Together, the companies plan to create the digital backbone for a sovereign, interoperable and AI-supported healthcare system. The solutions will combine the expertise of Fresenius, one of the world鈥檚 largest healthcare companies, with future-oriented 麻豆原创 technologies and meet high requirements for data sovereignty, security and regulatory compliance. The plan is to provide an open, integrated and data鈥慸riven digital health ecosystem that enables hospitals and medical facilities worldwide to use AI securely and to handle health data responsibly.

Digital sovereignty for healthcare

麻豆原创 and Fresenius plan to jointly build an individual, scalable healthcare platform that enables connected, data-driven healthcare processes. Based on this, the companies will develop joint, future-oriented and AI-supported healthcare solutions to sustainably increase quality, transparency and efficiency across the entire care chain and set new standards for digital innovation in the healthcare sector. The foundation will be proven 麻豆原创 technologies and products such as 麻豆原创 Business Suite, 麻豆原创 Business Data Cloud (麻豆原创 BDC), 麻豆原创 Business Technology Platform (麻豆原创 BTP) and 麻豆原创 Business AI. These core elements help create a unified, compliant, open and expandable base for the more-secure exchange and use of data as well as for operating AI models in a controlled environment.

Together, the companies also plan to build a sovereign, European solution for an integrated healthcare ecosystem that supports the integration of modern hospital information systems (HIS) based on 麻豆原创鈥檚 鈥淎nyEMR鈥� strategy. Interfaces based on open industry standards such as HL7 FHIR will enable the more-seamless connection of HIS, electronic medical records (EMRs) and other medical applications.

鈥淲ith 麻豆原创鈥檚 leading technology and Fresenius鈥� deep healthcare expertise, we aim to create a sovereign, interoperable healthcare platform for Fresenius worldwide. Together, we want to set new standards for data sovereignty, security and innovation in healthcare. Thanks to 麻豆原创, Fresenius can harness the full potential of digital and AI-supported processes and sustainably improve patient care,鈥� says Christian Klein, CEO and Member of the Executive Board of 麻豆原创 SE.

鈥淭ogether with 麻豆原创, we can accelerate the digital transformation of the German and European healthcare systems and enable a sovereign European solution that is so important in today鈥檚 global landscape. We are making data and AI everyday companions that are secure, simple and scalable for doctors and hospital teams. This creates more room for what truly matters: caring for patients,鈥� adds Michael Sen, CEO of Fresenius.

As part of the joint transformation project, both companies plan to invest a mid three-digit million euro amount in the medium term to consistently drive the digital transformation of the German and European healthcare system through the use of digital and AI-supported solutions.

The partnership is implemented through various forms of collaboration. These include joint investments in startups and scaleups, joint technological developments and close cooperation within coordinated governance structures between the two companies.

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Media contact:
Dana Roesiger, +49 62277 7 63900, dana.roesiger@sap.com, CET
麻豆原创 麻豆原创 Room; press@sap.com

This document contains forward-looking statements, which are predictions, projections, or other statements about future events. These statements are based on current expectations, forecasts, and assumptions that are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results and outcomes to materially differ.聽 Additional information regarding these risks and uncertainties may be found in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including but not limited to the risk factors section of 麻豆原创鈥檚 2024 Annual Report on Form 20-F.
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麻豆原创 and other 麻豆原创 products and services mentioned herein as well as their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of 麻豆原创 SE in Germany and other countries. Please see for additional trademark information and notices.

With sales to 86 countries, 450 employees from more than 30 nationalities, and production of vital vaccines against diseases such as diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, tuberculosis, and bladder cancer, AJ Vaccines is a significant player in global vaccine preparedness.

Since the Statens Serum Institut (SSI) sold its vaccine production in 2017 and it was taken over by AJ Vaccines, the organization has transitioned from a public entity to a private pharmaceutical company based in Copenhagen.

From legacy to cloud and compliance

After the divestment from SSI, AJ Vaccines inherited an 麻豆原创 system from the late 1990s, which was designed more for a public health organization than a pharmaceutical company.

鈥淲e were left with an outdated system that didn鈥檛 really fit our needs as a private player in a global market,鈥� Michael Kvistholm, head of IT at AJ Vaccines, said. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 why we decided to go all-in on a cloud solution with 麻豆原创 S/4HANA Cloud. We carried out a pure standard implementation from scratch (greenfield) in a RISE with 麻豆原创 setup and now have a modern, flexible, and scalable cloud ERP platform that supports our entire business.鈥�

The decision was made to ensure a platform that matches the company鈥檚 needs and future growth.

鈥淲e have reduced our technological debt and consolidated our systems, gaining a more intuitive and user-friendly platform so we can work more efficiently and securely鈥攚hile also meeting the high standards for quality, traceability, and documentation required in our industry,鈥� he explained.

Everyday examples: efficiency and user-friendliness

Since implementing in October 2025, AJ Vaccines has gained a unified platform that creates new opportunities to optimize and integrate processes across the company. The solution provides a solid foundation for better data quality and workflows, enabling improved management, increased transparency, and more effective decision-making.

The IT department has gained an overview and reduced complexity with 麻豆原创 LeanIX, a tool for mapping and managing the company鈥檚 entire application landscape and ensuring governance across both 麻豆原创 and non-麻豆原创 solutions. 麻豆原创 Cloud ALM is used for project management and lifecycle management, so releases, testing, and documentation are handled efficiently, and compliance is always top-notch.

During the implementation, AJ Vaccines used 麻豆原创 Signavio and based its approach on 麻豆原创 standard processes, which brought several advantages.

鈥淲e鈥檝e saved a lot of hours by using standard test cases from 麻豆原创 Signavio, which is our platform for process mapping, modelling, and optimization,鈥� said Kvistholm. “We鈥檒l also use these tools for other projects across the company.”

At the same time, 麻豆原创 Enable Now鈥攆or change management and end-user training鈥攈as made learning for existing staff and onboarding new employees easier.

鈥淲e鈥檝e created over 100 training videos so all employees can quickly find answers and learn new workflows鈥攊t鈥檚 been a huge success,鈥� Kvistholm confirmed.

Kvistholm also looks forward to early 2026, when the recruitment process will be digitized with 麻豆原创 SuccessFactors. Finally, he and his team will carefully consider the new opportunities created by 麻豆原创 Business Technology Platform. The platform enables rapid development and integration of new solutions and apps, allowing IT to support business needs flexibly, and, among other things, consolidate other platforms: 鈥淭丑别re鈥檚 really no reason to pay double,鈥� as Kvistholm put it.

Change management and the foundation for the future

AJ Vaccines is focused on formalizing its superuser organization and strengthening governance around master data.

鈥淲e need to clean everything up and keep things in order,鈥� Kvistholm said. 鈥溌槎乖� has become the foundation for our continued digitalization. From now on, it鈥檚 about seeing how we can get 麻豆原创 spread even more out throughout the company.鈥�

Advice for other companies

Kvistholm emphasized the importance of management support and a narrow scope: 鈥淚t鈥檚 about staying focused and achieving a fundamental implementation鈥攁nd then continuously carrying out smaller improvement projects. That is and will be the key to our success.鈥�

Ellen Vig Nelausen is an integrated communications expert for 麻豆原创 Regional Communications.

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Raumedic has big plans for its global network of production facilities, including a rollout of 麻豆原创 Digital Manufacturing to all of its plants worldwide by 2028.

鈥淭ry out new innovative software and implement them quickly,鈥� Raumedic鈥檚 Christian Vogler shared. 鈥淪o, if they fail, they should fail fast; and if they succeed, they can benefit from them for a longer time.鈥� For the German medical product manufacturer, technology is a key factor in reducing daily workloads, which frees time for more important tasks. Learn more.

Based in Germany, Raumedic designs, develops, and produces polymer- and silicone-based solutions for customer-specific medical and pharmaceutical applications, as well as products for intensive care. It offers a variety of products ranging from a single medicine tube to more complex systems such as kits for liver transplants or infusions. This diversity brings about very complex production and assembly processes. The company has over 70 years of experience in the industry; its more than 1,300 employees work in five locations in Europe and the U.S.

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Making the Shop Floor More Efficient

A manufacturing execution system (MES) is a comprehensive, dynamic software system that monitors, tracks, documents, and controls the process of manufacturing goods from raw materials to finished products. Providing a functional layer between enterprise resource planning (ERP) and process control systems, an MES gives decision-makers the data they need to optimize production and make manufacturing plants more efficient. This is especially relevant in the highly regulated market Raumedic operates in.

The company’s MES strategy stagnated due to the old MES reaching the end of its life cycle. 鈥淲e could not plan any further rollouts in our plants in the U.S. and Estonia. We had no support to get new change requests for innovation in our system, no usability improvements, and finally no AI scenarios could be implemented,鈥� Vogler said.

Avoiding Wrong Decisions

When evaluating and choosing the right software partner for its new MES, Raumedic needed to avoid the wrong decisions of the past, Vogler explained. 鈥淲e wanted a strong provider with a future-proof solution and an excellent partner network in the background,鈥� he said. The company鈥檚 vision was to set up a basis with its new MES solution and develop it toward a digital production platform. For its five production plants, it was also important to work with a global template approach.

Raumedic鈥檚 project team opted to rigorously test the cloud-based 麻豆原创 Digital Manufacturing solution and, in March 2023, started the proof-of-concept phase. The team began with a small, discrete industry and assembly scope for the pilot plant in Germany and planned to use this blueprint as an accelerator for the worldwide rollouts and implementations.

The employees in the pilot plant were very motivated because the new solution could not only relieve them of time-consuming routine tasks, but also help ensure compliance both now and in the future. With their previous system, employees still had to document on paper every quality management and GxP compliance process 鈥� GxP refers to the many “good practice” guidelines and regulations that apply to organizations that manufacture products consumed or used by humans or animals. The new 麻豆原创 system could handle all this digitally, saving time and increasing compliance. In Raumedic鈥檚 regulated market environment, regulatory compliance is a strategic advantage that enhances market access, builds trust, mitigates risks, and attracts investment.

Concept for Long-Term Success

After rigorous testing, the team concluded that the solution was ready for the company鈥檚 complex production processes. 鈥淲e collected over 300 requirements and evaluated them for possible usage in 2024,鈥� Vogler said. 鈥淚 am very proud that we implemented 75 requirements into a demo landscape.鈥� He said that the team carried out the end-to-end manufacturing execution process with an integration of one use case from the shop floor. They got the confirmation for the production planning with all relevant production values back to the system. 鈥淭丑别 result was very convincing, and so at the end of last year our top management confirmed 麻豆原创 Digital Manufacturing as our new MES solution.鈥�

As a next step, a global template will be set up and implemented in a process-oriented manner via 麻豆原创 ERP Central Component (麻豆原创 ECC). The go-live is planned for Q1 2025. In parallel, 麻豆原创 ECC will be transformed to 麻豆原创 S/4HANA by 2026, using the Cloud Integration capability within 麻豆原创 Integration Suite, and rolled out to the other plants.

鈥溌槎乖� Digital Manufacturing is our central, future-proof, state-of-the-art MES solution. It forms the basis for securing Raumedic鈥檚 strategic goals in the production environment and adds value to all our business processes,鈥� Vogler concluded.

To ensure that patients globally receive required medications and treatment on time, the management of manufacturing and distribution must be ultra-efficient, agile, and responsive.

With patient safety on the line and high-quality expectations, there is no room for error. 

One company that has mastered this balancing act is Ireland-based , a high-growth, diversified healthcare services company that provides distribution services for pharmaceutical products. The company works closely with manufacturers to offer third-party logistics (3PL) and fourth-party logistics (4PL) services to remain true to its mission of securing patient access to pharmaceutical products.

In the last decade, UniPhar has witnessed unprecedented growth and today delivers pharmaceutical products to more than 160 countries.

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麻豆原创 and UniPhar: A 15-Year Partnership

UniPhar has grown organically and through acquisitions, and during this time its 麻豆原创 enterprise resource planning (ERP) landscape had become highly customized.

Two years ago, UniPhar鈥檚 board gave its Chief Enterprise Architect Piotr Wojdowski a mandate 鈥渢o rework the company鈥檚 digital core鈥� and deliver a digital transformation to unlock future growth while still safeguarding the highest of standards in the manufacturing and distribution chain.

In the quest to find a software partner for its digital transformation, Wojdowski says UniPhar needed 鈥渁 partner and a software that is reliable and best in class鈥� to strengthen and future-proof the company鈥檚 ability to deliver on its mission of securing patient access to pharmaceutical products.

Wojdowski explains that there is an element of social responsibility to UniPhar鈥檚 mission. The patient requiring the pharmaceutical products or services 鈥渃ould be somebody鈥檚 relatives, it could be somebody鈥檚 mother, or it could be somebody鈥檚 son,鈥� making it even more important that the selected digital transformation software and partner was not only best in class but also reliable and trustworthy. 

鈥淣ot only had 麻豆原创 proved itself to be a trusted and reliable partner for UniPhar for 15 years,鈥� Wojdowski explains, but 麻豆原创 鈥渋s a standard in the health services sector, making integration of other services easier.鈥�

麻豆原创 Advances UniPhar鈥檚 Technology and Talent

UniPhar’s goals are to grow horizontally, expand, and scale on demand. , , and play a pivotal part by, on the one hand, standardizing IT processes across the group and, on the other, managing distribution and inventories across different warehouses with 麻豆原创 EWM state-of-the-art warehouse management software, while using 麻豆原创 Datasphere for data management.

