Newsletter “Segnali di fumo” → Join now

ToTeM meets: EpiCura

We met Salvatore Manzo, Growth Manager of the first digital clinic in Italy.
logo EpiCura

EpiCura is an innovative startup founded in June 2017 and is the first digital clinic in Italy created to redesign the market of health and social care services through the provision of quick and flexible services thanks to a network of certified professionals located throughout the country.

Based on an innovative proprietary platform of digital health offering a cutting-edge booking model, EpiCura is the answer for emergencies and those who can't or don't have time to move from home. The company manages thousands of health and social assistance interventions every month, at home or in public and private health facilities, 7 days a week with a average waiting time of less than 24 hours. Today the services are available in 10 main Italian cities: Turin, Milan, Rome, Florence, Naples, Bologna, Brescia, Genoa, Catania and Verona.

The company's goal is simplify people's lives, offering them the opportunity to take care of their health and that of their family members in the comfort of home (from booking home interventions, to taking charge of complex situations, to remote assistance via chat and video, to transporting patients) . Quality of service and proximity to the patient are the core values of its offer that reaches the public with extreme simplicity and efficiency thanks to the use of the most innovative technologies and the personalized management process thanks to assistance 7 days a week.

Salvatore Manzo

Growth Manager

Born in Cava de 'Tirreni on 1/1/91, I attended the Luigi Bocconi University, where I graduated in Economics and Management of Public Administrations and International Institutions in 2015. After graduation, following a 'working experience abroad at the Prague Chamber of Commerce, I started my career in the world of startups at Rocket Internet (a well-known German startup studio) as a sales rep. From here, I was internalized in the food delivery company Foodora starting as an account manager up to the position of Partner Care Director Italy. In 2018 there was the acquisition of Foodora by Glovo, in which I followed the merge, and I was hired by them as Content Manager Italy until October 2019. From that moment to today, I have held the role of Growth Manager at EpiCura.

You have already had previous experience in rather established startups. If there are, what traits in common did you find in the various projects that made you think “Ok, this is how you have to get to success”? 

To be successful, in my opinion, or to be considered as such, a startup must embrace two fundamental and related concepts: Flexibility and Scalability. The market, as well as the world in general, is constantly changing and its needs are constantly evolving, so a company must take into account these changing contexts and know how to adapt. Offering a solution to a new need or a changed need, perhaps even where there is no legal reference, allows corporate sustainability over time.

As regards the concept of scalability, startups are known to operate under a limited funds regime; it is therefore essential to replicate the business model in other markets or create other products for the same investment. There may be different paths: exploiting the same acquisition channels, investing in your technology by focusing on automation, improving internal processes or adopting a “lean” strategy. Whatever approach is used, it is fundamental for corporate sustainability to adopt the concepts of scalability. 

These 2 elements, flexibility and scalability, in my opinion, favor rapid and sustainable growth, an essential feature of long-lived and successful companies.

How do you enter an extremely traditional sector such as healthcare, understood as a service, proposing a new paradigm? Have you found resistance or preconceptions towards your business model from the players already operating in the sector?

The health and personal care sector is extremely fragmented and is made up of many traditional players active in the area who cannot expand their market and are struggling to achieve economies of scale. EpiCura was the first to create a service model that can be replicated across a wide range of services and exported to a plurality of markets, without losing control over quality. We want to be the digital reference point that ensures thousands of families the assistance they need, guaranteeing an impeccable user experience through our digital health platform but at the same time managing to ensure a personalized service that does not forget the most important element. : people.

As for Turin, in which phases of EpiCura's life was the support of the innovative ecosystem made up of other startups, accelerators and institutions essential? What is your relationship with them today?

The support of the innovative ecosystem was essential in the early stages of the company's development, and still is today. The comparison with institutions and accelerators allows us to constantly expand and improve our strategy, to have continuous ideas without losing sight of the final mission. Growing up there is always the risk of focusing on all aspects and problems that arise in the daily business, and having an external comparison allows us not to change some positive aspects present in startups, such as agility, flexibility and the ability to change based on the potential that the market offers.

What benefits do you think you have brought to the entrepreneurship of the professionals involved as well as giving them an extra showcase and a boost to their business?

Without any doubt, the professionals who decide to collaborate with us have chosen to adopt a completely new approach compared to the classic assisted-assistant combination. The benefits are different. First of all, professionals access a completely new market segment that could hardly have been “hit” with the classic tools at their disposal. In addition, professionals are part of a real network: the goal of EpiCura is to treat the "health need" in its entirety and not focus on the single discipline, so the treatment of desease it is carried out by a group of professionals with different skills. This allows professionals to interact with specialists from different medical-health areas, in order to take full care of the patient. Finally, EpiCura allows a better and optimal management of your business in general: electronic and automatic invoicing, performance management via app, online contracts, the possibility of carrying out teleconsultations or online video consultations, i.e. all those typical tools of the digitization process, which allow a better provision of health services.

EpiCura has seen a dizzying growth in requests due to the ongoing health emergency, + 225% since the start of the pandemic. Do you believe that there could be a future in which a disruption in the sector is accomplished and completed and it becomes customary to receive the doctor at home or contact him electronically when needed?

As with many other sectors, the health emergency has changed the paradigm by breaking down many barriers related to the use of technology, making some processes faster and more effective and simplifying access. In fact, I like to think of technology, especially in the field of health, as an enabling factor that allows the end user to access health services easily, quickly and promptly. In other markets, digital care is in an advanced state compared to Italy. Especially in the Anglo-Saxon markets, it is very common to book your medical visit using digital health platforms. I believe that in Italy we are at the beginning of this digitization process, and that over time, by changing the cultural approach, it is possible at any time to book a specialist visit as comfortably as you book a holiday or a restaurant today.

Author

Luca Coppolella
Head of Content

Topics

Latest articles

Useful resources

Report
your news

If you have any interesting news about your company or startup and would like to highlight it through our pages, fill out the form to report it to us.

I have some juicy news for ToTeM.

Data processing

Main Partner
Logo Fondazione Compagnia di San Paolo
Logo di Fondazione Sviluppo e Crescita CRT
Technical Partners