Doctorpreneurs is a global community of clinicians, innovators and entrepreneurs passionate about healthcare innovation. They have supported the NHS Clinical Entrepreneur Programme since it launched in 2016. The team spoke to Dr Avi Mehra digital health advisor and Co-Founder of Doctorpreneurs about this exciting partnership.
Avi tell us about Doctorpreneurs
Doctorpreneurs is a non-profit organisation and global community for doctors, medical students and individuals who are passionate about improving healthcare through technology, innovation, and entrepreneurship. Our mission is to inspire, connect and support our community to lead improvement in healthcare through embracing principles of innovation and entrepreneurship. We have been around for over a decade now and during that time have done a variety of different things to drive forward our mission, however at its core we focus on 3 main offerings:
Our website www.doctorpreneurs.com contains interviews with clinical innovators and entrepreneurs, and a range of curated resources acting as a central source of information and inspiration for those interested in the space.
We organise and partner with healthcare technology and innovation events in the UK and internationally, and really focus on engaging the clinical community.
We also have an opportunities platform where we advertise entrepreneurial career opportunities (fellowship, advisory, part-time, full-time, courses, accelerator programmes etc.) specifically aimed at clinicians.
What does innovation and entrepreneurship mean to Doctorpreneurs?
Today, the terms innovation and entrepreneurship are often interpreted and defined in many ways which can lead to some confusion. To us at Doctorpreneurs, we like to break it down as the following:
Innovation is the practice of thinking creatively and implementing new ideas that create value. This could be implementing a new approach to doing something, a new product, or a new service but the result of that implementation must lead to the creation of new or added value. Clinicians have been innovating in healthcare for many decades, whether through the development of new surgical techniques and approaches, new diagnostics, treatments and therapies, new processes, new models of delivering care and in recent years the development of new digital tools and applications.
Entrepreneurship is about pursuing a business opportunity often with constrained resources and an element of risk involved. This means taking an innovation or offering and developing a commercial model to successfully manage and grow it as a business entity. We often hear entrepreneurship talked about in relation to brand new business opportunities and ‘start-ups’, but this can equally be applied to expanding business opportunities within the setting of an established organisation.
This we often talk about as “Intrapreneurship”. Historically, clinicians engaging in such business building opportunities has been quite rare and most often in the context of building a private medical practice. In recent years however, with the explosion of digital technologies and a significant reduction in the barriers to entry of starting a business, we are seeing increasing numbers of clinicians successfully building and scaling their business ventures in a healthcare setting, with the overall aim of improving health, wellbeing, and patient care through their venture.
As a clinically focused community we believe that clinicians possess many of the necessary attributes to successfully lead as healthcare innovators, intrapreneurs and entrepreneurs and that unlocking the wealth of clinical talent that exists within the healthcare system will be key for driving much needed change and improvement.
“We believe that unlocking the wealth of clinical talent within the healthcare system will be key to driving radical change and improvement”
Dr Avi Mehra – Co-Founder of Doctorpreneurs
What made you decide to become a partner on the NHS Clinical Entrepreneur Programme?
We share so many of the same values and aims as the NHS Clinical Entrepreneur Programme. Having been around since 2011, when the Programme was launched in 2016 we saw it as a perfect opportunity to join forces and combine our strengths to build an nurture an even greater community of clinical innovators, intrapreneurs and entrepreneurs.
“Clinicians are optimally poised to be the driving force for change in the NHS. The NHS Clinical Entrepreneur Programme provides an incredible opportunity for clinicians to harness their innovative and entrepreneurial abilities and be change agents across the health and care system. We are proud to be partnered with this fantastic programme and help deliver on this mission”
Dr Avi Mehra – Co-Founder of Doctorpreneurs
We are proud to have been supporting the programme since its inception in 2016 as a sponsor and now as a partner. Going forward we hope to continue supporting the programme through a variety of ways; from providing mentorship and career coaching, to raising the profile of clinical entrepreneurs and their work via our platform and media networks. We have interviewed and featured many NHS CEs
since the start of the programme, and its great to see the progress of these companies and support them on their journey.
Doctorpreneurs also offer discounted listing opportunities to all start-ups on the NHS Clinical Entrepreneur Programme. These can be used to recruit new talent to their start- up or promote an opportunity.
“We are proud to partner with the NHS Clinical Entrepreneur Programme to build and nurture an even greater community of clinical innovators, intrapreneurs and entrepreneurs”
Dr Avi Mehra – Co-Founder of Doctorpreneurs
What’s next for Doctorpreneurs?
Going forward we plan to continue growing our community and supporting budding clinical innovators and entrepreneurs through our various offerings, including providing more mentorship and coaching. We hopefully look forward to the return of more in-person events and will look for opportunities to partner with events and other organisations that share our mission. We are also seeing increasing interest in companies looking for support with recruiting clinical talent and we will continue to expand and grow our opportunities platform.
How can people find out more?
Readers are welcome to visit our website www.doctorpreneurs.com
Or connect with us on social media via:
LinkedIn networking group: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/4336290/
Twitter: @doctorpreneurs
Instagram: @doctorpreneurs_official
The community is free to join.
For general inquiries please e-mail us on info@doctorpreneurs.com
If you are an organisation looking for support with recruiting clinical talent please visit opportunities.doctorpreneurs.com or drop us an e-mail at opportunities@doctorpreneurs.com
The NHS Clinical Entrepreneur Programme is supported by over 60 partners, Doctorpreneurs are one such partners. They help support, shape, and develop the NHS Clinical Entrepreneur Programme. Our partner network provides opportunities for our Clinical Entrepreneurs including internships, access to NHS test and evaluation sites, academic and commercial, knowledge exchange and connection to customers.
If your organisation is interested in Partnership opportunities, please contact the team at cep@aru.ac.uk