In a nutshell, says Wojdowski, 鈥渢he 麻豆原创 technology stack allows us to effectively advance our program quickly,鈥� using to build applications and extend 麻豆原创 solutions. 麻豆原创 Business Technology Platform (麻豆原创 BTP) acts as an accelerator to move to 麻豆原创 S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition, helping UniPhar transform with confidence and speed using proven migration tools and enabling integration across applications.

麻豆原创, and especially 麻豆原创 BTP, is not only a technology enabler but also allows UniPhar 鈥渢o innovate and attract the top talent as an organization because people want to come to work in an environment that is innovative, that allows you to try things, and that allows you to experiment,鈥� Wojdowski says.

Laying Foundations with 麻豆原创 Today for Tomorrow鈥檚 AI

UniPhar is currently in the implementation process and Wojdowski has a keen eye on the future, noting that 鈥渆venting, observability, and telemetry鈥� will form the basis of future artificial intelligence (AI) enhancements.

Data is critical in the pharmaceutical industry, he explains, and UniPhar 鈥渉as terabytes and terabytes of data that we are not physically able to analyze because it’s complex and massive.鈥� The plan is to migrate the data to a central repository and in the future 鈥減lug into an AI system to track patterns, track customer behaviors, track market trends, and react accordingly.鈥�

Make a Challenge a Proof-of-Concept

麻豆原创 solutions are enabling UniPhar to innovate and step into the future on its own terms, with standardized processes, best practices, and foundations for AI technology that can scale and strengthen UniPhar鈥檚 mission to improve patient access to pharmaceutical services and products across the globe.

Wojdowski says 麻豆原创 seems to have a solution for every business requirement, but even though 鈥測ou may have to customize and change things that 麻豆原创 provides out of the box, at the end of the day it’s a full enterprise suite and you can run 麻豆原创 end-to-end if you wish.鈥�

And Wojdowski鈥檚 advice for other companies planning a digital transformation? Challenges can become proofs of concept 鈥� there is no need to accept that something cannot be done. 鈥淏e brave, be daring, and ask questions. Challenge your partners and challenge yourself,鈥� he concludes.

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Uniphar is a leading healthcare and pharmaceutical services company based in Ireland. Piotr Wojdowski, chief enterprise architect at Uniphar Group, shares how 麻豆原创 cloud technology allows the company to innovate, attract top talent, and reduce complexity. Learn more.

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India consistently has the highest number of premature births.

This keeps doctors busy looking for a larger number of health issues, including Retinopathy of Prematurity (ROP). ROP is 鈥渢he leading cause of infant blindness in the world. But more importantly, it鈥檚 the leading cause of preventable blindness in the world,鈥� Dr. Anand Vinekar says during an interview with 麻豆原创.

Along with 麻豆原创 and CleaVision, Dr. Vinekar鈥檚 Narayana Nethralaya Eye Institute in Bangalore collaborated on an AI program to automate the prescreening of ROP in premature infants. That means more infants can be scanned in a shorter amount of time, helping stop ROP before the infants become irreversibly blind.

Learn more about how AI and cloud technology can help prevent infant blindness.

ROP is a disease that affects premature babies and impacts India significantly, since the country has more than born premature every year, the highest number in the world. 鈥淎bout 25% to 40% of these babies have a risk of developing ROP,鈥� says Dr. Anand Vinekar, head of the Department of Pediatric Retina at in Bangalore and the founder of , a program working to address the problem of ROP in rural India.

Blindness from ROP is largely preventable if identified and treated within the first weeks of birth. But while the screening itself is not difficult for a trained provider, the challenge of detecting ROP in millions of premature babies is profound. Each preterm infant must be screened multiple times during the critical period, equating to upwards of 20 million exams per year if every preterm baby is screened, Dr. Vinekar says.

The vast distances that many families in India live from hospitals, combined with a critical shortage of specialized doctors, make this a nearly impossible task using current methods. However, KIDROP, CleaVision, and 麻豆原创 are using AI to help bridge this gap and offer a lifeline to infants like Hanvith C.

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Hanvith C鈥檚 parents faced the fear that haunts many new parents in India. 鈥淢y father was blind,鈥� his mother shares, voicing a worry rooted in personal history. The prospect of her newborn inheriting blindness was a terrifying thought that led the parents to seek help 鈥� a decision that would alter the course of their child鈥檚 life.

Hanvith C鈥檚 father recounts their fortunate encounter with a KIDROP team at their local hospital. Thanks to this vital outreach effort bringing sophisticated medical screening to India鈥檚 rural communities, Hanvith C was diagnosed with ROP symptoms. But with successful follow-up treatment in Bangalore, his story became one of hope rather than despair.

The KIDROP program is now working to bring these life-changing diagnostic abilities to more underserved areas by training non-physicians to use field imaging cameras to take digital images of babies鈥� eyes. But the resultant thousands of retinal scans that need to be reviewed for signs of ROP creates additional challenges. 鈥淣ow you have plenty of images and no one to read them,鈥� says Dr. Vinekar, explaining the bottleneck in the diagnostic and treatment process.

This is where CleaVision鈥檚 solution, supported by technology 鈥� including (麻豆原创 BTP) and the solution 鈥� becomes a game changer. The eye images are uploaded to CleaVision, which automates the identification of retina and blood vessel features and makes a recommendation on whether ROP is present in premature babies. The system then allows doctors to quickly identify and prioritize at-risk children.

鈥淲e are not going to base our entire decision and management on what [the AI] says,鈥� Dr. Vinekar clarifies. 鈥淏ut it鈥檒l help us to triage these images.鈥� This reflects a balanced approach towards leveraging technology while maintaining the primacy of human judgment in critical healthcare decisions.

The impact of AI from 麻豆原创 and CleaVision is not just on the technological and medical fronts; it鈥檚 profoundly personal and life-changing. Hanvith C鈥檚 parents emphasize the importance of awareness and early intervention and hope other families benefit from this technology.

Their dreams for Hanvith C鈥檚 future are simple yet profound. 鈥淲e want him to become a doctor, do good, and help other people when he grows up,鈥� his mother says. 鈥淛ust like they helped us at the very beginning of his life.鈥�

With the integration of cutting-edge technologies, organizations can leverage data-driven insights to make informed decisions, accelerate time-to-market for new treatments, and ultimately improve patient care. Life sciences and healthcare companies are at the forefront of innovation and competitive advantage by embracing changing industry trends and harnessing technology’s power.

The 麻豆原创 Industry Heroes program was launched in 2023 to celebrate companies that leverage technology to transform their business in innovative ways. Healthcare and life sciences heroes have harnessed the power of technology to transform the traditional patient paradigm into an adaptive, customer-centric frontier.

Astellas

Astellas Pharma Inc. is a leading pharmaceutical company dedicated to advancing healthcare through innovative therapies and cutting-edge research. Focusing on addressing unmet medical needs, Astellas develops and markets a wide range of healthcare solutions across various therapeutic areas, striving to improve the health and well-being of patients globally. With RISE with 麻豆原创 and 麻豆原创 SuccessFactors solutions, Astellas is building an internal environment that will leverage globally integrated data to unlock the organization’s full potential.

DXC Technology

DXC Technology is a global IT services and solutions company known for its expertise in digital transformation, enterprise applications, cloud computing, and cybersecurity. With a focus on enabling clients to thrive in the digital era, DXC offers a wide range of technology and advisory services tailored to meet the diverse needs of businesses across industries. A mobile app built on the 麻豆原创 Business Technology Platform (麻豆原创 BTP) and 麻豆原创 Business AI is enabling individuals with Parkinson’s disease to keep clinicians informed about their symptoms, accompanied by a clinician dashboard 鈥� and generative AI query extensions are also in development. The innovative solution aims to improve the quality of life for these patients and their caregivers and marks a huge step forward in using AI to support clinical decisions.

Gilead Sciences

Gilead Sciences, Inc. is a biopharmaceutical company that has pursued and achieved breakthroughs in medicine for more than three decades, with the goal of creating a healthier world for all people. The company is committed to advancing innovative medicines to prevent and treat life-threatening diseases, including HIV, viral hepatitis, COVID-19, and cancer. Gilead operates in more than 35 countries worldwide, with headquarters in Foster City, California.

Gilead鈥檚 digital transformation journey includes a bold migration to 麻豆原创 S/4HANA with segmentation and 麻豆原创 Ariba and continues to expand its reach with 麻豆原创 BTP and cutting-edge solutions such as 麻豆原创 Intelligent Clinical Supply Management, 麻豆原创 Cell and Gene Therapy Orchestration, and 麻豆原创 Batch Release Hub for Life Sciences.

Most notably, Gilead and 麻豆原创 are co-innovating on 麻豆原创 Batch Release Hub for Life Sciences. This groundbreaking add-on will support continued compliance with regulatory standards across regions and jurisdictions with emphasis on highest quality and safety standards for Gilead’s products, further safeguarding patient wellbeing across the globe. Integrating 麻豆原创 Ariba solutions, including 麻豆原创 Business Network, Gilead aims to create a globally interconnected platform, enhancing collaboration between suppliers and buyers while optimizing its global procurement operations.

Additionally, 麻豆原创 and Gilead are collaborating on co-innovating jurisdiction control checks using 麻豆原创 Batch Release Hub for Life Sciences. The add-on will perform control checks on manufactured batches of pharmaceutical products, helping life science organizations to maintain compliance with regulatory standards across multiple regions and jurisdictions. This safeguard checklist will further support the quality and safety of products.

麻豆原创 celebrates these organizations’ outstanding efforts, collaboration, and dedication to driving successful business outcomes with technology. The innovations streamline research processes, enhance efficiency, and improve patient care, ultimately revolutionizing how healthcare and life sciences companies operate.

麻豆原创 Innovation Days for Life Sciences & Healthcare are taking place in Palo Alto, California, from April 24- 25, 2024, and Newton Square, Pennsylvania, from April 29-30, 2024, celebrating industry heroes and bringing attendees together to discuss leveraging technology to drive business outcomes. Get more information on the events .

These government funds are typically managed by a traditional provider who establishes a plan within the customer鈥檚 budget and assigns caregivers. They offer limited to no choice regarding providers and little transparency on how the funds are being spent. This inefficient and costly approach reduces available funds for actual care with limited and often unfamiliar providers.

Enter HomeMade, a startup looking to disrupt the home care sector with a transformative solution that would empower customers to not only stay in their own homes but also to oversee their spending and self-select their providers. With an initial staff of only six, HomeMade set out to create a technology platform that would deliver efficiency, flexibility, transparency, and ease of use for customers and a scalable model that would grow and evolve with the company.

A Rock-Solid Technology Foundation for a Digitally Native Startup

Technology is at the heart of HomeMade鈥檚 business model, so choosing the right technology partner and the right digital platform was essential. 鈥淲e wanted a solution that would give us that ability to scale rapidly and with confidence knowing that the rails weren’t going to fall off, because to be digitally enabled is what makes us different,鈥� , HomeMade general manager, said.

HomeMade found the perfect partner in Bourne Digital, part of Accenture, which steered the startup to (麻豆原创 BTP). In choosing the platform, HomeMade benefits from a locally hosted, high-performance cloud architecture that can scale across its network. As a React Native open-source Cloud Foundry runtime service, the HomeMade application is intuitive, user-friendly, and easy for the company to maintain and support long term. Add 麻豆原创 Integration Suite and 麻豆原创 HANA data storage into the mix and HomeMade emerged with a secure, integrated, and scalable technology foundation to offer efficient care and support to Australia鈥檚 at-home care population.

Young Company Makes an Outsize Impact

In just two years, HomeMade has grown its business to 2,500 customers and reduced new user onboarding time from 14 days to 48 hours. The company has empowered qualifying citizens to manage their budgets and choose their care while saving 14 million Australian dollars and counting.

Customers and families rave about the solution’s functionality and ease of use. HomeMade鈥檚 team members, who have grown to over 100, can happily focus on the customer instead of the endless paperwork they might find in traditional care management. Service providers appreciate timely payment, and another critical stakeholder 鈥� the Australian government 鈥� conducted a regulatory compliance audit and found that HomeMade scored 100% across 42 requirements for the Age Care Quality Safety Standards.

And this is only the beginning for a new company already making an appreciable impact. 鈥淎s the needs of HomeMade grow and evolve, the platform will grow and evolve with HomeMade,鈥� , managing director of Bourne Digital, part of Accenture, explained. For example, Ahmed continued, 鈥淲e leverage AI business services to read documents…and we’re feeling really confident that those AI services will continue to play a part in the future evolution of HomeMade as the company moves more and more towards automation and self-service.鈥�

Adding Value Through Innovation

An 麻豆原创 Innovation Award winner in 2023, HomeMade continues to grow and think creatively about how its foundational 麻豆原创 BTP-based technology can enable it to continue to innovate and add value for customers. 鈥淭丑别re are endless opportunities,鈥� Westhorpe said, from increasing efficiency to leveraging data to identify falls or other incidents to using large language models to recognize clinical deterioration in users and launch preventative interventions.

