to be managed as separate batches. Clinics can now supply discounted inventory, and sufferers can see expiry dates clearly.
Elsewhere, it seeks to enhance the combination of core affected person medicine document (PMR) features straight into Script Help, and following an additional replace this Autumn, each unit of inventory will obtain a QR code, enabling guided storage and selecting.
Actual-time notifications may be triggered for sufferers as quickly as their product is scanned, eliminating the necessity for separate PMR techniques and making certain stock is algorithmically managed.
This new stack is ready to be rolled out on Tuesday, August 26, alongside a completely redesigned affected person app.
For present customers of the ecosystem, Script Help says the transition must be seamless, recognising that one of many largest challenges is the migration of customers with out disruption.
“For docs particularly, the brand new stack seems equivalent to the previous stack. It seems prettier, however the flows and format are utterly the identical. That was important due to what number of completely different clinics, docs, and healthcare professionals use the platform.”
“Everybody transitions on the identical day, clinics, pharmacies, sufferers. There’s no partial migration. It’s a giant second, but it surely offers us a a lot stronger platform to construct on.”
