Better patient care is only possible with adequate IT support
With more than 15 years of experience working in healthcare as a medical diagnostics specialist, geneticist, and CEO of the Community Health Centre Ljubljana I have first-hand knowledge of all the drawbacks of not having the promptly available information needed for best patient care.
Due to regulation and even though all kinds of IT solutions were installed, the same information still needed to be entered into different systems two or three times, sometimes even more. To top it all, we were still using notebooks.
Work processes and needs for IT support
While holding the position of CEO of the Community Health Centre Ljubljana, a primary care center in the capital city of Slovenia, good IT support was something I missed the most. Starting this job gave me a complete overview not only of clinical trials but also workflows and management challenges of an institution with 280 employees and 16 departments. Having more than 0.5 million patient visits per year, gave me powerful insight on what patients were missing the most regarding their user experience in the system.
Real-time information was not available; we did not have electronic access to schedules because it was still more comfortable for some employees to write them on paper. In addition, it became evident that some of the staff were struggling with the use of computers.
The underlying issue to these problems has been the absence of connectivity between different e-solutions. Moreover, it is still not clear who has access and who owns the patients’ data. Management still lacks the overview of data that enables them to optimize, supervise and audit organizational processes. And even though most of the patients are using smartphones the institution had no way of reminding them of their next visit.
Good IT system design requires not only doctors involvement
To develop a system, which will equally support all parties, development should not involve physicians alone, but the whole vertical line of healthcare professionals, including management. Of course, we cannot forget the one group we are all here for — the patients who need to be in the center of it all. Their needs must be central when creating the best possible solution.
Finally, e-connectivity should enable a safe communication channel between the patient and his doctor, using transparent medical data stored from all the parties involved in the process of diagnostics and treatment.
For me, moving to primary care was not only related to my work as a clinical chemist and geneticists, but it turned out to serve a higher purpose, as I later found myself involved in improving pathways for supporting faster clinical decisions with IT support being the most important one. Working with big amounts of patients’ data from genomics studies revealed the value of good IT, which is an experience I started sharing within the Community Health Centre Ljubljana.
Diverse collaboration is crucial
To leverage the full potential IT has to offer, a healthcare IT system needs to be designed and implemented with a diverse group of experts. It has to include an IT team, which is very open to new ideas, understands the workflows, has a vision and works closely with other professionals that holistically inform the developed e-solutions.
The team at Iryo has all the indicated characteristics — I am certain Iryo will make an impact in healthcare by truly putting the patients and their experience in the healthcare system to the forefront.
My background:
After a degree in medicinal chemistry, I started my professional path as a clinical chemist at the University Medical Centre Ljubljana. When science opened the door to genetics, it soon became clear that clinical chemistry is not going to be my only passion. I finished a Master’s degree in medical genetics, started working as a molecular geneticist and later obtained a Ph.D. in medical genomics. I am still working as a researcher focusing on the genomics of neurodegenerative diseases.
In the meantime, I finished a residency program in Medical Biochemistry and became a consulting specialist in Medical Biochemistry at the Community Health Centre. To give the IT team the best starting point, the first step must always be their complete understanding of the specifics of the workflows in healthcare and consequently options for their optimisation and standardization. This motivated me to become a certified ISO 9001 surveyor for medical institutions. I saw many different solutions addressing standardization and opportunities for ensuring the best quality of patient care. The obtained knowledge and desire for further improvements in the system led me to become the CEO of the Community Health Centre Ljubljana.
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You can read more about Iryo on the website (www.iryo.io).