For other startups looking to build technology solutions that will make a dramatic impact, Westhorpe offered to consider, “You want to build everything and you’ve got all these grand ideas, but what are the biggest things that will add value for customers?鈥� Ahmed adds that resilience, a strong partnership, and hard work are critical: 鈥淎dapt, learn, grow together, and accept feedback鈥o build something innovative, you must be prepared to roll up your sleeves.鈥�

The Full Episode

Special thanks to , a hub for fostering human-centered innovation, for collaborating on this on 麻豆原创 Business Technology Platform episode. Learn more about how HomeMade built a better solution for qualifying citizens:

• Thought leadership podcast: Thulium’s CEO sat down with Westhorpe and Ahmed to discuss the change in caring for older adults, home-based care, and how technology can deliver on a promise dedicated to purpose.
• Practitioners鈥� video: Westhorpe, Ahmed, and I discussed the challenges and opportunities in creating a world-class digital solution for a small but rapidly scaling startup.

Explore more success stories of customers leveraging 麻豆原创 BTP to help optimize processes for the sake of people and purpose:

• : This nonprofit provider of wide-ranging social services chose聽麻豆原创 BTP聽and 麻豆原创 HANA Cloud to enable extensive solution integrations, helping deliver better data connectivity and operational efficiency.
• : Administratively supporting over 1,700 dental practices, Heartland Dental leverages 麻豆原创 BTP to help improve the business assistant’s user experience, increase productivity, and reduce turnover.

For the full episode and the on-demand Better Together: Customer Conversations series, visit .

Timo Elliott is vice president and a global innovation advocate for 麻豆原创 BTP.

And so begins a new day of service for Ana Khouri, manager for Partner Delivery Management of 麻豆原创 SuccessFactors solutions. Khouri was a member of the 2023 expedition of (Doctors of the Waters), a non-governmental organization (NGO) in Brazil that provides medical and dental care, alongside essential socioenvironmental education, to the isolated communities of the Amazon River Basin. 鈥淲e had such a welcome,鈥� Khouri says, reflecting on her experiences in the villages the expedition visited along the Acari and Canum茫 rivers from July 31 to August 12. 鈥淲e arrived there at night. The boat had not yet docked and everything was dark, and then all these kids were already at the edge waiting for the boat. They were screaming and cheering. It made me kind of emotional.鈥澛�

Healthcare for Isolated Communities

For these communities, the annual visit of Doutores das 脕guas, now in its twelfth year, is often the only occasion people are able to see a doctor. Their villages are so remote that they would otherwise need to travel many days by boat just to reach the nearest health center. Many have been looking forward to the NGO鈥檚 visit. Beforehand, families receive a password to access the services onboard the boat, which include health checks, vaccinations, vital medicines, dental care, and new dentures.

Doutores das 脕guas sends one expedition per year into the Amazon, divided into two successive stages with each taking either a northern or southern route. Khouri鈥檚 expedition traveled south, navigating the Acari and Canum茫 rivers for 12 days to deliver services to six villages. The boat, 21 meters long and seven meters wide, has sleeping berths for 32 team members plus 12 crew members. It travels at an average speed of 15 kilometer per hour, powered by a 300 HP propulsion engine and has capacity to carry 13,000 liters of fuel, enough to last an entire month. Two generators are also onboard. Built specially for Doutores das 脕guas, it is equipped with modern medical equipment, including an ultrasound machine, four dental chairs and a dental lab, and a portable wash basin for lessons on teeth brushing. It carries enough stockpiles of vaccines and medicines to support communities for one year, until the boat鈥檚 next visit.

In 2023, the expedition provided services to 36 communities in 23 days to deliver 2,081 medical treatments or vaccines and perform 1,890 dental treatments and 62 micro-surgeries. And the onboard dental lab produced 265 dental prostheses or dentures, giving many people their smiles back.

Hidden Skill Set Reveals Passion for Healthcare

In the Amazon, even winters are intense, as daily temperatures reach 37 degrees Celsius with high humidity and frequent rain. The shrill buzz of mosquitos is ever present. Creatures of the rainforest move about invisibly, eager for a free pantleg or untucked shirt to crawl into.

For Khouri, who joined 麻豆原创 in 1999, life on the hospital boat is a long distance from her workspace at 麻豆原创 Brazil in Rio de Janeiro, where she ensures that partners have the enablement tools and support that they need to deliver successfully to customers. Her energetic, affable interpersonal skills and tenacity for problem-solving 鈥� the same qualities that help her succeed in her work at 麻豆原创 鈥� enable her to thrive in dynamic environments. 

But there is another side to Khouri that few colleagues know about. She has a background in nutrition with a master鈥檚 degree from Michigan State University. This hidden skill set, which is an integral part of Khouri鈥檚 whole self, qualified her to join the expedition as a socioenvironmental and nutritional health expert. 鈥淚 always liked the healthcare field,鈥� she says. 鈥淪o, to be there and to be able to provide this benefit to these people and to be part of the team, that鈥檚 my motivation. We are giving the people healthcare.鈥�

Learning by Doing for Health and Hygiene

In the early morning, villagers gather to listen to the doctor, dentist, and the socioenvironmental and nutrition team, who discuss the importance of nutrition and hygiene for long-term health. Afterwards, the adults go to the line to be called in for treatment. 鈥淲e stay with the kids and teenagers. We play games about food, nutrition, garbage disposal, and recycling,鈥� Khouri says. This year, 750 children received instruction in socioenvironmental and nutritional activities.

One game is a competition to see which team can collect the most garbage in a big bag. 鈥淭丑别 kids are all running, and we run after them, in this intensive heat,鈥� Khouri says. A prize is awarded for the most garbage collected. There are lots of batteries and plastic drink bottles. 鈥淭his is one exercise we do to tell them they shouldn鈥檛 just throw things on the ground because it鈥檚 going to be washed away to the river.鈥�

Twice a day, the children receive instruction on how to brush their teeth. They each receive a dental examination aboard the hospital boat. 鈥淲e teach them with games and music how to brush their teeth,鈥� Khouri says. 鈥淚n the boat, we bring a huge sink with eight places so we can have eight kids at once and we give them a small toothbrush and toothpaste.鈥�

Children who have no cavities at their annual dental checkup receive a badge. In communities where the boat has visited previously, the number of children with no cavities is increasing 鈥� evidence of the NGO鈥檚 impact on healthcare in the region. 鈥淲e have lots of little kids, 5 years old or 6 to 7. They have the badge 鈥榋ero Cavities,鈥欌�� Khouri says. 鈥淲e also teach them how to wash their hands and to always wash their hands before they eat.鈥�

鈥淭丑别 kids somehow get attached to you,鈥� Khouri says. 鈥淭丑别y don鈥檛 know you, but then at the end of the day, sometimes you sit quietly somewhere to have a break and they come and hug you. They stay with you. This is something that touched me.鈥�

Tapping Natural Resources to Satisfy Global Markets

People in the communities along the river live simply from the land and the water. They sometimes sell the fruits, cashew nuts, and mandioca (basis of tapioca) that they cultivate. Many have begun to earn money by selling copaiba oil, used in traditional medicines. The oil is extracted using traditional, sustainable methods to tap tree resin. The oil is popular in high-end cosmetics and pharmaceuticals, including sunscreen, because of its anti-inflammatory properties. 鈥淪ome of the communities extract the oil,鈥� Khouri says. 鈥淯nfortunately, they sell it very cheap to the middleman, who sells it to cosmetics companies for a lot of money.鈥�

The NGOs that work in the region, including Doutores das 脕guas, are encouraging the communities to create a cooperative so they can sell copaiba oil directly and receive more money, because the oil 鈥渋s really cheap and it is very 鈥榠n鈥� at the moment,鈥� Khouri explains.

One Boat Is Not Enough

Khouri wants to participate in the next expedition of Doutores das 脕guas, scheduled for April 2024. Also, the communities change over time, as she notes, 鈥淪ome of the communities disappear. They are so small that they migrate.鈥� One community has become more developed since becoming connected to the region鈥檚 main road, making healthcare more accessible to community members.

鈥淲hat I expect for the future of these communities is that they get more access to healthcare, improve hygiene, and take care of the river by adopting the garbage collection practice that we teach them,鈥� says Khouri. 鈥淚 would like people to know that this issue exists and that the need in the Amazon is huge. One boat is not enough.鈥�

Watch on demand.

Top photo courtesy of Ana Khouri

One example is Technologies, Canada鈥檚 leading life sciences research company that sees itself as a company of scientists helping scientists. Based in Vancouver, STEMCELL has a 30-year history of growth in developing and manufacturing products and services that help other industrial and academic scientists innovate in the areas of stem cell, immunology, cancer, regenerative medicine, and cellular therapy research. STEMCELL has staff in 20 countries and sells a constantly expanding portfolio of over 2,500 products, including cell culture media, cell separation technologies, instruments, and accessories, as well as education and services. Reducing the time to market for new products is crucial to the company鈥檚 mission of pursuing life sciences discoveries leading to the next generation of healthcare treatments.

鈥淲e鈥檙e always looking for ways to accelerate time to market for new products and adapt our technology environment to meet the evolving needs of our internal stakeholders and external customers,鈥� said John Lilleyman, CIO at STEMCELL. 鈥淎dvanced discoveries in areas like precision medicine are bringing new hope to patients and their families. At the same time, we have to comply with increasingly stringent global mandates for sustainable packaging and product safety.鈥�

Faster Innovation with 麻豆原创 S/4HANA

Since STEMCELL went live with , the biotech leader has been intent on using the latest innovations from 麻豆原创 to help speed up product testing. Speaking during a session held at this year鈥檚 , Lilleyman shared the company鈥檚 strategy for effective and fully automated software with 麻豆原创.

鈥淲e鈥檙e particularly excited about the cloud-first innovations from , which will help us deliver a more sustainable solution, continuously meet security and compliance requirements, and set us up for success with future upgrades,鈥� he said. 鈥淲ith a new test-automation strategy, we can make sure that testing is an accelerator and not a bottleneck to change.鈥�

Automation Expedites Rigorous Product Testing

STEMCELL doesn鈥檛 create end-user patient therapies. Rather, the company develops the products and solutions that help other life sciences researchers innovate for new therapeutic discoveries. To develop these solutions for other scientists, STEMCELL performs rigorous product quality testing to comply with the and other global regulatory frameworks and guidelines.

Replacing manual testing with a highly automated process has generated significant results for the company. To date, STEMCELL has reduced the time required to complete 麻豆原创 system validation for GxP 鈥済ood practice鈥� guidelines and regulations by 86%, test quote-to-cash scenarios by 97%, and execute a full regression cycle by 98%.

鈥淚nstead of taking the better part of a month or more, most of the testing is now completed in a handful of days or less,鈥� said Lilleyman. 鈥淭his is a tremendous accelerator for our business and our teams. We鈥檒l be able to take advantage of enhancements in 麻豆原创 solutions faster. It will continue to pay dividends every day, week, month, and year as we move forward, expanding our footprint in new product markets and locations.鈥�

Digital Helps Fast-Track Global Expansion

Averaging 20% annual growth, STEMCELL has made digitalization central to its strategy for bringing products to market faster and more sustainably. Lilleyman said that speeding up testing in compliance with global mandates will help the company as it expands worldwide.

鈥淐loud-based automation at all stages of testing helps move us towards continuous compliance in a continuously changing market,鈥� he said. 鈥淎s we continue to expand our inventory for testing, we鈥檒l be able to accelerate upcoming projects as we open up in different environments. We can have a library with a simple checklist to set up a new entity where we can test end-to-end. We can shift the testing burden away from business users to release innovations faster with completed testing.鈥�

He looked ahead to greater benefits from further automation, including on-demand validation reports for updated system testing and quality controls. Speedier testing from STEMCELL is making the lives of researchers easier by accelerating the release of the tools they need to in turn deliver advanced, patient-centric therapeutic discoveries for a healthier world.

Susan Galer is a communications director. Follow me @smgaler.

Its workforce is 7,500 strong, of which more than 800 are field service technicians who are responsible for supporting thousands of customers. The company was challenged by inefficient, manual processes for daily route planning to execute repair and warranty activities at customer sites, as well as a cumbersome coordination process for customer appointments and time slots for repair.

Empowering Technicians in the Field to Deliver Additional Value

Patterson knew it could empower employees to provide better customer service related to on-site visits for equipment repairs and realize significant savings at the same time. To achieve this, Patterson needed new insight to better coordinate these visits and help technicians spend less time on visits and on the road.

Integrated Field Service Management Helps Save Time and Cut Costs

The business case the company built was to:

• Increase revenue per technician (billed hours/day)
• Optimize routing and reduce mileage
• Cut costs for coordinators by more efficient scheduling
• Increase customer experience by improved interaction and scheduling

In 2021, Patterson began to use , a cloud-based solution that helps support the company鈥檚 goal to streamline field service management processes with an integrated solution while easing life for technicians, dispatchers, and coordinators as well as, most importantly, improving customer satisfaction. 麻豆原创 Services and Support was at Patterson鈥檚 side to help implement and integrate the solution with its existing IT landscape.

鈥淓very part of the field service process has improved with 麻豆原创 Field Service Management. Coordinators can connect with our customers quickly, and technicians now show up for customers鈥� appointments faster and better informed,鈥� said Larry Fox, senior director of Technical Service at Patterson Dental.

New Solution Provides Millions of Dollars in Value Every Year

The 麻豆原创 Field Service Management solution helps provide key data for scheduling field service appointments with customers and completing repairs more efficiently. In particular:

• Two to five minutes per job are saved related to the effort required to schedule and manage field service requests per coordinator.
• Thirteen minutes of unbilled travel time is saved per billed hour, freeing up time for Patterson to serve more customers.
• Forty metric tons of carbon emissions are saved per year due to more sustainable routing, 5% less miles traveled per day, and reduced fuel usage.

