AI for healthcare admin: Meet the startups that are providing the right tech at the right time
Looking back at the evolution of healthtech, many revolutionary startups have been built, often completely shifting the way clinicians work. We have moved from digital record keeping to telehealth platforms, preventative healthcare devices, and now the latest wave of AI co-pilots. Decades of investing in digitisation have consequently turned healthcare into fertile ground for AI applications and automation.
Despite all that digitisation, the industry is still drowning in bureaucracy. Doctors spend almost as much time on admin as they do with patients. Filling forms, writing notes, juggling schedules, and navigating claims is inefficient, expensive, and a massive drain on the system’s capacity. AI can change that – not by replacing clinicians, but by taking the heavy administrative load off their shoulders.
According to the World Economic Forum, AI has the potential to bridge the gap for the 4.5 billion people who lack access to basic healthcare, and to help address the expected shortage of 11 million healthcare workers by 2030. Yet despite this potential, healthcare remains below average in its adoption of AI compared to other industries. That is especially striking when you consider that healthcare generates an estimated 30% of the world’s data, yet 97% of hospital data goes unused. The time is now to make use of that data by implementing AI and fully leveraging the opportunity.
Why remove admin from healthcare workers?
Healthcare services are, as we know, heavily dependent on a highly skilled workforce. Out of the €1.6 trillion spent on healthcare in Europe each year, roughly 50% goes to salaries. We do not think we can – or should – replace these individuals. They are doing astonishing work, and we are far from leaving our destinies in the hands of AI. But these healthcare professionals should be able to spend less time on admin and more time with patients. That is not just an efficiency play; it is also a staffing play. Burnout and workload are core drivers of shortages, and freeing clinicians from unnecessary admin is one of the most realistic ways to expand care capacity without needing millions of new hires who simply do not exist.
Why now?
Europe spends around €300 billion on healthcare administration every year. For the first time, we have the right technology to tackle this huge opportunity and, importantly, to generate meaningful societal impact at the same time. AI solutions are already automating everyday tasks like appointment scheduling, intake, documentation, and claims, with the potential to cut a meaningful share of healthcare spending. So how can AI transform the administrative workload of clinicians?
There are three areas that I believe have a high potential for AI to disrupt:
1. Patient scheduling: Out of administrative costs in European healthcare, about €90bn is spent on calls, booking and rescheduling appointments – where automated scheduling could make a major difference. Checking staff and patient availability, room capacity, back-and-forth around no-shows, and constant calendar updates is a fiddly task that consumes huge amounts of time.
AI can handle this end-to-end, and we see clear potential for verticalisation. Solutions like Roger specifically address dental practices; Wawa Fertility in the IVF space; and Vocca, which is moving to a cross-speciality offering. As AI voice continues to improve, we expect many more companies to verticalise in this space.
2. Patient record management: Maintaining and updating electronic health records. This market is estimated to account for roughly €65 billion annually across European healthcare practices. We have seen a boom in so-called AI scribe startups that record conversations between patients and doctors and fill out health records automatically, shifting a doctor’s attention away from the keyboard and onto the patient.
Companies like Abridge, Nabla and Tandem Health are early examples, while uncovr and Sonia are younger and, for now, more verticalised solutions. We believe the next wave of companies in this space will go beyond documentation, addressing more complex tasks and managing multimodal, end-to-end workflows for clinicians. The most influential healthcare AI companies will not just transform a single segment; they will reshape multiple interconnected workflows across the broader healthcare ecosystem.
3. Medical billing and claims: A lot of time is spent by healthcare and back-office professionals entering the correct codes. There is an estimated €50 billion to be freed up here, where AI can process large volumes of data quickly, likely with greater precision and fewer errors. Platforms like Nelly and Phare Health are already shaking up the billing process, and this category feels overdue for automation.
Long-term, new start-ups will likely push forward along the lines of a few different themes. Firstly, companies that build solutions on top of data that has historically been unused, like the 97% of hospital data mentioned earlier. Second, end-to-end multimodal technologies that integrate several data types into coherent workflows and deeply embed into clinical workstreams. And thirdly, domain-specific solutions that target particular verticals rather than staying broad and high-level. That is where we expect both the biggest efficiency gains and the deepest, most durable impact.
An evolving ecosystem
There are still real constraints today: nuance, edge cases, and trust in clinical settings cannot be solved overnight. But the technology is catching up fast. If we make healthcare more efficient, the wider world works better. Few markets touch all of us, and as populations age and disease burdens rise, this is one of the most important arenas for AI to deliver impact without increasing cost: a rare and timely proposition for an overextended system.
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