Under wartime conditions, medical companies are implementing services to support communication with patients.
As Anna Shved, Marketing Director of the Dobrobut Medical Network (Kyiv), reported the nurse, among such tools that the nurse is developing is the Dobrobut mobile application. With its help, a patient can make an appointment with the necessary doctor in any medical center of the network, look through the results of tests for examinations, doctors’ consultations, make an appointment for an online appointment and take it through the application, pay for services, and manage their visits, reschedule or cancel them.
In addition, the service makes it possible to upload medical documents received at other medical institutions, as well as to make an appointment not only to see a doctor, but also for tests, ultrasound, CT, MRI, and X-rays, without contacting the contact center.
The medical network is also introducing self-service terminals to get detailed information about a doctor’s visit without going to the reception desk or waiting in line.
In addition, Dobrobut is introducing online consultations through a mobile app.
“Currently, online appointments are open to more than 100 doctors in the network. The advantage is that it is a more secure channel than popular messengers. The physician can view the patient’s medical records needed for the online consultation. Communication between the patient and doctor can take place in chat, via audio or video. Adjustments to the treatment regimen, dramatic changes in health when there is no way to physically get to the doctor are the main reasons to go to the doctor online,” Shved said.
“Dobrobut is also actively using tools such as Viber and Telegram bots for patients unable to call the contact center and communicate with coordinators, for example, when they are overseas.
“In the near future, we plan to expand the functionality of this communication channel and improve its performance. Understanding the customer’s journey and expectations, we want to be where it’s convenient for them to be. Self-service is a modern trend throughout the civilized world, including in medicine. We follow this trend, the more so as the martial law environment makes us react more dynamically to new challenges and adjust to new realities”, – summarized Shved.
In his turn, general director of the CSD LAB medical laboratory (Kyiv) Oleksandr Dudin noted that in laboratory segment, digitalization is, in particular, an obligatory part of quality control and one of the factors that ensure speed of examinations and accuracy of their results.
He said that CSD LAB’s investments in IT development “have reached hundreds of thousands of dollars. The company has developed several of its own IT products, particularly a medical program for the pathomorphology lab.
“Together with Yadro Systems, we created a special program for the pathomorphology lab because there were not even slightly similar products on the market. Our software, SlidePath, helps manage workflows, which is as convenient as possible for the pathologist. And you can watch the specimen at every step,” says Dudin.
The CSD LAB director noted that it is difficult to calculate how much money the company saves through digitalization because digitalization is “about optimizing workflows, ensuring speed of analysis, and accurate reproducibility of results.”
“Our pathomorphology lab has equipment that scans histology slides and allows pathologists from anywhere in the world to examine biomaterial and establish a diagnosis,” he said.
Dudin explained that this innovation was previously used effectively by the company to get advice from international partners and the world’s leading pathologists on complex, unique clinical cases, but since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, CSD LAB has also started actively using the scanner in daily work when pathomorphologists have had to work in different parts of Ukraine.
“The ability to scan histology slides has helped to keep working on studies whose results often determine a healthy future and sometimes even the lives of our clients,” he said.
Dudin said that the process of digitalization requires significant financial investment, but “it is necessary and without the introduction of the latest digital technology, modern laboratory diagnostics is impossible.”
As reported in May 2022, the European Business Association (EBA) Committee on Healthcare stated that one of the components of the post-war reconstruction of the Ukrainian healthcare system should be full digitalization of the system, including accessible telemedicine, electronic medical records and electronic prescriptions.
MEDICAL COMPANIES, PATIENTS, SERVICES, support communication