Thanks to an add-on tool, the company can also leverage real-time and historic data, such as traffic jams, to optimize routing and save time for technicians.

Overall, Patterson was able to cut costs due to improved coordination of customer appointments; increase customer satisfaction thanks to streamlined processes; increase revenue thanks to improved efficiency for technicians, leading to more billable hours; and gain greater insight into the fuel use, travel time, and other costs related to field service.

Watch a and to learn how to maximize productivity and asset uptime with 麻豆原创 Field Service Management. what benefits other enterprises achieved.

Karin Fent is senior director of Global Customer Success Digital Supply Chain at 麻豆原创.

鈥淲e are driven by our mission to make a meaningful difference for people worldwide who are impacted by difficult-to-treat cancers and other serious diseases,鈥� said Chris Astle, chief financial officer at Zymeworks. 鈥淲e chose because it鈥檚 a trusted solution for the biotech and pharmaceutical industries, proven to manage the complexities we face around pricing, manufacturing, supply chain logistics, and more. We鈥檙e building the bedrock for our growth in a dynamic industry with ever-changing market conditions.鈥�

A 2023 , Zymeworks went live with a broad range of solutions through RISE with 麻豆原创. I sat down with Astle during this year鈥檚 , where he filled me in on how 麻豆原创 solutions are essential to the company鈥檚 expansion plans. He told me that Zymeworks expects significant resource savings from replacing manual, multi-step processes with self-service automation, gaining efficiency improvements from 50% up to 90% respectively across operational planning, HR, and invoicing.

Digital Platform Creates Automation Efficiencies

Working on new drug development and clinical trials for oncology treatments, Zymeworks is tackling one of the most challenging healthcare markets given the numerous kinds of cancers, sub-types of cancers, and patient populations. Headquartered in Vancouver, Canada, with operations in the U.S., Zymeworks is expanding to Europe and Asia. Astle was well aware of what the company鈥檚 finance, manufacturing, research and development (R&D), supply chain, procurement, and HR teams are up against as the volume of transactions, currencies, and compliance mandates increase with geographical build-out.

鈥淲e鈥檙e constantly exploring therapeutics for patients where there鈥檚 a high unmet need with few treatment options to date,鈥� said Astle. 鈥淎s we grow, we鈥檒l need to manage greater transactional volume, risk, and complexity. Having end-to-end, integrated data company-wide will automate processes and provide the digital foundation of the company. Once the systems are fully operational and everyone is trained, we expect a significant reduction in time to prepare budgets, close the books, and manage HR onboarding and reporting. This will free people up to focus on more strategic, value-added activities.鈥�

Data Transparency Supports Financial and Healthcare Governance聽

Although currently in the clinical development phase, Zymeworks went live with 麻豆原创 solutions to be better prepared to meet global industry mandates, including external audits as products are launched.

鈥淓mbedding compliance within our processes reduces risk and gives us more flexibility and agility,鈥� said Astle. 鈥淲e interact with healthcare leaders, as well as government policymakers and auditors. With , we can accurately track and report our spend with partners like physicians, grant writers, and advisory boards. are our primary source for travel and expense data, helping monitor compliance with industry regulations.鈥�

Integrated Data Has Company-Wide Business Results

People are at the heart of Zymework鈥檚 innovation and using for the company鈥檚 self-service HR will help bring extended benefits throughout the company.

鈥淲e鈥檝e developed an organizational hierarchy matrix with well-defined roles for promotions and career planning,鈥� said Astle. 鈥淲e鈥檝e set up workflow automation based on someone鈥檚 role, assigning tasks accordingly, whether it involves onboarding new hires, regulatory sign-offs, or purchase order approvals. Automation from integrated data helps people make better decisions faster, increasing efficiencies from standardized processes as we grow.鈥�

Working with 麻豆原创 Bolsters Continuous Journey to Best Practices

Zymework鈥檚 relatively small size compared to industry behemoths in no way detracts from the value of the company鈥檚 relationship with 麻豆原创. In fact, the organization has the best of both worlds 鈥� best practices with less customization.

鈥淚mplementing a tier 1 solution like 麻豆原创 was a big training opportunity for our finance team and the wider organization,鈥� said Astle. 鈥淲e鈥檝e acquired best practices from the largest industry leaders and can go with a more out-of-the-box solution that鈥檚 already standardized and fit for purpose, requiring almost no customization.鈥�

Future-Proofing the Business with Adaptability

Despite the daunting task ahead developing advanced treatments, Zymeworks is well-positioned for growth, committed to ongoing investments for innovation.

鈥淚t鈥檚 strategically important to be diverse to reduce company risk, and we are looking at other therapeutic areas, too. We have some really innovative science and fantastic scientists, and we鈥檙e not afraid of the challenge,鈥� said Astle. 鈥淲ith our move to 麻豆原创, we鈥檝e laid the foundation for the future growth of our company. We can focus on achieving our vision, innovating to bring new medicines to market for patients in need.鈥�

To hear more from customers on their digital transformation journey with 麻豆原创,聽.

Susan Galer is a communications director at 麻豆原创. Follow me @smgaler.

While 麻豆原创 develops its own industry cloud solutions, we rely on our partners鈥� deep domain of expertise to satisfy highly specialized, continually evolving customer needs. Our job boils down to maximizing the value our customers derive from doing business with 麻豆原创 and our many partners. That value now depends on the shared successes that emerge from innovating and collaborating with our 麻豆原创 partner community that increasingly revolves around industry cloud.

Life Sciences Anchors

In life sciences, we aim to harness and industry cloud solutions to bring customers tailored, end-to-end suites built from components cultivated in the industry鈥檚 finest ecosystem. 麻豆原创鈥檚 deep expertise in life sciences has positioned us to deliver anchor solutions in four areas: clinical trials, manufacturing supply chain, batch release, and cell and gene therapy. But we鈥檙e not doing it alone.

We鈥檙e working closely with software and service partners in developing these core solutions and, more importantly, with consortia of customers whose needs, insights, and best practices become embedded in what we believe will become industry-standard products.

Even in areas in which 麻豆原创 develops its own solutions, white spaces remain and those can represent golden opportunities for partners and customers alike. Here are three examples: Raumedic p36鈥檚 UDI platform to ensure compliance with European Medical Device Regulation; Roche worked with Tenthpin and 麻豆原创 to clinical trial supply chain operations; and Klosterfau implemented Gramont鈥檚 Product Information Management to achieve Identification of Medicinal Products () compliance.

While solutions addressing specific industry pain points like these are an industry cloud staple, our partners are delivering value to our customers in other ways, too, as Merck did in BlueBoot accelerators to quickly implement and upgrade its plant maintenance user experience.

continue to proliferate by the day. We are dedicated to offering the best of what 麻豆原创 and its partners can bring to bear for our customers.

Open Healthcare Ecosystem

麻豆原创 is working to build a similar ecosystem for healthcare providers, delivering a modular healthcare system landscape of the future. The focus is to bring new, innovative healthcare business process capabilities in the areas of patient management, accounting, analytics, digital supply chain, and sourcing and procurement. This is a nascent effort, and one that鈥檚 advancing behind the of providing an open ecosystem and then giving partners the opportunity to lead in their areas of expertise.

To achieve this, working with hospital information system (HIS) providers is key. This is to foster integration between HIS and enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions in accordance with healthcare-specific electronic medical record (EMR) regulations. The reality is EMR regulatory requirements and functional demands differ by local market. It just makes sense to give a diversity of EMR and other healthcare solution providers the keys to an open platform 麻豆原创 Business Technology Platform and the healthcare data interoperability standards. This approach helps ensure the needed flexibility to give healthcare providers business process capabilities tailored to their individual and local market needs.

Our healthcare partners have embraced this approach. Several partners already did announcements to leverage this open ecosystem to benefit their 鈥� our 鈥� healthcare customers.

Life sciences and healthcare are very different industries with shared goals: preserving and improving human health. In both industries, our partners are essential to the success of our shared offerings and I鈥檓 thrilled by the enthusiasm I鈥檓 seeing from our partners. There鈥檚 no doubt that the combination of their industry-specific cloud offerings and the robustness and flexibility of 麻豆原创 Business Technology Platform can provide extraordinary value to our life sciences and healthcare customers for many years to come.

Markus von Quast is global head of Life Sciences Ecosystem at 麻豆原创.

As a customer of multiple , Wellstar is familiar with the power of 麻豆原创 and knew it could be getting more out of its 麻豆原创 SuccessFactors Learning solution. Danielle Mecum, manager of Learning Technology at Wellstar, believed that improved governance of the system was part of the road to getting there. 鈥淲hen governance is lacking, the employee experience suffers,鈥� Mecum explained.

With a nursing background, she knew firsthand the need to get new hires trained properly and quickly, and that reducing the time from hire to actual work was key. She added, 鈥淚n addition to our non-clinical employees, our medical employees were taking longer to get to the patient floors to start providing care because of how the required onboarding training was organized and set up. There were inaccurate training assignments, courses not marked as required, and, in some cases, no required-by dates.鈥�

In addition, users said that their learning assignments were too cluttered and disorganized, Mecum explained. And there were instances where new employees would get to a patient floor and realize that they were not able to enter a patient鈥檚 chart, for example, because a course hadn鈥檛 been assigned to them in the correct sequence.

The need to get employees onboarded faster could have been enough to justify the governance project, but to add to the complex nature of the project 鈥� and completely out of Wellstar鈥檚 control 鈥� the organization faced the impending deprecation of Flash content and the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. To help tackle this challenge, Wellstar decided to work with its customer engagement executive to start a solution adoption engagement. This type of engagement is intended to provide recommendations to a customer to help them create an action plan to optimize their use of their system 鈥� in this case . A recommendation came out of this engagement that confirmed the needed for the governance initiative.

Mecum鈥檚 nursing background helped her understand the urgency of the situation. She and her team looked at the issues already discussed and began to build a governance model. For example, they instituted a content life cycle management process that incorporated a formal method for requesting the creation of new items, curricula, and assignment profiles. In addition, they implemented an ongoing review procedure that included automated notifications to course owners to review material that had reached expiration. Additionally, Wellstar leveraged and configured custom fields within 麻豆原创 SuccessFactors Learning to track key data and report on it from within the system to ensure compliance with the new governance process.

Other governance steps included reviewing and consolidating LMS admin roles to ensure the right administrators had the right permissions to perform administrative tasks as appropriate in the system 鈥� without giving them freedom to add to the problem at large. A formal process for vetting new LMS administrators was created to ensure they weren鈥檛 simply giving just anyone these permissions. 鈥淲e knew we needed to define what goes into the system, so we could control what comes out. This helps when we need to get rid of old, outdated courses,鈥� Mecum explained.

These changes, among others, were implemented as part of the governance initiative. The result is that Wellstar is now reaping greater benefits from 麻豆原创 SuccessFactors Learning and, most importantly, employees now have an improved experience with the system. Frustration levels are down and new hires are able to start their actual jobs much sooner than before 鈥� in three days rather than a week and a half!

Mark Tarallo is a solution marketing fellow for 麻豆原创 SuccessFactors.

According to researchers at , precision medicine therapeutics have accounted for 25% to 40% of all FDA approvals in the past seven years. They believe precision medicine has 鈥減roven its worth with mounting evidence of improved patient outcomes in oncology, cardiology, endocrinology, and other disease areas.鈥� From the patient鈥檚 perspective, analysts suggested a digital-first 鈥渉ealth journey鈥� vision that prioritizes digital engagement and the use of digital interactions, products, and services throughout an individual鈥檚 journey through health, wellness, and illness.

Data Makes Life Sciences Supply Chains More Intelligent

Michael Townsend, research director of Life Sciences Commercial Strategies at IDC, saw the industry in the early stages of digitalization, focusing on the value of technology that brings intelligence across life sciences supply chains.

鈥淐ompanies are beginning to make processes more digital, applying intelligence from technologies to make better decisions,鈥� said Townsend. 鈥淔or instance, there鈥檚 significant investment in supply chain solutions like digital twins, where you construct a digital model to experiment with what-if scenarios in performance at various points along the chain such as assembly, shipment, or geography. You can stress test alternate choices without actually having to make any changes.鈥�

Townsend said that segmentation was another intelligent node across supply chains, allowing companies to identify and store medicines and packaging based on country-specific regulations, improving lead times, reducing unused inventory, and simplifying shipping. Some organizations are also using control towers to track demand patterns against materials and component availability, avoiding overstocks and shortages. For example, if COVID-19 cases rise in a certain region, a vaccine manufacturer can act faster to stock up and start shipping prevention and treatment products to that location. Connecting data across supply chains for quick response times applies to any unexpected disruption, including natural disasters and political conflicts.

Ecosystems Surface Expert Wisdom

Mandar Paralkar, head of Life Sciences Industry at 麻豆原创, agreed that organizations are moving from historical emphasis on addressing disease with bulk manufacturing of medications to personalized therapies that improve individual patient outcomes and involve more ecosystem collaboration. In an industry with longer product development cycles, he said that collaborative consortiums like are a way to share intelligence for expedited success.

鈥淲hether startups or established leaders, life sciences companies are using technology to improve patient outcomes and company profitability while reducing costs and risk,鈥� said Paralkar. 鈥淭丑别y鈥檝e realized the imperative to compete as an ecosystem across connected digital supply chains and smart factories. One example of this is 麻豆原创 Intelligent Clinical Supply Management, a solution we innovated with a consortium of customers and partners. This collaborative effort exemplifies how innovation in the cloud can potentially help life sciences organizations create, manufacture, and deliver effective solutions faster, allowing the partner ecosystem to compliment value-added services.鈥�

Cloud-Based Technology Disrupts Life Sciences

The pandemic has irrevocably disrupted life sciences, revealing a new vision for innovation from cloud-based collaboration. Almost overnight, companies invested in technology to work from home, and that bled over into new ways of thinking about the use of technology in areas like process automation and decentralized clinical trials, along with working together in trusted relationships.

