Enabling Nationwide Digital Transformation in Healthcare Services

Business challenge

Our client is a state-run software development company commissioned by the Ministry of Health to support digital transformation in healthcare by launching a unified, omnichannel platform for medical services and health management. The platform serves as a hub between distributed medical systems and organizations and brings eHealth solutions and other digital health innovations to millions of residents countrywide. To accelerate the government’s vision for a more patient-centric, connected, and collaborative healthcare ecosystem, our client was looking for an established digital health technology enabler.

The government’s medical digitalization strategy involved transitioning from paper to electronic document flows, consolidating all health records in a centralized system, and automating medical check-up processes. Implementing these reforms would optimize healthcare workflows and expenditures, provide visibility into the current state of the nation’s health, improve the quality and effectiveness of medical services, and ultimately lead to better health outcomes. Another significant benefit of digital transformation in the healthcare industry would be raising awareness of healthy lifestyles, available medical services, and preventive care among all demographics.

The urgency of embracing digital innovation in healthcare resulted in tight implementation timeframes and the need for exceptional technical expertise to build a national eHealth infrastructure incorporating a series of digital solutions and services. Our client turned to Intellias as a proven health technology expert proficient in medical software development and familiar with digital transformation trends in healthcare. After a small trial project that demonstrated our strong product development and delivery management capabilities, our client entered into an extensive, long-term strategic partnership with Intellias.

Solution delivered

From day one, Intellias mobilized project managers, engineers, designers, and business analysts to work on seven products that had to be launched in sync with healthcare digital transformation developments in our client’s country. With a total of over 100 professionals, our seven project teams covered end-to-end product development, from requirements elaboration, UI/UX design, architecture, coding, and testing to production and maintenance.

Although meeting deadlines was a challenge, our experts managed to deliver outstanding results within months and launch a suite of tools to facilitate digital transformation in healthcare. Moreover, when the COVID-19 pandemic raised new medical challenges, we provided immediate support with digital innovation in healthcare to meet testing, vaccination, and telemedicine needs.

Award-winning patient portal

One of the key action items in the national medical digitalization plan was to put a personal healthcare guide into the hands of citizens. The Intellias team built a comprehensive web and mobile platform to ensure efficient communication and coordination among patients, doctors, and medical facilities. The platform provides a wide range of eHealth services and allows users to:

• Securely access electronic health records 24/7 from any device and view personal medical information (blood type, allergies, diagnoses, medications, etc.)
• Keep track of health conditions documented during doctors’ visits and register vital sign readings at self-screening stations
• Book, reschedule, and cancel lab tests and appointments with doctors
• View reports of all completed procedures, test results, immunization history, prescribed medications, hospital discharge summaries, etc.
• Search for the nearest pharmacy that provides a prescribed medication
• Get, share, and submit an electronic sick leave note
• Get recommendations on preventive screenings, procedures, and vaccinations based on age, gender, and medical history

During the pandemic outbreak, the patient portal we built has become the foundation of the national anti-COVID campaign, which uses digital health technology to raise public awareness of ways to maintain health and safety and stop the spread of the virus. Thanks to our team’s efforts to quickly add critical functionality, the system now offers digital services to efficiently handle COVID-19 cases and vaccine-related matters and provides online video consultations between healthcare professionals and patients. The portal has been recognized as the top patient solution in the country and was granted the national award for healthcare digital transformation excellence.

Communication platform for health practitioners

The patient portal is integrated with the doctor’s platform, which provides channels for communication between health practitioners and offers digital health innovations to facilitate doctors’ work and improve medical services for patients. The platform allows a community of healthcare professionals to exchange knowledge and experience, promote medical best practices, and share information on specialized medical events and training. On the other hand, it’s a solution that enables health practitioners to:

• View patients’ electronic health records with medical histories and key clinical data
• Issue e-prescriptions and keep track of patients’ medication intake
• Prevent drug incompatibility, side effects, and allergy risks based on medical records and integrated third-party eHealth services
• Consult patients online to ensure regular monitoring of patients’ health conditions and treatment outcomes

Implementing the doctors’ platform proved a significant step in the digitization of medical institutions and practices, resulting in an increased quality of healthcare services, more interaction between different groups of health practitioners, and elimination of paper processes.

Collaborative motherhood application

Following the best practices in maternity services and the latest digital transformation trends in healthcare, the Ministry of Health envisioned a one-stop parenthood solution that serves as a guide through all stages of maternity, from pregnancy planning until a child’s 18th birthday. Our UI/UX designers and business analysts conducted deep market and user research on the most optimal and in-demand functionality and translated the overall vision into a user-centered and intuitive mobile solution that was implemented by our developers in six months. The application equips women in many aspects of motherhood, helping them to:

• Plan and navigate the progression of pregnancy in the most natural and healthy way using a set of monitoring tools
• Keep digital records of medical histories, health conditions, and vital signs that are regularly monitored by doctors
• Educate themselves on how to take the best care of their own and their children’s health
• Get necessary information on all maternity care services available in the country
• View useful content for mothers-to-be and other parenting resources, including blogs, FAQs, and online courses

The maternity guidance application that our team built brings yet another long-term benefit of digital transformation in the healthcare industry: Raising the quality of medical services for women impacts the nation’s overall health in the long run. The application is now used by millions of women across the country, increasing health awareness among the population, promoting healthy lifestyles, and assisting women in their medical and parenting needs.

