Improve Platform

Author
Team Zorg Enablers
Published on
15-11-2020
Category
Implementations | Consultation

 

Partly because of the digital transformation of healthcare, data plays an increasingly large part. Data platforms are becoming more important, but it’s crucial to maintain the balance between ‘personal’ and ‘privacy’. The Improve Platform is a platform where patients, healthcare professionals, and researchers, can communicate. Thanks to the platform, questionnaires, information and videos can be shared between healthcare facilities and patients safely and easily. This lowers the administrative pressure for healthcare professionals and patients benefit from better information. Besides, the platform can be linked to almost all data sources because of their api-structure.

Recently, the service ‘DVZA-as-a-Service’ (DaaS) was launched: an independent platform for hospitals and healthcare institutions to help them meet the new requirements for data exchange between patients and institutions. DVZA stands for DienstVerlener ZorgAanbieder (Service-/Healthcare Provider) within the MedMij appointment systems. Thanks to DaaS, institutions can  easily and safely grant other healthcare professionals – as well as patients and clients, through MedMij-certified PGOs (personal healthcare environments) access to medical data in EHRs. The platform is open to integration with other systems, but has strict requirements. For everything that is linked, the question is posed: does it fit the care ecosystem and does the supplier handle data and privacy in the same way? Marco Woesthuis, CEO Open HealthHub: “The Improve Platform can be seen as a fuse box anything can be plugged into because the sockets are standardised. The fuse box also makes sure everything stays up-to-date. This way, we provide healthcare institutions with peace of mind, using technology they don’t have in-house knowledge for, or don’t want to develop. We also facilitate optimal data exchange, with the patient’s permission, amongst healthcare professionals.”

The Improve Platform has by now been implemented in several healthcare institutions. At Careyn, in Utrecht, the implementation of the platform with the DaaS qualification was also recently completed. “Within Careyn, we use several EHR systems. In order to ensure optimal data exchange, we were looking for an experienced and independent party to link the different source systems. With the forthcoming requirements surrounding data exchange, and through the participation in the PGO-testing grounds of the VIPP InZicht subsidy programme, there was room within the organisation to experiment and invest,” states Woesthuis. Thanks to the platform, Careyn is now able to easily and safely exchange their data. Interconnectivity, providing peace of mind through technical expertise, and support have been important points of interest in this.

The Improve Platform distinguishes itself by the complete end-to-end encryption (only the healthcare professional and the patient can see each other’s messages and data), and the possibilities for users to adapt their trajectories to their wishes. In addition, the api structure of the Improve Platform claims a unique position in the existing playing field. Safety by design is one of the most important cornerstones of the platform, and they expressly convert this by including  healthcare professionals in the privacy issues surrounding the use of data. Woesthuis: “Our Improve platform cannot access the data that healthcare professionals and patients exchange. We simply do not want to be able to access it. We have made a conscious decision not to profit off data. We do not think that’s right, medically or ethically. We call this data ethics.”

Healthcare institutions are more and more occupied with standardising data and, in part because of corona, the digitalisation of healthcare has surged. The government, too, is insisting more and more on new laws and regulations. Woesthuis: ‘We cannot yet assume that everything will be standardised tomorrow. That’s why an application such as DaaS is so great, because it can translate and link data from outdated systems to software that does meet the requirements.’ Open HealthHub will continue to expand the functionalities of the platform, and will also look into links with, for example, home monitoring equipment and Electronic Data Capture systems which are used for research. Open HealthHub, in cooperation with healthcare and research institutes both in the Netherlands and abroad, has also launched internationally. But they do not step away from their principles. “Our aspiration is to become the most trusted and trustworthy platform for information exchange between doctors and patients in Europe. We provide the guarantee: no one else is watching when the doctor and patient exchange information.”

 

Open HealthHub

Marco Woesthuis is CEO and co-founder of Open HealthHub, founded in 2015. After his career as a doctor and manager at a pharmaceutical company, he remained amazed by the large amount of administrative tasks that detracted from a good conversation between a patient and a doctor. A meeting with Martijn Verhoeven (co-founder) provided the solution. Verhoeven’s knowledge of and passion for IT and enterprise were the perfect addition to Woesthuis’ medical background.