鈥淐ollaboration hubs where multiple, trusted entities can exchange information, collaborating to learn from each other and solve problems is part of the life sciences vision,鈥� said Townsend. 鈥淓xperts involved with clinical supply chains and other aspects of life sciences are motivated to streamline processes, make suggestions to software providers, and share information between systems. Cloud-based software is critical. If you鈥檙e on subscription-based software, updates are almost in real time and it鈥檚 much easier to collaborate and access different sources of data when it鈥檚 available in the cloud.鈥�

Achieving a Healthier and Profitable Vision

As costs and regulatory pressures rise and educated patients clamor for personalized treatment, digital innovations will inexorably alter the life sciences landscape. Within a few years, researchers predicted 75% of trials will be “patient-centric” decentralized clinical trials, 90% will be hybrid, and at least 10% will be virtual, driven by a 30% growth in connected health technologies.鈥� They said that by 2025 the market for prescription digital therapeutics will more than triple, focusing on mental health and chronic conditions, blurring the boundaries between healthcare and life sciences. It鈥檚 no wonder that analysts advised life sciences manufacturers to prioritize 鈥渃linical solutions that include interoperability as a core feature, including easier connectivity of content and data between clinical sites, sponsors, clinical research organizations, and other ecosystem participants.鈥� Trusted intelligent data is the must-have for a healthier future.

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These were among the innovations that Michael Schmidt, cofounder and executive board member of , shared when he spoke at a recent 麻豆原创-sponsored event with customers and other partners about the transformational opportunities facing the life sciences industry.

鈥淢oving manufacturing to the point-of-care will disrupt the traditional pharmaceutical supply chain with the patient on the first floor and the manufacturing facility in the basement,鈥� said Schmidt. 鈥淲ith production downstairs, you鈥檝e reduced your physical supply chain to an elevator, limiting costly risks from transportation delays or patient no-shows and disrupting packaging norms. Self-contained production facilities for vaccines are another innovation, supporting the fundamental right to people鈥檚 health in developing countries.鈥�

Headquartered in Switzerland, Tenthpin is a global management consulting firm focused on life sciences companies worldwide. Drawing from his firm鈥檚 experience working with pharmaceutical and biotech organizations, medical device manufacturers, clinical researchers, and other clients, Schmidt shared an intriguing look into what happens when life sciences ecosystems are driven by health outcomes and market demands shift from patient treatment to prevention, diagnostics, and cure.

Cloud-Based Collaboration Is Central to Outcome-Driven Healthcare

disruptions 鈥� with positive results 鈥� are a symptom of the transformational journey that every life sciences organization is undergoing. In an environment where health outcomes matter most, life sciences companies are moving business models towards value-based care, conducting research and evaluating drugs and treatments based on comparative effectiveness and risk-based pricing. In this context, California鈥檚 decision to make its own insulin shows the dramatic impact across healthcare value chains as power shifts to governments and payers intent on reducing costs.

Talking during the 麻豆原创 life sciences event, Schmidt saw cloud-based platforms as critical to bringing experts together for faster innovation and mentioned COVID-19 vaccine development as an example of competitors working together towards a shared objective to save lives.

鈥淟ife sciences organizations are collaborating to connect data across a patient-centric value chain for early engagement of partners in areas like research and manufacturing,鈥� he said. 鈥淲e believe there will be more opportunity-driven collaborations in the future. For example, the supply chain changes fundamentally with compressed timeframes between research, production, and delivery. You want to be set up from an organizational perspective to allow for more strategic ad hoc and cross-industry collaborations such as ramping up new facilities to adapt your manufacturing footprint in response to ongoing disruptions.鈥�

Data Sharing for Human-Centered Healthcare

As the healthcare industry explores advanced therapies, personalized treatments, and services, there鈥檚 a shift from traditional batch to continuous manufacturing. New technologies provide greater access to real-time patient data for developing more effective drugs with improvements in the patient experience and health results. However, these market ramp-ups stress existing business and treatment models.

鈥淧ersonalized treatments mean that organizations suddenly get much closer to patients,鈥� said Schmidt. 鈥淭丑别 human health experience is all about connecting a tremendous amount data 鈥� which room of the house you were in when you took the medication and what you had for breakfast. Technology allows us to collect, analyze, and reuse detailed data.鈥�

Schmidt urged companies to consider the next evolution of systems, investing in data governance and data quality now for automation and other innovations built on cloud-based platforms.

鈥淭丑别 life sciences value chain of tomorrow is data-driven and patient-centric, putting technology at the heart of industry transformation,鈥� said Schmidt. 鈥淥nce you have a stable system core, you鈥檒l be well-positioned for the future growth of markets such as cell and gene therapies for personalized treatment regimens.鈥�

The Next Treatment Innovation Is One Elevator Ride Away

Organizations in the life sciences industry face numerous other challenges such as imminent patent expirations and increasingly complex regulations, including waste reduction. But technology has a major role in all areas, for instance, speeding up the development of advanced treatments and regulatory approvals so innovations reach patients faster. Schmidt advised companies to connect digital transformation plans to high-end strategic innovations expected years down the road, as well as tomorrow.

鈥淭丑别 life sciences industry is at a crossroads, and we need to reimagine its future,鈥� he said. 鈥淭丑别 next disruptors are companies that may have a portfolio of investments, or are partnering with different networks, using external manufacturing and other innovations, creating competitive IP in new ways. There鈥檚 a significant opportunity for established and startup entrants that are collaborating with connected data to better understand how human body works and prevent and cure disease.鈥�

California鈥檚 trailblazing efforts to manufacture a drug is just one way that the life sciences industry is getting a healthy makeover. Let鈥檚 hope industry leaders heed the call to collaborate in new ways for more life-saving innovations.

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Consequently, it鈥檚 no surprise that during its 鈥業nnoDay,鈥� , a globally leading manufacturer of equipment for the development and production of drugs, identified manual and cross-company processes as the most promising area for digital innovation projects.

鈥淚nnoDay provides an open platform for creating digital innovations. Innovation is part of our corporate culture and supported by an environment and leadership that encourages creativity. Scalable innovation requires integration into existing processes and systems. Therefore, 麻豆原创 Innovation Center Network is our prime partner to validate and realize this potential,鈥� said Thomas Lata, manager of IT Order to Cash at Sartorius.

Typically, processes within patient care and the healthcare system require companies to work with one another to achieve the same goal. This is especially apparent when it comes to removing harmful microorganisms on medical equipment, where a single error would lead to drug contamination. Sterilization processes are directed and executed between medical equipment manufacturers and sterilization service providers and overseen by regulatory organizations and pharmaceutical companies. In most instances, these processes are manual and paper-based, making them inefficient, unclear, and susceptible to having crucial details fall through the cracks.

With the lack of automation, transparency, and speed, sterilization processes and all the teams and companies involved needed a solution 鈥� which is when 麻豆原创 and Sartorius began working together. Based on the service, the two organizations developed a prototype that aims to replace manual practices with automated cross-company orchestrations. 麻豆原创 Cross-Company Workflow Collaboration is a blockchain-based innovation extending 麻豆原创鈥檚 no-code workflow capabilities on .

鈥淲hile many internal processes can be digitized and automated with powerful tools and platforms, cross-company processes are often still very manual and lack transparency,鈥� said Benjamin Stoeckhert, senior business development manager of Blockchain at 麻豆原创. 鈥淲ith the cross-company workflow collaboration service, we aim to solve this issue and replace manual, error-prone practices with real-time automation, boosting efficiency and compliance.鈥�

麻豆原创 Cross-Company Workflow Collaboration can be used to orchestrate and automate sterilization processes between Sartorius and other sterilization service providers. In addition to being more dynamic, the service also operates within an immutable shared blockchain ledger, enabling other market participants like pharmaceutical companies and regulators to verify the process compliance via a digital audit trail. This eliminates the need for paper documents.

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In an 麻豆原创 Sapphire session with Sartorius, Philippe Sanner and Alban Zacharia, in-house IT consultants with Sartorius, and Stoeckhert from 麻豆原创 explained that using 麻豆原创 Cross-Company Workflow Collaboration has eliminated repetitive tasks, which in turn has increased security and efficiency.

Sanner said, 鈥淭丑别 immediate benefits we can think of are permitted by the automatization and collaboration capabilities. This saves a lot of time, and the business process experts can focus on more value-add activities. In addition, reducing paper wherever possible is also very important for Sartorius, as sustainability is one of our core values鈥�.

麻豆原创 Business Technology Platform brings many capabilities in one, unified environment, which allows to seamlessly combine 麻豆原创 Cross-Company Workflow Collaboration with 麻豆原创 Analytics Cloud. 鈥淲e have been pretty impressed with the data analytics capabilities. All information is available at the same place, and it is easy to implement personalized, user-friendly KPIs. This helps us detect risks and measure collaboration performance in real time,鈥� Sanner added.

Zacharia emphasized the importance of openness for cross-company automation: 鈥淎nother key feature of the service is that it can connect participants with 麻豆原创 and non-麻豆原创 systems. This allows scaling to all actors in the process.鈥�

鈥淲ith this prototype, we can demonstrate what a blockchain-based solution could really look like and we can offer real-time sterilization transparency for our customers,鈥� Zacharia said.

To learn more about 麻豆原创 Cross-Company Workflow Collaboration, e-mail cross-company@sap.com.

Corinna Schmidt works in Communications for 麻豆原创 New Ventures and Technologies.

Under Germany鈥檚 鈥淪tifter helfen鈥� initiative, a portal through which nonprofit organizations receive access to donated IT resources, the ZKRD is using a business process transformation solution from the portfolio. During the COVID-19 pandemic, this solution helped safeguard the critical processes that thousands of cancer patients across the globe rely on to receive urgent stem cell donations. By taking a flexible approach, the organization managed to overcome the obstacles it faced 鈥� and advanced its digital transformation and knowledge management strategy at the same time.

Complex Processes, High Data Volume

The ZKRD coordinates all the data used to search for suitable stem cell donors in Germany. The largest data hub of its kind in the world, it holds the details of more adult, unrelated donors than any other national registry. The organization also works with numerous transplant centers, donor files, search and collection units, and cord blood banks to enable stem cell donations to be used for patients in countries across the globe. 鈥淎round 40% of stem cell donations worldwide originate from Germany. Speed and safety have top priority in our day-to-day business,鈥� says Dr. Joachim Neller, business development, ZKRD.

Transport Processes Demand Precision

International stem cell transports take place daily. They involve a complex set of processes and are required to meet the most stringent safety standards. Many of the formalities are dealt with in advance to avoid the risk of delays during transportation. Most importantly, donated stem cells must be accompanied to their destination: a courier picks them up from a designated collection center and delivers them personally to the transplant center where the patient is to receive them.

Professional process management is central to the transportation process, as Dr. Neller explains: 鈥淔or medical reasons, patients must receive stem cell donations no later than 72 hours after they have been extracted. Where stem cells are destined for Australia, for example, every second counts.鈥�

Time is therefore a key metric in assessing whether the processes being used to transport stem cells meet the requirements. The coronavirus pandemic and the restrictions it entailed, including border closures and bans on passenger flights, made already challenging conditions even harder to deal with in 2020 and 2021.

鈥淭丑别 processes we modeled with 麻豆原创 Signavio solutions helped us tackle the obstacles we faced and, working with our partners, we were very quickly able to set up an alternative transportation process. This meant we could continue delivering stem cell donations to patients on time,鈥� says Dr. Neller.

This alternative process included handling agents and cargo plane pilots to ensure that lifesaving donations could still reach patients within the 72-hour time limit.

Process Management Paves the Way for Digital Transformation

The introduction of a standardized process management solution at the ZKRD revolutionized the way the organization approaches both process documentation and collaboration. Lengthy documentation has been replaced by process diagrams, which are quick to create. This in turn has enabled the ZKRD to streamline its knowledge management and process standardization. Through 麻豆原创 Signavio Process Collaboration Hub, employees have access to relevant processes at any early stage and can take targeted action to help optimize them. The ZKRD uses approval workflows in its standard work instructions: by automating individual process steps, any changes to those instructions can be reviewed and approved quickly.

鈥淭丑别 麻豆原创 Signavio solutions enabled us to make significant progress on driving our digital transformation and process standardization forward, and on improving our knowledge management. Because, with the process map as the starting point, it is easy for me as a user to see at a glance where to start, what the individual steps in the process are, and whether certain documents or software are required,鈥� says Sonja Schlegel, public relations, ZKRD.

Automation and Customer Journey Modeling

鈥淲e鈥檇 been pioneers of the paperless office for a long time. But we still had a few paper-based operations. Invoice processing was one. We recently used 麻豆原创 Signavio solutions to streamline it by automating and partially automating the steps involved,鈥� explains Dr. Neller. The organization benefited from these IT-based and automated processes straight away. When the pandemic hit, employees at the ZKRD were able to transition to working from home overnight.

