How is digital transformation
impacting the healthcare field?

13/10/2021
Healthcare - digital transformation
Digital transformation is the mechanism put in place to integrate digital technologies into an enterprise. It requires fundamental evolutions not only technologically speaking, but also in terms of culture, operations and value creation. The accelerated expansion of new technologies in human activities, pushes companies to modernize themselves by deeply modifying processes and models.

Let's discover together some concrete examples of digitalization in the health sector.

The importance of digital transformation

In an increasingly digital society, healthcare institutions today recognize the importance of digital transformation in terms of improving services and increasing their ability to grow.

The influence of the Covid pandemic on digital transformation

The COVID-19 health measures highlighted the shortcomings of many sectors in responding to very large disruptions in the movement of goods and people. This is particularly true of the healthcare sector. The need to respond immediately has caused a forced acceleration of digital transformation, for example, in booking processes or teleconsultations.

Among the areas in which digitalization has become essential to maintain business are:
  • the organization of virtual events (telemeetings, teleconferences...),
  • the implementation of teleworking, perfectly legitimized by the coronavirus crisis,
  • telemedicine. 
In a medical sector weighed down by existing systems and inertia, the COVID-19 pandemic has played a key role, particularly because of the crucial need to be able to consult with patients remotely to minimize the risk of transmission of the virus.

Now, medical institutions must continue to digitize their activities in order to be able to adapt permanently. This ensures that they are prepared for future disruptions, increases their survivability and improves their value proposition. 
Téléconsultation

OneDoc, an example of digitalization boosted by the pandemic

Founded in 2017, OneDoc is now the leader in online medical appointment booking in Switzerland with its digital booking tool. OneDoc offers:
  • Patients to become actors of their health, via a platform allowing to find a health professional and to book an appointment in one click;
  • Health professionals with a modern solution integrated into the practice's software, to manage administrative tasks more easily and optimize consultations. 
For OneDoc, the pandemic has undoubtedly boosted the digitalization of healthcare institutions. It took them 3 years to sign up their first hospital, while during the pandemic 25 hospitals opted for their solution in just 2 months. Today, OneDoc has 4,000 partner practitioners and 1 million registered patients.

MobileThinking's expertise

SFITS: an example of successful digital transformation

SFITS (Swiss Foundation For Innovation and Training in Surgery) is a Geneva-based training center for surgeons, which has taken the path of digital transformation to innovate its business processes.

Among all the axes of digitalization identified by SFITS, two were taken in charge by MobileThinking:
  • Optimization of the customer's course consultation path, the registration process and the sharing of logbooks allowing the customer to promote his training courses;
  • Reducing the workload of employees by automating processes (registration, payment, attendance validation, etc.).
To meet this need, MobileThinking designed and developed an event management tool to augment course-related data sourced in part from a third-party service (Accessplannit) and a client interface to view upcoming courses.
SFITS cover - developpement web et mobile Laravel et Vue.js

What can SFITS employees do with digital tools?

The management tool, or back-office, allows administrators to perform multiple actions:
  • course management: define capacity, type (classroom, e-learning), characteristics (prices, dates and times, descriptions), attach media (images, videos, documents) and links
  • management of reservations made by visitors,
  • validation of learners' participation; via role management, "validators" have the power to scan QR codes to digitally validate students' attendance,
  • user management
  • FAQ management
We used the Laravel framework to develop the back-office. Each course has a local copy, updated and augmented by the administrators. Via an API, the local copies are synchronized on the server to be used online.

What can SFITS students do with digital tools?

Learning surgeons have a range of options available to them, such as:
  • consult the list and descriptions of the different courses available,
  • register for a course,
  • pay their reservation directly online from the website, via PayPal or credit card,
  • obtain the QR code to validate their course registration,
  • manage their profile and their specialty,
  • publish on logbook the courses they have attended.
The web application was developed in VueJS. It is a sophisticated interface and event management capable of running on both computer and mobile devices.

Conclusion

Thus, the health crisis has highlighted the urgency of proceeding with the digital transformation of the establishments of all the actors in the health sector. Moreover, digitalization in this field must give a fundamental place to confidentiality and data protection, which requires a proven expertise. If you wish to develop a custom tool for the digital transformation of your healthcare institution, MobileThinking will accompany you in your project and bring you its know-how for its conception and realization.