Medical checkup system for expatriates

One of the key elements of the government’s strategy for digitization of healthcare sector included transforming visa procedures and healthcare checkup services for tourists and workers coming to the country. This was to be achieved through an integrated medical solution that would consolidate all applications and health examination records in a single, centralized database and simplify the visa issuance process for applicants. Our team built a health services web system that serves the needs of several types of users:

• Visa applicants can register for pre-departure checkup appointments at certified medical facilities in their home countries, submit visa applications, and pay for immigration and consular services.
• Medical centers can enter an applicant’s test results and apply for certification to comply with the national medical standards and be able to participate in the official expat health evaluation program.
• Authorities can monitor health conditions of expatriates, evaluate the quality of medical center services, and optimize visa processes to handle an upsurge of newcomers to the country.

The implementation of this medical examination software has become another important milestone in the nationwide digital transformation in healthcare, as it has allowed for automating the immigration system, eliminating manual paper processes and improving healthcare for nationals despite huge visitor flows.

School-based health screening solution

The next step toward a healthy nation initiated by the government was establishing a school health assessment program using digital health technology. The program involved creating a web application to keep track of the health and well-being of students, detect potential health issues, and offer preventive measures to avoid complications. Our team developed a health screening system that allows medical checkup teams to:

• Complete surveys and checklists of children’s health indicators during school medical checkups (BMI index, hearing, sight, learning disabilities, ADHD, dental health, communicable diseases, etc.)
• Keep records of students’ medical histories and monitor students for chronic diseases, health disorders, and disabilities
• Monitor students’ vaccination records to ensure timely preventive measures
• Report on the results of checkups to clinics, medical centers, and other healthcare facilities for further treatment

The school screening solution we built is now among the major digital health innovations that enable country-wide health monitoring from an early school age, preventing disease progression from early stages and leading to improved overall national health indicators.

Hospital auditing and inspection platform

With public health and disease control being among the government’s top priorities, modernization and digitization of medical institutions was key to building an efficient infrastructure of high-quality healthcare services. This required effective supervision on the part of the state to oversee the compliance of healthcare organizations with medical regulations and standards. To this end, our team created an easy-to-use web and mobile audit solution that helps healthcare inspectors:

• Plan field audits to medical establishments and allocate resources to inspection tasks
• Run audits of clinics and hospitals by monitoring their statuses and conditions using screening checklists, assessment templates, comprehensive dashboards, and instant reporting
• Quickly collect and manage statistics on medical facility environments, evaluate the level of healthcare service, and promptly respond to issues and violations

With a new monitoring and auditing solution, there has been a significant progress with medical institution inspections in the country, resulting in systematic audits, objective evaluations of medical services and conditions, increased adherence to healthcare standards, and higher service quality across medical facilities.

Medical self-assessment tool

Apart from external audits conducted by state agencies, the Ministry of Health aimed to introduce self-monitoring for healthcare providers, pharmaceutical facilities, and paramedic stations. The goal was to build a healthcare digital transformation service that would help medical organizations measure their regulatory compliance and align their service quality and sanitary conditions with national standards.

We built a web tool that helps healthcare professionals:

• Regularly evaluate the state of their facilities and services by completing a survey
• Rapidly identify issues and take immediate steps to resolve them

On the other hand, administrators can use this tool to:

• Set healthcare service standards and configure logic in the vetting process
• Create medical accounts and manage permissions and roles for the system
• Verify the accuracy of provided information by comparing it with the findings of field auditors

Using this self-control solution, medical institutions can evaluate their compliance and be proactive in taking corrective measures to avoid penalties or sanctions. In turn, healthcare officials use the tool to promote self-regulation, increase the quality of medical services, and improve safety standards across all public and private healthcare institutions.

Business outcome

As a powerful technology and engineering partner, Intellias has reinforced the government’s digital transformation journey by implementing a holistic platform for innovative eHealth services that is secure by design and is used by millions of people every day. The platform has digitized and brought together previously fragmented paper-based processes and legacy systems into a centralized, automated, and integrated environment. Introducing digital innovation in healthcare has allowed for major improvements on the national level and brought a number of favorable outcomes for the country:

• Easy access to high-quality healthcare services for all residents
• Constant disease control and consistent monitoring of the nation’s health
• An increase in overall health awareness among the population
• Elimination of healthcare paperwork and documentation routines
• Nationwide automation and modernization of the healthcare industry

By providing timely and quality platform development services within strict deadlines, our team helped our client become the government’s key software provider and a winner of the National Medical Award for strategic contributions to digital transformation in healthcare.

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the shift to digital healthcare enabled by Intellias has become the cornerstone of the government’s strategy for combatting the disease and providing all necessary measures to protect against it and prevent its spread.