The ZKRD plans to expand its use of customer journey modeling in the future, focusing not just on the internal view of its processes, but taking the 鈥渙utside-in鈥� perspective of its partners into account as well. This will be crucial in helping the organization improve global processes for everyone involved and adjust them quickly when required. It also plans to automate operational business decisions in change and error management and thus adopt professional processes to replace its homegrown legacy ones.

Process management will remain central to the ZKRD鈥檚 operations because the 鈥渂usiness value鈥� it creates is clearly significant in terms of giving patients a second chance at life. Those patients need to receive the best possible product 鈥� as quickly as possible. That can only happen with the right combination of seamless, efficient processes, reliable risk management, and experienced employees.

Engineers and scientists are using digital twins — exact digital replicas of real-world items — to model everything from bridges and construction sites to complete cities, including Shanghai and Singapore.

Elsewhere, Formula One teams are using digital twin technology to develop and improve the performance of their race cars, while doctors are using a digital twin model of the human heart created by Dassault Systemes’ Living Heart project to test “what if” scenarios for the organ, using various procedures and medical devices.

Could the same technology be used one day to model entire factories or even create a human digital twin? Software engineers are already working on combining sophisticated 3D models with artificial intelligence (AI) smarts and data collected from the physical world by Internet of Things (IoT) sensors to build digital twins of complete factories. Some analysts believe personal digital twins — digital doppelgangers of individual humans — could be on the horizon.

麻豆原创鈥檚 Take

鈥淭his is a very interesting question,鈥� says Ismail Serin, a digital twin expert at 麻豆原创. 鈥淎t 麻豆原创, we are mainly looking at the [digital twin] concept more from an industrial perspective.鈥� 麻豆原创 has already created digital twins for a number of customers, including a digital twin of the Stav氓 bridge in Norway to help roadway engineers anticipate maintenance requirements.

麻豆原创 is also working on creating a digital twin of a complete factory, but one of the biggest challenges in this field is integrating the sometimes proprietary data generated by machinery from a wide range of suppliers in order to create a digital twin factory network. 鈥淲hen it comes to getting a full factory digital twin network, this is usually where a company really struggles,鈥� Serin says.

While 麻豆原创 is focused primarily on industrial uses for digital twins, Serin believes that the technology will be applied in other domains, including healthcare. 鈥淎 digital twin of a human being is basically another domain for digital twins that is also growing quite quickly.鈥�

Like most scientists, he believes a thinking human digital twin is still a long way off, but Serin notes that 3D computational images are becoming ever more sophisticated and that devices like the Apple Watch are constantly collecting personal data, such as heart rate and blood oxygen levels. 鈥淚 think there’s basically already huge progress being made in this area,鈥� he says.

Advocates say creating a human digital twin has the potential to increase human lifespan and help doctors treat diseases like cancer and diabetes. But others argue that before that happens, there are ethical and other considerations that will need to be addressed.

Contact:
Joellen Perry, Head of聽Global Public Relations, 麻豆原创
+1 (626) 265-0370,聽joellen.perry@sap.com, PST

To help people find more balance in their lives, employers are committing to better healthcare plans, not only for the sake of their employees but also for their businesses. HR executives know only too well that employee stress can lead to absenteeism, burnout, and an overall negative impact on traits that make people successful 鈥� productivity, motivation, skills development, and innovation.

However, providing the best healthcare for employees is getting more difficult, as benefit costs are increasing. Plan premiums and claims costs are also rising, while benefits budgets are shrinking, making reducing healthcare plan spend a top priority. Consequently, companies are searching for ways to gain a greater understanding of present and future healthcare plan costs to make more informed decisions, improve employee well-being, and reduce spend.

Understand the Financial Impact of Healthcare Spend

The healthcare spend insights option for the provides companies with an opportunity to analyze healthcare spend in a new and innovative way.

Typically, data on certain aspects of employee healthcare spend, such as medical claims, eligibility, demographics, and biometrics, is often siloed in databases of various insurance carriers or third-party benefit administrators. Fortunately, the healthcare spend insights option combines healthcare data into a consolidated database that allows benefit managers access to a wealth of integrated information in a single solution. Analytics and modeling capabilities give managers the tools they need to forecast future spend, evaluate the potential financial impact of plan changes, and unlock savings opportunities while optimizing employee health outcomes.

For example, benefit managers can more efficiently identify and manage key cost drivers of overall health plan utilization by analyzing claims and enrollment data. With new insights, managers can make more informed decisions that benefit employees while reducing employer health plan costs.

Use Insightful Data to Help Employees 鈥� And the Business

The healthcare spend insights option for 麻豆原创 U.S. Benefits Administration provides a wealth of analytics that companies can use to better understand employee needs and the financial impact of plan options.

Here is a quick look at three types of analytics benefit managers can access through this option:

• Descriptive analytics inform companies as to what is happening right now. For instance, benefit managers can use a health plan utilization trend analysis to categorize claims and see year-over-year changes. If urgent care claims doubled within the last year, managers can explore more cost-effective plan options for employees that require this kind of care.
• Diagnostic analytics provide an understanding of why a particular trend or occurrence is driving up healthcare spend through root-cause analysis. As an example, managers can dig deeper into spend data to find the most common types of claims in a particular category, such as emergency room visits. Or they could discover why there is a rising need for certain procedures or treatments. Based on employee needs behind the trends, benefit managers can offer more plan alternatives that are less expensive yet provide better coverage.
• Predictive analytics indicate what may likely happen in the future based on prior trends and health plan utilization patterns. Decision support tools available with this option allow employees to evaluate the financial impact of health plan decisions for the upcoming year based on their expected utilization. Based on a forecast of future costs for urgent care visits, outpatient care, office visits, hospitalizations, and prescriptions, employees can more accurately evaluate factors such as premium costs and out-of-pocket expenses for new healthcare plan options.

Start Unlocking the Power of Your Healthcare Data Now

The healthcare spend insights option provides benefit managers with on-demand access to important insights, plan utilization, enrollment, and claims data. The ability to drill down and interact with the data gives employers the insights they need to make informed, cost-savings decisions that benefit employees the most.

To learn more on how you can unlock the power of your healthcare spend data, download this .

Nicole Ramirez is global director of Solution Marketing for Compensation and Benefits Solutions at 麻豆原创 SuccessFactors.

Its health information systems were weak, outdated, and underfunded. Data was manually collected and siloed. Information tended to be listed on paper forms rather than in the cloud.

Given the circumstances, it was difficult for health officials to identify high-risk regions, spreaders, and asymptomatic patients. Administrative delays prevented all but a few labs from testing. But even when the results came in, details about available drugs were hazy at best.

A Need for the Ugly Truth

Aggravating the situation was the nature of the Moroccan healthcare system, which was divided into complicated layers, distinguishing facilities by location, university affiliation, and other categories.

The conditions had officials alarmed about the possibility of COVID-19 exploding up and down the Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts, as well as the country鈥檚 mountainous interior.

To save lives, Morocco鈥檚 Ministry of Health needed to quickly come up with a single source of truth 鈥� whether the truth was ugly or not. At a glance, officials would then be able to gain insights into total confirmed cases, instances of recovery and death, the growth of daily outbreaks across the various tiers of the country鈥檚 healthcare network, and the stock of drugs in various hospitals and regions.

鈥淲e didn鈥檛 have a system like this,鈥� observed Dr. Ahmed Rguig, director of Morocco鈥檚 Centre of Epidemiology. 鈥淲e were very aware that we had to put something in place that allowed us to manage the scale of the pandemic with professionalism and in real time.鈥�

Quickly Partnering to Combat a Crisis

With no time to spare, the ministry turned to the ALGO Consulting Group, an international technology services provider based in the city of Rabat.

ALGO proposed a user-friendly, innovative solution, enabling country-wide monitoring of the pandemic in real time. The application would be available on numerous devices and help officials make accurate decisions swiftly.

As the first partner in Africa to be certified for , ALGO already had experience developing a solution for Morocco鈥檚 transport sector. Now, it went back to 麻豆原创 to use its enterprise software proficiency to help manage the pandemic.

鈥淏ecause of our analytics expertise鈥e could help our country adopt its first-ever digital tracking system in response to the coronavirus outbreak,鈥� noted Naoual Hammane, the 麻豆原创 director working with ALGO.

The use of 麻豆原创 Analytics Cloud allowed for the creation of real-time, role-specific dashboards, which could be accessed via desktops and mobile devices. Every 10 minutes, the control center data would be updated, empowering experts to make efficient, life-saving decisions.

鈥淭wo teams worked in 24-hour shifts to get the project delivered,鈥� said Hammane. 鈥淚 have been managing 麻豆原创 projects for 14 years and this is the first time ever a project has been managed virtually. We used video conferencing and telephone calls.鈥�

Working at Breakneck Speed to Slow Outbreaks

On March 1, 2020, just two weeks after the first case of COVID-19 was recorded in Morocco 鈥� and 11 days before the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the outbreak a pandemic 鈥� the country鈥檚 COVID-19 Real-Time Monitoring system was deployed.

Officials accustomed to tracking down data with phone calls now had all the data they needed at their fingertips.

The results were nothing short of miraculous:

• ALGO developed training videos that enabled users to learn the intricacies of the new system in just four hours.
• Laboratory test capacity increased 100 times 鈥� from 100 to 10,000 COVID-19 tests administered each day.
• The ability to receive IT resources, data, and other technology services increased four times.
• The speed at which information was received allowed the government to deliver tests where they were most needed.
• With the enhanced understanding of the drug stock, allocations could be capably targeted.

Using Mass Media to Save Lives

To ensure that everyone 鈥� regardless of technological capacity 鈥� was informed, the Ministry of Health provided televised updates each night at 6:00 p.m.

The number of lives saved as the result of these broadcasts is impossible to calculate.

鈥淲e can use this project as something to be proud of,鈥� said Dr. Rguig. 鈥淚t demonstrates that we have succeeded in this crisis.鈥�

Its quick deployment of the COVID-19 Real-Time Monitoring system helped the Moroccan Ministry of Heath earn recognition as a 2021 麻豆原创 Innovation Awards finalist. The yearly awards honor organizations that have used 麻豆原创 solutions to improve business and society.

Get all the details about the Moroccan Ministry of Health鈥檚 innovative solution .

Keith Greenberg is an 麻豆原创 global marketing contributor.

Oftentimes, no matter how competent the administrative staff is and how many hours they work, there is also inaccurate information. And paper. Lots of paper.

Fragmented Care and the Burden of Extra Paperwork

Head-scratching as it may be, the reality is that paperwork is still part of the norm in many modern medical offices 鈥� contributing to lengthy wait times and a lackluster patient experience. Many of us, if not all, have experienced this.

So, what鈥檚 the reason for all of this? It鈥檚 something called fragmentation of care, where the doctor鈥檚 office, medical facility, the lab tests, the lab equipment even, and each specialty is managed independently. There are associated administrative functions that are mismatched between each point, and, as such, each point adds an additional cost.

In the 34 countries where it operates, EPI-USE 鈥� one of the world鈥檚 largest and most experienced independent HR and payroll 麻豆原创 specialists 鈥� saw that the dominant medical record companies were focused more on the billing and not so much on the patient.

An App to Integrate Fragmented Care

To combat these costs and improve patient experience, EPI-USE developed LogBox 鈥� an app that connects healthcare professionals to their patients and allows聽patients to securely share their information with their healthcare professionals electronically.

This patient-centric digital solution, built on , facilitates the patient journey by making the check-in process easier. Patients enter their information once into the system where it is stored securely, allowing the patient to control where and to whom that information is shared among various different care-provider specialty offices.

Further enhancements of the system include seamless pre-admissions, a clinical case collaboration tool for multidisciplinary teams, a form editor tool to allow for customizable clinical databases, theater and waiting list modules, multidisciplinary team meetings, and discharge summaries.

Interoperability with other systems facilitates the exchange of data between various systems 鈥� from billing to radiology systems and hospital systems 鈥� reducing check-in time聽and more. All of this may be invisible to the patient, but it will certainly contribute to a more positive patient journey.

Making a Difference by Ending the Paper Chase

After deploying LogBox, EPI-USE saw the following improvements across the board:

• A more than 30% increase in self check-ins
• Over 280,000 healthcare and patient user accounts created
• A 66% reduction in referral wait times 鈥� down from 15 minutes to under five minutes

鈥淭丑别 COVID-19 pandemic forced us to change the way we deliver care to patients, and the LogBox team鈥檚 rapid response in adapting the technology to meet our evolving requirements has been remarkable,鈥� said Dr. Sue Trager, CEO, Wits Donald Gordon Medical Center.

Now, it鈥檚 just a matter of time until paper-heavy doctor鈥檚 offices will also invest in digital services. It will help them reduce overhead costs and manage more patients, which, in turn, will help them increase their revenue and, just as importantly, generate stress-free patient experiences.

To learn more about EPI-USE鈥檚 solution, check out its 麻豆原创 Innovation Awards .

Rajshree Chauhan and Michael Kure are 麻豆原创 Global Marketing contributors.

Those in supply chain and logistics have made significant adjustments to help ensure that every segment — including healthcare — has continued to move forward as efficiently and effectively as possible.

AmerisourceBergen, a wholesale distributor of pharmaceutical products to nearly 100% of hospitals in the U.S., recently joined Cloud Wars Host and Creator Bob Evans and Magnus Meier, global head and vice president of Wholesale Distribution at 麻豆原创, for a to discuss these fundamental changes.

During the session, Jeff Denton, vice president of Global Secure Supply Chain at AmerisourceBergen, discussed the vital role healthcare distributors play to get life-saving drugs to those who need them most and how the company has managed to ethically balance supplier and customer needs.

