About iQemo
Anti-cancer therapy is all we do.
iQ HealthTech builds one thing: electronic prescribing and medicines administration for systemic anti-cancer therapy (SACT). It began in 2011, when web and cloud technology changed what clinical software could do — reach the people who need it, wherever they are working, without being installed on the machine in front of them. For services delivering complex, high-risk treatment across several disciplines, that mattered. Fifteen years on, iQemo is a patient record and ePMA platform used across NHS cancer services, by most of the UK’s largest private healthcare groups, by the two largest providers of chemotherapy at home, and by public health services in South Australia.
A patient record and ePMA platform for SACT
iQemo is a patient record and electronic prescribing and medicines administration (ePMA) platform for systemic anti-cancer therapy. It does not only hold the record: it manages the treatment process itself, from a governed regimen library through prescribing, clinical assessment, pharmacy verification, dispensing, scheduling and drug administration, to the reporting that draws on everything the process has captured. Seven core modules cover the pathway:
Protocol management
Electronic prescribing
Clinical assessment
Scheduling and chair management
Pharmacy verification
Drug administration
Reporting and analytics
The modules share a single record, so a prescription is carried through screening, dispensing and administration without being re-entered, and the audit trail follows the patient rather than the department.
iQemo runs in the browser and is hosted in the cloud, so there is nothing to install and nothing to maintain on site. It is designed to integrate with the existing hospital systems — patient administration, electronic patient records, pathology and pharmacy — rather than to replace them. Its design is led by clinicians: cancer pharmacists, consultants and nurses. It is owned, built and supported by iQ HealthTech, a UK company.
Purpose and mission
Our purpose
Develop user-centric technology that improves patient outcomes, everywhere.
Our mission
Deliver one connected platform that makes SACT services safer, simpler and more efficient.
Our story
The right information, with the right people, at the moment they need it
“Early in my career I worked as a software developer in cancer services. Neutropenic sepsis after chemotherapy is an emergency, and I saw how hard it could be, at exactly the wrong moment, for the team in front of a deteriorating patient to establish what treatment had been given and when, or to reach someone who could advise them. The information existed somewhere. It was not with the people who needed it. That is the problem this company was built to solve.”
Doug Baker, Co-founder and Business Development Director
None of this was learned at a distance. Both founding developers had spent years working on site in an NHS cancer centre, alongside the teams they would later build for — long enough to understand how a clinic runs, where the delays come from, and what people do when the system in front of them does not fit the work.
Dr Tamas Hickish, a consultant medical oncologist at the same centre, was doing that work. He brought the daily experience of delivering treatment, and a clear view of what a team in the middle of a clinic would and would not be able to use.
That is why iQemo was designed around the way a cancer service runs rather than the way a database does — and why it was built to be simple before it was built to be clever.
Three people wrote the first version, part-time during evenings and weekends. It went live with Healthcare at Home in 2013 and was initially used by eight consultants. Within eighteen months, more than 150 were prescribing on it.
Our approach has not changed. iQemo is still designed with the pharmacists, nurses and consultants who use it — now through customer user groups that feed directly into the development roadmap — and still shaped by the problems those teams bring us.
What has changed is the scale. iQemo is now used by 7,500 clinicians across 108 hospitals in the UK and Australia. More than 170,000 patients have been treated through it, 2.3 million treatment cycles prescribed and over four million appointments managed. No customer has left.
Fifteen years of building
2011
iQ HealthTech is founded by two software developers and a consultant oncologist, with one goal: build tools that enable better cancer care.
2013
The first version of iQemo is released in January as part of a pilot with Healthcare at Home, now Sciensus. A nationwide rollout follows in November, beginning with eight consultants and passing 150 within eighteen months.
2014
iQemo is extended to support treatment in private hospital settings, and the first two major UK private healthcare groups begin onboarding.
2015
Kingston Hospital NHS Foundation Trust becomes the first NHS customer in April followed by Royal Bolton Hospital and Warrington & Halton Hospitals.
2016
The Christie in Manchester selects iQemo in December, taking the system into the largest single-site cancer centre in Europe.
