Digital patient journey for SPZ thanks to new app

Arranging patient appointments, reserving treatment rooms and receiving or sending cancellations: Until recently, the patient journey at the Swiss Paraplegic Centre (SPZ) in Nottwil, a private specialist clinic for paraplegic, back and respiratory medicine, was characterised by countless phone calls and a high volume of letter mail.

SPZ is now planning to digitalise the patient journey using a new app. As a result, patients and their relatives will be informed quickly and easily about appointment changes, room allocations or people involved in the examination. The app is also intended to help people find their way around the large campus or arrange a wheelchair service.

bbv teamed up with Swiss start-up heyPatient to win the SPZ tender for a new app solution, which fulfils these requirements and improves the patient journey.

bbv enhanced the standard solution from heyPatient by adding custom functions. The app was connected via an interface to the Polypoint RAP appointment scheduling system and SPZ’s Dynamics Navision ERP solution. Appointments can thus be made or rescheduled and rooms allocated easily in Polypoint and communicated to patients via the app.

The new app also includes outdoor and indoor navigation for the entire SPZ campus. Patients and visitors can therefore find their way around the extensive premises much more quickly and without outside assistance. A total of 700 beacons were installed on the SPZ campus for this purpose. The app recognises 150 points of interest such as waiting areas, administrative offices, treatment rooms or toilets.

All add-on functions are fully integrated in the heyPatient app and further functionalities can be added via tiles. The FHIR standard provides for data exchange with other healthcare systems, including the Electronic Patient Dossier (EPD).

The new app has significantly improved communication with patients and made it much easier to organise appointments and rooms. Patients can see their upcoming appointments at a glance at all times and are provided with additional information and directions digitally.

There is no longer a need for phone calls and individual e-mails, and the number of delays and no-shows has reduced, particularly when rebooking treatment rooms.  Even the sometimes complex onboarding process was made easier and faster with the help of the app.

The heyPatient app with various custom add-ons is currently being used in a wide range of health facilities and several medical centres.

“Thanks to the new app from heyPatient and bbv, we can offer our patients a better patient journey with modern appointment management and targeted navigation.”

Stefan Stalder, Head of Digitalization Innovation Transformation SPZ

Project insights

• Digital patient journey: The app improves and digitalises the patient journey at SPZ. Appointment management is clear and navigation around the campus is handled via smartphone.

• Greater satisfaction: The app allows patients to be better prepared and in the right place at the right time. This increases patient safety and satisfaction.

• Higher efficiency: Managing appointments via the app eases the workload on SPZ employees and saves time and money.

• Data exchange: All personal data is stored in the patient’s own account in the cloud and can therefore also be used in other medical facilities that use the same app.

Our services in the project