New Normal: Customer-Centric, Patient-Focused Business

Wholesale distributors across all sub-segments have managed to keep the supply chain moving forward despite numerous hurdles on a global scale. However, distributors of today can no longer simply focus on moving products through the supply chain. The entire industry has shifted to take on new responsibilities that address the latest regulatory requirements and heightened customer expectations.

To address these growing concerns, wholesale distributors — especially those in the healthcare distribution segment — are now focused on 鈥渄oing business with a purpose,鈥� as Meier perfectly described it. By operating with a purpose, this helps ensure the supply chain is safe and secure. It also protects the integrity of the products and provides peace of mind to hospitals, pharmacies, and patients.

In the , Denton describes how creating healthier futures starts with protecting the health of people and our planet. 聽As a purpose-driven industry leader with a global footprint, AmerisourceBergen has an obligation to champion global sustainability and corporate responsibility. This includes processing more than $2.5 billion in saleable product returns annually, allowing products that would otherwise have been removed and destroyed to be reintroduced into the supply chain. This is good for AmerisourceBergen along with its customers, patients, and manufacturers across the entire supply chain.

To Thrive, Distributors Require Collaboration and Innovation

To address the new concerns and increased responsibility of the distribution industry, AmerisourceBergen approached 麻豆原创 to co-innovate and create a cross-industry solution centered around meeting the latest regulatory requirements. The result was a new and innovative solution that allows products to be tracked and traced across the entire supply chain:

The collaboration also allowed AmerisourceBergen and other industry leaders to streamline communication across the entire supply chain, from suppliers through to the pharmacies and hospitals. This supports business continuity through not only an individual enterprise but the entire business network. 聽With this technology, the AmerisourceBergen team can 鈥�seamlessly match digital data to physical data,鈥� which aids in counterfeit prevention and sustainability efforts.

Data and Purpose Will Drive the Industry Forward

AmerisourceBergen is focused on what the future holds, shifting focus beyond simply reacting to regulatory requirements to understanding the use cases for all of the new data obtained through track and trace technology.

Without the consortium brought about by AmerisourceBergen and 麻豆原创, these industry-specific outcomes and supply chain alignment may not have been possible. Moving forward, collaboration and innovation will be key aspects of the industry and areas in which distributors can add immense value to the supply chain.

New advancements, technology, and cross-industry collaborations must continue to drive solutions that keep up with the latest regulatory requirements and consumer needs.

There is enormous untapped potential in the solutions developed by many small, highly innovative companies and startups, but actually getting it to patients can be a challenge. To illustrate the capabilities of the OP 4.1 prototype, four starter apps were developed during the co-innovation project and integrated in prototypes; for example, to support surgeons during a partial kidney resection.

App Developers Define Demands for the OP 4.1 Integration Platform

The involved partners and application developers named three key requirements for a platform like OP 4.1:

• Technical access to the devices and data at the hospital
• Formal support for getting their innovations to hospitals more quickly
• Usage-based billing as the new business model

Protecting their investments is a particularly important aspect for the partners. Prof. Dr. Markus Hohenfellner, medical director at the and leader of the consortium, summarized it neatly in a speech at the German-American Institute in Heidelberg in the fall of 2019: 鈥淯nless inventors can count on getting paid for their efforts, their innovations will not reach patients.鈥�

A key task of the OP 4.1 platform is to support its partners by giving them a technical and commercial foundation for developing, distributing, and using innovative apps in the medical field.

The OP 4.1 App Center

The supports many partners around the world, not only from the healthcare sector. The OP 4.1 project has shown that 麻豆原创 partner program, with its three phases — design, build, and go-to-market — can also cover the particular requirements of the OP 4.1 platform.

This journey has culminated in the OP 4.1 App Center, which represents the central element of the distribution concept. Software partners offer their apps and solutions here. The customers are hospitals and their doctors. They choose the suitable apps for their planned surgeries. The offerings are structured by medical discipline. Customers are presented with tailored offers based on the available medical devices and apps at the hospital. As usual, customers can rate the apps and services they use, to actively influence the solution scope and quality of the apps. Since usage of the current portfolio is fully transparent, the platform operators can close gaps in the offerings by recruiting additional, specific partners.

Particularly for smaller partners, low start-up costs are a decisive factor for realizing their ideas and getting them to patients. Full usage-based billing can protect smaller partners from the risk of investing in own infrastructure that might not generate any revenue. also fully supports this concept, with scalable use and . The technical infrastructure enables the same usage-based billing concepts to be applied to devices, services, and apps.

Top Care Through Predictive Maintenance

The starter apps realized through the OP 4.1 project use APIs to access available data in the hospital. Operational data, such as surgery planning and logistics information on inventories of consumables, is linked with the usage data of the medical devices. This opens up new possibilities; for example, for predictive maintenance, making it possible to minimize machine down times and help ensure optimized, end-to-end patient care as well as increased user and patient friendliness.

An exciting challenge for further projects will be to test how and whether this operational data on the platform can be enriched with information from staff experience. The starter app 鈥淢obile Information Service鈥� from mbits imaging sends current information about surgical processes from the platform to mobile devices. Employees can provide direct feedback on active surgeries and the devices used. This combination of data provides constant support to improvement management at the hospital, boosting employee satisfaction and, with it, the quality of care for patients.

Competitive Advantage Through Privacy Protection

Data privacy and security are of key importance for the certification of medical devices. The strict demands on devices and software make their implementation expensive and time-consuming. To mitigate this, a special data protection concept was developed for the OP 4.1 platform that reflects the EU General Data Privacy Regulation, among other laws. App developers get recommendations and technical services from the start, which helps them comply with the legal requirements efficiently. Before apps are published in the OP 4.1 App Center, they are checked that all requirements have been implemented properly.

on the OP 4.1 platform gives patients transparency and control over their personal data. As a result, research institutions and hospitals can request the specific consent of patients to use their data and manage it efficiently. The site offers transparency with regard to the security, data protection, and compliance of the 麻豆原创 Cloud infrastructure. The virtual display case makes it possible to retrieve information about the current operational status of 麻豆原创 Cloud solutions in real time, documenting compliance with high standards in cloud computing as well.

From Many Standalone Solutions to a Digital Ecosystem

The success of the platform will not only depend on its individual parts, but also on how well they are integrated with one another. The OP 4.1 project demonstrates how the technical capabilities of , combined with a custom-tailored privacy concept and an innovative distribution concept, can create the essential foundation for a growing partner ecosystem.

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This story originally appeared on the 麻豆原创 Germany News Center.

At each phase of a surgical operation, the OP 4.1 dashboard displays data pulled from various sources according to need, providing surgical teams with vital information in a way that makes it easy for them to consume it. The data they need for an operation appears on a 47-inch touchscreen monitor placed between three and five meters from the operating table, where anesthetists, surgeons, and other medical and nursing staff can see it clearly.

The monitor鈥檚 main function is to display all the information about a patient and the operation he or she is undergoing at the precise stage in the process when the medical team needs it 鈥� before, during, and after surgery.

End-User Focus a Principle of UX Design

User experience (UX) design provides the foundation. UX designers start with the software user鈥檚 story and work backwards to create a design that will deliver maximum benefit. Thus the design and development process for the OP 4.1 dashboard began with a detailed assessment of how modern surgical teams work today.

When a patient has surgery, the information the medical staff need about that patient comes from different sources and in different formats/ Medical records are usually paper-based; patients often supply visual material, such as CT and x-ray images and the like, on a USB flash drive or similar; lab results are displayed on a PC, like in Cerner i.s.h. med from 麻豆原创; and patient consent forms are submitted on paper.

As a result, the medical staff have to draw together the information they need from multiple sources themselves. They can then plan the operation. Once at the operating table, the surgical team has to cognitively link existing patient data with the information that is generated during the operation as they work. This is where the OP 4.1 dashboard comes in 鈥� its aim being to bundle information and display it precisely as and when the operating team needs it. For that to happen, it is vital that the dashboard鈥檚 design is as user-centric as possible.

How the Dashboard Was Developed

The first task for the dashboard鈥檚 designers was to identify all the different sources of information and to find out 鈥� by holding user research sessions 鈥� what data was required at which point during surgery. Thanks to these sessions, the designers not only learned a lot of detail about surgical processes, they also discovered a great deal about the needs and wishes of the operating teams. On top of that, Heidelberg University Clinic arranged for the UX designers to sit in on operations and observe surgeons as they worked.

Equipped with the input they had gathered, the designers were able to build a basic grid layout, which then passed through several iterations before achieving its current look. Using this design approach means that end users are involved in development processes and can provide validation along the way.

OP 4.1 Dashboard Close Up

1. On the left-hand side of the dashboard is an accordion drop-down menu listing the various phases of surgery.
2. The shell bar at the very top of the screen shows the operating room logged on as a user. Here, the operating surgeon can also make the appropriate settings for the operation. The shell bar also contains the voice interaction icon.
3. Directly below the shell bar is the header. This permanently displays key basic information 鈥� such as the total duration of the operation and a stopwatch 鈥� that is relevant for all the defined user personas.
4. On the far right of the screen is the app drawer, a slide-out side panel displaying third-party apps that medical staff have defined in advance as relevant for the operation.
5. The content area in the center of the screen contains various tiles that change dynamically at each stage of the operation. They summarize all the relevant information and make it visible at a glance. Some of the tiles can also be opened to display more detailed information. The content area is also scrollable so that content can be accessed quickly if the operating surgeon has activated more tiles in the settings than can be displayed simultaneously on the screen.

Further user research sessions were held to validate this layout with the medical teams. In this way, the dashboard was optimized in several iterations to meet the needs of the two main personas: anesthetists and surgeons.

Once this process was complete, the design was discussed with the 麻豆原创 UX team to help ensure that it aligned as closely as possible with 麻豆原创鈥檚 current design language and guidelines, in this case, the聽 Quartz dark theme.

App Guidelines for Third-Party Providers

In addition, special design specifications were developed for applications from third-party providers. These were implemented in the first apps built for the dashboard by the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) and mbits imaging GmbH and validated with end users.

The third-party apps deviate from the 麻豆原创 Fiori 3 Quartz dark theme guidelines used in the dashboard because, unlike the dashboard, they require certification as medical products. Nevertheless, the app designs are closely aligned to the look and feel of the dashboard that end users do not perceive any difference.

Focus on the Patient

The aim in designing this clearly structured dashboard was to make it as easy as possible for users to work with, and to put patients front and center. The dashboard helps surgical teams focus their skills and energy on their core tasks and, as such, supports gentle, successful, and efficient surgery. And by leveraging digital technology and connectivity in the operating room in this way, it provides a compelling insight into future possibilities that could benefit everyone.

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This story originally appeared on the 麻豆原创 Germany News Center.
Top image via video screenshot.

Many operating rooms of the present are equipped with the latest medical technology. The various devices and data sources provide large amounts of information needed for a surgery. However, these are often isolated solutions that make manufacturer-independent networking difficult. The surgeon still has to cognitively combine all information during the operation.

The OP 4.1 project aimed to showcase how to connect hospitals with their doctors and nurses, device manufacturers, and independent software vendors by providing the right data at the right time while introducing a solid business platform model for the exchange of information.

What Makes OP 4.1 an Integration Platform?

The most important goal is patient health. Through intelligent networking of data, operations can be performed more precisely, and patients can be treated more quickly and gently. A technical operating environment that supports an intervention with different functionalities can make this possible.

To accomplish that requires information — information from the patient file, availability of blood products, results from the laboratory, sensor data from medical devices or even medical imaging from an endoscope. The latter can be combined with CT or MRT images to create a 3D augmentation of the (inward) structures in the surgical area. To get all that information, integration is necessary; for example, medical devices in the operating room.

But what benefits would the OP 4.1 platform prototype offer to healthcare providers such as hospitals, medical device manufacturers, app developers, or startups? What could be the motivation behind the fact that the parties involved are willing to share their data and make integration possible?

• For hospitals, it is the support of surgeries to enable better and safer procedures as well as improve commercial aspects.
• Medical device manufacturers become enabled to infer new business models as well as get detailed insights of the usage of their products in the surgical environment.
• For startups and healthcare app developers, the operating room moves literally to their fingertips when using the OP 4.1 platform as a development environment.

The following example shows the OP 4.1 billing and invoicing feature and provides some technological insights how OP 4.1 integrates different information, leveraging aspects of (麻豆原创 BTP).

OP 4.1 Technology Insight: Invoicing

The OP 4.1 prototype鈥檚 core component is based on 麻豆原创 Business Technology Platform. Alongside that OP 4.1 cloud integration platform, an on-premise OP 4.1 gateway as interface to medical devices in the operating room exists, which processes the devices鈥� sensor data and sends it to cloud. The communication between on-premise and cloud is realized using Internet of Things (IoT) components like 麻豆原创 Edge Services and the corresponding 麻豆原创 IoT solution.

As central billing component, 麻豆原创 Subscription Billing is part of OP 4.1. communication throughout the OP 4.1 system and components, especially in terms of . External requests are done with APIs structured, secured, and made accessible with 麻豆原创 API Management. Orchestration is done by 麻豆原创 BTP and various OP 4.1-specific components, such as event handlers, business logic, and an invoice engine that generates PDF invoices based on usage and billing data of 麻豆原创 Subscription Billing.

The following diagram shows and describes the component ensemble and its interactions from using a medical device in the operating room (purple) to invoice creation:

Partner Onboarding

Onboarding new contributors to the platform is key to create a multi-sided market. But how smoothly and quickly is that possible?