2017
Complex haematology prescribing is delivered for The Christie in sixteen weeks, including integration with the PAS and laboratory systems, and more than two hundred regimens built and validated.
2018
The remaining disease groups come online at The Christie by February: over two thousand regimens, thirteen satellite sites and more than 1,500 users. The number of private hospitals using iQemo passes fifty.
2019
iQemo is implemented across the Lancashire and South Cumbria Cancer Alliance, at four NHS trusts covering 12 hospital sites between April and November.
2021
Implementation begins at St Bartholomew’s Hospital in London. iQemo takes its first step outside the UK, with implementation starting for South Australia Health in collaboration with Altera Digital Health. GenesisCare and Ramsay begin piloting the Insurer Authorisation Portal with AXA, supporting faster treatment approvals.
2022
iQemo is extended to support the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme for SA Health. Integration with Baxter systems goes live across Spire Healthcare hospitals, simplifying IV drug ordering. The Insurer Authorisation Portal launches for Aviva.
2023
iQemo goes live at seven South Australia Health sites. Barts Health NHS Trust launches iQemo across its oncology services. iQ HealthTech is recognised at the British Oncology Pharmacy Association conference for work on safer SACT prescribing through accurate height and weight validation.
2024
Seven further South Australia Health hospital sites go live, including the Royal Adelaide Hospital. The migration of NHS customer environments to Microsoft Azure begins, starting with The Christie Hospital.
2025
The move to Azure completes across the remaining NHS & private hospitals. User groups launch, putting clinicians directly into the development process.
2026
iQemo 1.16.2 is released and goes live at Bupa Cromwell Hospital. iQemo is now used by 7,500 clinicians across 108 hospitals in the UK and Australia.
Proven where the stakes are highest
108
Hospitals across the UK and Australia
7,500
Clinicians using iQemo
170,000+
Patients treated since 2013
2.3m
Treatment cycles prescribed since 2013
4m+
Appointments managed since 2013
Where iQemo is used
Deployments range from a single private clinic to The Christie NHS Foundation Trust, the largest single-site cancer centre in Europe, where one central regimen library serves over a dozen satellite sites. The largest private healthcare group runs 20 hospitals from one centralised library. The system is configured to the shape of the service, not the other way round.
What we believe
Safety is a design constraint, not a feature.
In SACT there is very little room for error. iQemo prescribes from validated regimens, calculates doses to protocol, checks interactions* and records a complete audit trail of who did what and when. Where a design choice trades clarity for cleverness, clarity wins.
*First Data Bank subscription required
Clinicians should lead clinical technology.
iQemo was founded with a consultant oncologist and its design is still led by the pharmacists, nurses and consultants who use it. Every decision is tested against what those people would actually do at the point of care.
Better technology creates capacity.
Cancer services are being asked to treat more patients without proportionate increases in staff or time. By simplifying workflows, connecting scheduling to pharmacy and reducing avoidable rework, iQemo gives teams back time for patient care.
The work starts at go-live.
Our job is not finished when a service goes live; that is when it begins. We stay close to the teams using iQemo, bring back what we have learned from other cancer services, and help each service use what the system records — on activity, prescribing, pharmacy workflow and capacity — to see clearly where its own care can be made safer and its time better spent. The decisions belong to the service. Our part is making sure they are made with good information.
The people behind iQemo
iQemo is designed by people who have worked in the settings it serves. Our Medical Director and co-founder, Dr Tamas Hickish, is a consultant medical oncologist and was Clinical Director of Oncology at Poole Hospital. Our Head of Product, Bastiaan Buijtenhuijs, was an oncology specialist ePMA pharmacist at The Christie, before moving into product design. Our Clinical Safety Officer, Ed Hawley-Jones, was an oncology pharmacist at Bedford Hospital. Our Business Development Director and co-founder, Doug Baker, has twenty years in commercial software development that began in NHS hospitals, and has worked in every part of iQ HealthTech - development, implementation, training, support and sales. Between them, they have shaped every clinical decision in the system, and much of how it is delivered.
Take a closer look at iQemo
Whether you are focused on clinical practice, medicines management, treatment delivery or digital infrastructure, we can help you explore how iQemo could support your SACT service.