16 April 2020

Induction Healthcare Group PLC

(“Induction”, the “Company, or the “Group”)

Market update

Helping healthcare professionals combat COVID-19

Induction, a leading healthcare technology company that helps healthcare professionals deliver better care more efficiently, announces an update in light of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. The past month has seen significant challenges for our employees and operations – as well as the 200,000+ healthcare professionals* who choose to use our Induction and MicroGuide apps as they seek to navigate through this new unfamiliar and rapidly changing work environment.

* There is some overlap of users between the Induction and MicroGuide apps.

Responding to COVID-19

We continue to closely monitor the COVID-19 situation. In these unprecedented circumstances, our top priority remains the health and safety of our people and the healthcare professionals they serve. We implemented remote working for all office-based staff weeks ahead of formal government advice regarding COVID-19 and have since been following all the latest official guidelines. Given the nature of our business, a large portion of our staff were already set up to work remotely, so this change has had minimal impact on our operations. Consequently, healthcare professionals who use our technology have continued to receive the same high level of service as before.

Market update

Induction has been supporting global efforts to combat COVID-19 through its technology and tools for healthcare professionals in the NHS (UK), and also in Ireland, North America, South Africa and Australia. Our two leading platforms, Induction app and MicroGuide, provide healthcare professionals with the most up-to-date medical guidelines and contact details, helping them navigate through the current unfamiliar and quickly evolving work environment in hospitals, as well as communicate securely with their colleagues. We are working hard to release new features earlier than expected to improve efficiencies and enhance communication across their network.

Engagement with our tools and technology reflects the demand for secure and quick communications and easily accessible clinical guidelines in a period of unprecedented pressure on global healthcare professionals and services. 

Induction app

Our Induction app, the number one collaboration app for UK healthcare professionals, over the last month has seen an increased number of registered users engaging with our service/app daily, with doctors being particularly active on the app. Overall, the registered user base has increased by 10% to 138,095 users since 31^st January 2020. The majority of hospital doctors within the NHS use our app. 

In March 2020, we saw significant growth in demand for our tools, as a result of the strain that COVID-19 is placing on healthcare institutions, including:

·      66% increase in daily user registrations 

·      428 new collaborative private spaces were setup, and engaged an additional 11,500 clinicians

·      33,480 clinical guidelines and documents were viewed, 4.75 times the number of views in February

MicroGuide app

Our MicroGuide app, the leading clinical guidelines management platform for healthcare services, is widely used across 80% of NHS trusts. The number of registered users has been up by 6% to 168,678 since 31^st January 2020. 

Medical Organisations have been publishing new and updated guidelines for their clinical communities via our app at an unprecedented rate, with monthly publications for March 2020 up over 200% when compared with March 2019.

Access to guidelines has also increased significantly with c. 800,000 guidelines pageviews occurring in March 2020 alone. This is a 40% increase year-on-year and proves the value that clinicians receive from access to locally specific content at the point of care.

MicroGuide is proud to be supporting Barts Health NHS Trust in the Nightingale London project with antimicrobial and COVID-19 content.

Dr Hugo Stephenson, CEO of Induction, said:  

“COVID-19 is placing unprecedented strain on healthcare professionals and services globally. Technology has a large role to play in the response to this global crisis.  Working in unfamiliar and rapidly changing environments with limited resources, healthcare professionals are showing their resilience and relying on Induction’s tools to communicate mission-critical information and to access medical guidelines. Daily engagement with our apps is high and we are proud to support the NHS and global healthcare professionals and will continue to find ways to help.

While our current focus is making sure our people are healthy, safe and able to serve healthcare professionals, our strong balance sheet and net cash position give us enough leeway to deliver new features to support the healthcare community and fund our active acquisition pipeline when market conditions stabilise.”