Sprint is excited to be a part of the seed investment round into MediStays, a health and medical accommodation platform for people requiring hospital and accessible accommodation. The platform brings together verified accommodation, financial assistance, meals and ancillary support services for rural patients travelling for medical care.
Supercharged by COVID-19, MediStays has taken first-mover advantage in its stride to move towards the company’s ambitious goal of becoming the global self-service booking platform for medical accommodation.
The MediStays platform is the culmination of the powerful idea that founders, Sarah and Craig Everitt formulated after realising through personal experience the barriers encountered by rural and regional patients travelling for specialist medical care. To address those barriers, these brilliant founders have created a mutually beneficial and sticky booking platform for both the patient and the accommodation provider.
Founders First
Sarah and Craig were born and raised in the country – they deeply understand regional patients and the difficulty of the problem on a personal level. They are a truly forceful team with a profound understanding of the sector. Sarah has 24 years of experience in oncology and related health services with international recognition. This enables Sarah to forge strategic alliances with healthcare, NGO, NFP & government stakeholders.
Whilst Craig is a strong leader & communicator, with experience in health economics and human resources, and has successfully led the start-up of two radiation oncology centres. Together, they personify brilliant founders who can successfully aid in solving the health challenges faced by rural and regional patients.
The Critical Problem
The majority of rural and regional individuals find it difficult to travel for medical care. To avoid travelling, some even opt for suboptimal specialist medical care in their local town. In our opinion, the core reason for this trend is the lack of access to trusted and verified medical accommodation.
Until MediStays, the medical accommodation ecosystem has been siloed and disjointed. The key reasons include:
- No go-to online platform. Primarily reliant on ad-hoc phone calls and paper lists
- Existing mainstream accommodation sites are specifically tailored for corporate and leisure travellers. They do not incorporate accessibility, medical financial assistance, and other ancillary medical services
This made travelling for medical care stressful and overwhelming. A Queensland study has demonstrated that for every 100km patients need to travel for cancer care, their survival is reduced by 6%. We strongly believe that MediStays can be the platform that resolves the fragmented medical accommodation sector and in turn improves the health outcomes of our large and important rural population.
A Simple, Sticky And Viral Platform
MediStays has a unique value proposition for both sides of the booking – creating stickiness and virality.
MediStays’ value to patients is relatively straightforward. It provides the following unique yet critical information for prospective customers:
- Accessibility;
- Proximity the health care facilities;
- Financial assistance and subsidy integration;
- Meal deliveries, grocery and pharmacy deliveries prior to arrival and throughout the patient stay; and
- Discounted long-term stays with no booking fees, flexible cancellations and support to manage unexpected stay duration;
Whilst, the value proposition to accommodation providers is unrivalled and perfectly complements other customer personas.
- Repeat business that is generally mid-week (3-6 nights)
- Increases in long-stay business
- Accessible, affordable and self-contained rooms often sought by medical patients are complementary to rooms demanded by leisure and corporate customers
The MediStays journey is just beginning – and we look forward to supporting Sarah, Craig and the team on the journey forward.
You can learn more about the journey behind MediStays in Sarah’s founder story here.
Know a friend or loved one that would benefit from MediStays, book here.
