Ghent, 16 January 2025 - Ghent start-up Squire has developed an AI solution that can automate general practitioners' (GPs) consultation reports. The solution helps drastically reduce the time they spend on administration, providing an answer for the growing number of patient stops. The software, which is currently available for free in a trial version to all Flemish doctors, has huge potential. Entourage, the start-up studio and investment fund of Pieterjan Bouten, co-founded the company and will support the start-up in their growth trajectory with the intention to further develop the platform and boost international growth.

For every consultation, Flemish GPs are required to write a SOEP (Subjective, Objective, Evaluation and Plan) report on the patient and the diagnosis. In this report, they also take into account medical codings such as ICPC-2 and SNOMED CT, which help classify medical patient data and clinical activities and display them in electronic patient records in a consistent and computer-processable way.

“Considering that a GP completes an average of 20 to 30 consultations a day, you can imagine that preparing these reports takes up a huge amount of time,” says Stan Callewaert, CEO and co-founder of Squire. “Research therefore shows that GPs spend almost a third of their time on administration. This while the workload is only increasing. The ageing population is driving the demand for care to unseen heights, but at the same time a healthy work-life balance is becoming a priority for more and more and especially younger doctors. Not surprisingly, more than half of all GP practices in Belgium have implemented a (partial) patient stop. So any help is welcome to balance the demand for care and the hands to provide it. With Squire and the power of artificial intelligence, we want to help turn this tide.”

More time for the patient

The Ghent-based start-up developed a software that creates a draft of such a report after each consultation, based on the conversation between GP and patient, which the GP can later modify or finalize. The software also immediately applies medical coding automatically, ensuring that the report is soundly structured. “With Squire and recent developments in AI, we can help halve the time GPs spend on administration. In this way, we create much-needed space for physician expertise and personalised patient care,” says Ignace Maes, CTO and co-founder of Squire.

Squire's software is now used in several GP practices, district health centres and GP out-of-hours surgeries in Flanders, and is currently available in a trial version for free to all Flemish doctors. Bâlâ Kirimli is a GP in Ghent: “The software supports me in preparing consultation reports. The platform is constantly being developed based on feedback from doctors like me, which only enhances efficiency in my practice.”

AI revolution in the health sector 

Squire was co-founded by Entourage, which supports Squire strategically and financially. Pieterjan Bouten (founder Entourage and ex-CEO Showpad) has a lot of experience in GP software as an independent director at Corilus and has already proven his ability to scale software companies globally. In addition, the start-up is also backed by Start it @KBC and is in talks with several parties to integrate the solution into GPs' existing software.

“We are incredibly excited to work with Stan, Ignace and the team at Squire,” says Pieterjan Bouten. ‘We believe they have a unique combination of technological and medical expertise. Today, doctors spend a significant portion of their time on administrative tasks, and we have rarely seen such rapid technological adoption in healthcare as AI copilots. The US has seen tremendous growth in this sector over the past year and we expect a similar trend in Europe. Squire is excellently positioned to become a category-defining player in the European healthtech sector, with the potential to radically transform healthcare.”

Across national borders

With Entourage's support, experience and expertise, Squire plans to take the next steps in its growth trajectory in the near future. First and foremost, that means further expanding the product and developing ways to integrate the solution directly into the software GPs are already using. In addition, Stan Callewaert and Ignace Maes are also looking at possible growth beyond Belgium's national borders and cherish the ambition to diversify the software so that the administration of other healthcare providers (nurses, specialists,...) can also be easily automated.

About Squire

Squire saves general practitioners time by supporting them with their administration using AI technology. Stan Callewaert and Ignace Maes studied computer science together at UGent. Ignace then worked for six years for Lighthouse, which became the fifth Belgian unicorn in 2024. Stan worked for six years for ML6, the largest Belgian company whose core business is AI. He took on multiple roles there over the years, of which: AI engineer, consultant and commercial lead.

About Entourage

Entourage builds and funds the next generation of software companies through a start-up studio (Entourage Studio) and an early-stage investment fund (Entourage Capital). Founded by Pieterjan Bouten, co-founder of Showpad, the fund raised over €35 million Euros from many successful international SaaS entrepreneurs such as Louis Jonckheere (Showpad), Stijn Christiaens (Collibra) and Jon Hollez (Deliverect) as well as many Belgian family offices such as Alychlo, Baltisse and Sensinovat.