Medical institutions in Europe are ringing the alarm about increasing difficulties in managing patient flow. We are not only talking about hospitalisation, but also about tracking diseases in the long-term and scheduling preventive and dispensary examinations for longer intervals. Health experts are firm that the environment now has a critical need to manage its structures more efficiently.
Hospitals often have much greater capacity than they are using, but do not know what technology to integrate in order to reach it. The first step here is to start planning better. It is key to avoid long queues outside doctor’s offices and people needing medical attention are forced to wait for hours. It is no longer even enough to schedule patient visits within a week, although for some, there is more predictability. For example, preventive and dispensary check-ups can be scheduled a year in advance. The same lack of efficiency we find in case of more precise disease management.
The Bulgarian technology company MY Synergy, a member of the Digital Health and Innovation Cluster Bulgaria (DHI Cluster Bulgaria), has identified growing challenges in the sector in 2020 and has started the development of the MY Care PSP platform. The aim is to offer a solution based on technology to help manage patient flow in hospitals and achieve faster and more sustainable results. This is the only way doctors can fully fulfil their mission to save lives.
Better outcomes with less effort
Over the last year and a half, MY Care PSP has been actively used by another Bulgarian company, DHI Cluster co-founder, SAT Health. It trusts the platform for its patient programmes, and the company’s CEO, Alexander Alexiev, remains pleased with the results shown.
“MY Synergy is the best provider we could trust. The MY Care PSP platform meets the highest national and international security requirements and fully satisfies the needs of healthcare and pharmacy. For us, these things are of particular importance when choosing a supplier,” says Alexiev.
Among the reasons for this feedback are some impressive changes that have taken place while working with MY Care PSP. SAT Health has reduced by 30% the time it takes to generate a report on the activities carried out on the patient programmes. The team has been 10% more efficient loading easy patient data tracking and processing. 107% more patients have enrolled in patient programmes because of the facilitated process, which includes various automations and integrations that make it easier for patients to work with the programme.
Pharmaceutical companies can do more
Pharmaceutical companies can also increase their efficiency, says Yordan Iliev, MY Synergy CEO. “There are three main reasons why the pharmaceutical sector needs MY Care PSP. The first is that such an approach helps patients not to lose their motivation during treatment. Sometimes the programmes for them yield results after 7 or 8 months. It is important that the person does not give up on the 5th and see the result of all their efforts,” says Iliev. He stresses that it is also important for the company to have a so-called “exit strategy” or what happens if the programmes are prematurely terminated and how this change is managed.
The MY Care PSP allows very accurate data to be tracked on when a patient’s medication is taken and so improves quality and adherence to therapies. In addition, the patient does not have to remember when the next appointment is at all as there are automatic reminders to help assistants notify patients. The third reason is that pharmaceutical companies outsource their patient programmes to subcontractors like SAT Health, but in each state each company uses its own process tracking system. Consequently, the final data is in a very different form. “Often the data is incompatible, and in the end the contracting company can’t do an analysis on it,” Iliev adds.
To help hospitals
In the process of working with SAT Health, the company for which the project started, MY Synergy discovered that the new platform could also help hospitals. In terms of preventive care, MY Care PSP allows preventive packages to be monitored by hospitals using call centers. This ensures that patients do not miss out on getting their health taken care of at certain intervals. There is also an improvement in efficiency in patient follow-up and dispensing. This is done through the easy-to-use interface and the ability to set up the system very quickly and flexibly. MY Care PSP allows to plan the patient flow and medicines in the pharmacy for months ahead. This optimizes processes so that there are no missing medications or crowding of people outside the offices. This relieves hospitals and medical professionals, saving them time to invest in patients.
There is another benefit, and that is the management of clinical research programmes. “They are a kind of patient programmes because therapies are done at certain intervals and the system can tell you for which patient, which is the next step, whether it is mandatory or recommended,” says Iliev.
MY Synergy is expected to begin working with a medical facility to also prove the advantages of MY Care PSP over other solutions on the market. The company’s mission is enshrined in its new product. MY Care PSP is an excellent proof of the fact that digitalisation of healthcare can save lives. This is also what DHI Cluster believes. The synergy between our members strengthens the trend towards next-generation healthcare. We need political will and the right legislative changes to improve the environment in Bulgaria. The ultimate goal we are focused on is to improve the quality of services for patients and increase patient satisfaction. This inevitably passes through a digital transformation of the sector – medical professionals to be supported by technology, the state to have predictability and control over all mechanisms, and patients to be placed at the center of the system and turned into active participants in the management of their health.