Toward the end of the project, another equipment manufacturer was to be onboarded 鈥� truly a proof of concept for the platform. Step one was to connect a new equipment on-premise to the OP 4.1 Gateway via its interfaces like IEEE 11073 Service-Oriented Device Connectivity (SDC) or Patient Care Device Interface (PCD-01). Step two was to configure its digital representation on the OP 4.1 platform and finally uploading device data to 麻豆原创 IoT in step three before it could be processed by the business logic to result in a new entry on the invoice document.

The conclusion of the project is positive; based on the overall approach of using standardized interfaces and generic data processing, the onboarding concepts of the OP 4.1 platform proved working on both business and technological criteria.

Discharge

In addition to the billing and invoicing feature for medical devices and platform apps shown in the example, the OP 4.1 prototype offers a variety of other functionalities. The platform enables voice command supported tracking of surgery timestamps via the OP 4.1 surgery dashboard and recording of voice notes during surgery. The surgery team, nursing staff, and coordinators can be informed by the platform about the current surgical progress and status for example via mobile notification.

Based on 麻豆原创 Consent Repository, the OP 4.1 platform presents a digital alternative to the mainly paper based patient consent process. A consent app provides the patient details about the planned surgery, its risks, and consequences. Furthermore, the patient can give, refuse, or withdraw consent for the surgery while all consent records get centrally managed in the consent repository of the platform.

The OP 4.1 prototype gives a taste of an exciting future and the potential that digital platforms offer.

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This story was originally published on the 麻豆原创 Germany News Center.

Savvy organizations are already applying some of the past year鈥檚 lessons learned to future supply chain excellence.

Select Trusted Partners

Don鈥檛 skimp on vendor capabilities when choosing IT partners for something as complex as the vaccine cold-chain. Accept nothing less than 24/7 support, meaning proactive and reactive help to keep systems running. Resilience has shot to the top of the must-have list for business continuity. This is not so much about bouncing back from set-backs, but rather being agile enough to predict potential problems and swiftly shift gears to stay on track — regardless of the challenges, like matching uncertain vaccine supply with demand.

For example, last year launched a global task force to support customers with preemptive preparation around the distribution of the COVID-19 vaccine. No stranger to managing complex customer events such as Black Friday, 麻豆原创 applications are also part of vaccine manufacturing and distribution supply chains worldwide.

鈥溌槎乖� has longtime expertise helping large organizations run mission critical applications in the cloud; it鈥檚 our core competence,鈥� said Vivian Luechau-de la Roche, senior vice president and head of 麻豆原创 Mission Control Center. 鈥淲ith the vaccine, companies have to successfully manage numerous integrated business processes with high data volumes in an intelligent manner. That is the cornerstone of our holistic Business Transformation as a Service that helps customers become intelligent enterprises.鈥�

Luechau-de la Roche added that moving enterprise systems to the has assumed greater urgency, fueled in part by COVID-19, which has forced companies to evolve business models at breakneck speed.

Demand Integrated Supply Chain Expertise

Confirm a vendor鈥檚 willingness and ability to understand potential supply chain problems arising from infrastructure, hardware, databases, and software applications. Issues can arise anywhere — from the production line of the factory making glass vials that store vaccines to the shop floor of the vaccine manufacturer itself, in warehouse storage facilities, down to logistics companies transporting the vaccine and providers tasked with inoculations.

Can the vendor and its partners anticipate and jump in with alacrity to help solve problems, upstream or downstream, as well as with peripheral supply chain demands like diagnostic testing kits and PPE?聽 Do they have a track record working with many organizations so they know how to troubleshoot quickly?聽 System data, support, and expert teams need to be fully integrated to resolve issues before they cascade with larger negative impact.

鈥淲e initially identified a wide range of customers likeliest to require greater support during the vaccine roll out. We also knew if there were disruptions at any point in the supply chain, we needed to be ready to help them, whether they are a direct or indirect 麻豆原创 customer,鈥� said Holger Graf, head of 麻豆原创 Mission Critical Support North America. 鈥淲e brought in hardware, database, and application experts in areas including supply chain, warehouse management, and finance so we could address a particular problem and related impacts.鈥�

This preparation paid off over the 2020 holidays, when a hospital flagged performance issues that jeopardized reporting deadlines on daily COVID-19 case numbers. The 麻豆原创 task force promptly discovered it was a database problem and resolved it.

Insist on Multi-Layered Support

To minimize downtime, be certain the support team is capable of stepping in fast with an immediate temporary work-around, followed by a root cause solution. In one situation, the 麻豆原创 task force quickly brought in supply chain and development team experts to holistically redesign business processes for a pharmaceutical manufacturer building a new vaccine storage warehouse that will use . The team鈥檚 project-based recommendations and implementation support will help the customer meet urgent timelines in compliance with vaccine storage, packaging, and shipping regulations.

Test Early to Prevent Failures Later

Plan and anticipate what could go wrong down to the last mile of delivery. This includes testing system and business process performance for dramatically expanded data volumes. Early last year, 麻豆原创 began working with a number of large customers that were directly involved in developing vaccines. As part of that , 麻豆原创 helped manufacturers prepare systems for upcoming higher volume workloads long before the vaccine was ready.

Teamwork for Speed is Non-Negotiable

Make sure all of your support partners can work together for fast problem-solving, even with limited in-person contact. Knowledge sharing is essential, among cloud-based hyperscalers and software vendors, consulting firms, and internal IT and business contacts. Teamwork also extends to the many supply chain participants, including the manufacturers of vaccines and related equipment like glass vials and syringes, distributors, logistics, and healthcare organizations.

For example, 麻豆原创 Mission Control Center task force ramped up quickly in late 2020 to support customers as soon as vaccines were approved in the U.S. and Europe.

鈥淲e were ready with dedicated resources to help customers stay ahead of anything that could impede their ability to manufacture or ship the vaccine, diagnostic kits, and other components,鈥� said Graf. 鈥淲e worked closely with 麻豆原创 account teams to provide designated contact points, including regional escalation managers, and we boosted our expert engineer capacity to quickly manage an expected wave of incoming support requests.鈥�

Long after this pandemic has receded, organizations will apply these supply chain lessons to new challenges certain to arise in an uncertain world. Indeed, 麻豆原创鈥檚 task force remains at the ready to immediately add support when organizations need it. The quick pivot has become another lasting post-pandemic business imperative.

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鈥淗ealth equity for all鈥� is the mission of the Iowa PCA, which provides care and services to underserved populations through a statewide network of 14 community health centers.

This spring, thanks to valuable insights from the cross-corporate teams that volunteered their skills for the , administrators at the Iowa PCA will be heading into their statewide strategic growth planning sessions with an innovative, comprehensive vision for integrating telehealth services into its plans for an electronic health records system. By optimizing telehealth services, the Iowa PCA aims to improve access and clinical outcomes for patients and connect them to an evolving model of care that maintains quality, enhances health equity, and lowers costs.

鈥淲e benefited a ton from having plans, ideas, innovation, and things we could try from a perspective that is much broader than the pandemic,鈥� says Sarah Dixon, senior director of Partnerships and Development at Iowa PCA. 鈥淭丑别 teams did in one month something that would take us a year to do. In terms of the rapidness of the response, thoroughness, and comprehensiveness, it was really an amazing experience for advancing our work.鈥�

Cross-Corporate Teams Innovate for Social Impact

As a cross-corporate volunteer competition, the Reimagining Community Health Systems Challenge brought together diversified teams of skilled professionals to apply their expertise to formulating bold solutions to complex challenges on behalf of public sector organizations that have potential to make an impact on social, economic, or environmental problems. Organized by , an organization that brings together the public, private, and social sector to address global challenges, the challenge ran from May through September 2020 as part of a larger of social impact challenges designed to find innovative solutions to longstanding societal concerns that have been made worse by the COVID-19 pandemic.

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麻豆原创 took an active role as a lead corporate sponsor, along with , a charitable organization funded solely by global medical technology company Medtronic. Medical device maker and , the chemicals and specialty materials company, also joined the challenge to advance health equity through telehealth. Altogether, these industry partners selected 40 employee volunteers distributed across three continents to participate in the challenge, which was held virtually. The volunteers were organized into eight cross-corporate teams in a collaborative competition to see which team could develop the most innovative solution to the challenges proposed by two public sector organizations, called Anchor Partners.

The key advantage of cross-corporate teams is the outside-in approach that they bring to problem solving. This diversity of thought leads to creative, comprehensive, and cost-effective solutions for growth-oriented, not-for-profit organizations, which often lack internal resources for strategic business planning.

鈥淢ulti-company teams add a unique dimension of diversity to a global pro bono program, as participants bring their personal experiences, tools, methodologies, and corporate culture to the table,鈥� says Hemang Desai, global program director for Corporate Social Responsibility at 麻豆原创. 鈥淭丑别se elements result in innovative and impactful solutions to the business challenge presented to the teams, while creating a rich, multi-faceted learning experience for the participants as they build strong people connections in the business world.鈥�

The two Anchor Partners in the challenge were the Iowa PCA and the National Association of Community Health Centers (NACHC). In its challenge statement, the Iowa PCA sought input for a framework to roll-out and integrate telehealth across its network of community health centers. The challenge from NACHC differed in that it sought broader guidance on how to create a clear role and business plan to position itself in the telehealth landscape as a leader for community health centers on a national level. With the pandemic accelerating, both organizations were motivated by the pressing need to realistically assess the potential for telehealth to expand access to care.

Jason Patnosh, associate vice president of NACHC, recalled the urgency NACHC faced during the lockdowns in early March. 鈥淔or the first time, outside of natural disasters, health centers had to close their doors to patients for the safety of their staff. This meant they had to find alternatives to reaching out to some of their most vulnerable patients,鈥� Patnosh said during .

Addressing Long Journey Times and Broadband Access

The eight teams prepared for the challenge by talking to stakeholders and studying policy information. In August, they got down to business tackling the four project phases: Discover, Ideate, Create, and Deliver.

Fouad Sadik, an 麻豆原创 development architect, worked on the challenge for the Iowa PCA as the lead for the Tele-Transformers team. Sadik is an 麻豆原创 volunteer ambassador who has worked on cross-corporate teams in the past and sees many advantages to this problem-solving approach. 鈥淭丑别 community health centers benefit from tapping into the diversity of the skill sets coming from multi-company knowledge,鈥� Sadik says. 鈥淏eing a member of a team of five allowed us to divide and conquer the deliverables according to each member鈥檚 skill set to get the best outcome.鈥�

Sadik鈥檚 team analyzed stakeholders鈥� perspectives from healthcare professions and view-of-the-customer interviews to gain a comprehensive understanding of the issues surrounding telehealth adoption for the Iowa PCA. They also spoke with insurers and the presidents of Iowa鈥檚 two Medicaid Managed Care Organizations to ensure alignment on the reimbursement models for telehealth services. To better understand issues affecting different patient populations, the team developed detailed personas and undertook geo-mapping to analyze patient journey times to care centers. Strikingly, they discovered that some patients were traveling more than three-and-a-half hours to access care. This led the team to make recommendations for co-hosted telehealth sites with other organizations, like libraries or schools, that could serve as access points for telehealth services.

Dixon says it is a recommendation that the Iowa PCA will investigate further. 鈥淭elehealth may allow us to go into some communities where a full clinic site isn鈥檛 viable, but telehealth in partnership with another community provider could be a really viable way to increase services. We鈥檒l be looking at that as part of our statewide strategic growth planning this spring.鈥�

Digital broadband connectivity remains a hurdle across much of the state of Iowa. To address this imperative need, the Iowa PCA is part of a coalition of schools, libraries, and rural economic development agencies that are working on securing broadband infrastructure across the state. The teams developed innovative ideas for extending phone signals, expanding digital footprints to include parking lots for mobile telehealth vehicles, telehealth ATM machines in hotspot locations, and broadband sharing with other community and civic centers.

Empowering Patient Access and Satisfaction

At the end of the challenge, judges chose two winning proposals based on six criteria: innovation, social impact, sustainability, desirability, feasibility, and viability. The Tele-Transformers team, led by Sadik, won the challenge for the Iowa PCA, presenting a comprehensive telehealth program based on three pillars: strategy and process improvement, marketing and training for both patients and care providers, and technology systems and software. The team provided a detailed software comparison list of 14 telehealth software providers and six learning management systems, allowing them to make a recommendation for a strategy and unified approach that uses a common platform. Sustainability, social impact, and empathy for end users played a large role in the team鈥檚 proposal, which also included recommendations for expanding telehealth services for mental health, behavioral, and chronic care.

As a participant, Sadik says he benefited professionally from exposure to the healthcare domain, design thinking sessions, and project management methodology, while attaining personal development by helping the Iowa PCA expand care access for patients. 鈥淭his challenge made an impact toward the refinement of existing processes, building a road map for telehealth business programs and providing a digital footprint for telehealth on a grassroots level close to affected communities,鈥� Sadik says, adding, 鈥渢hat鈥檚 actually the challenge by itself that allowed us to improve telehealth systems and empower patients鈥� access and satisfaction.鈥�

The winning team for the NACHC Challenge was R/Evolution, which emphasized establishing best practices and using strategic partnerships and data analytics to elevate NACHC鈥檚 leadership on telehealth.

For Suzie Moskal, senior IT manager at Medtronic, participating in the challenge on behalf of NACHC was a rewarding experience that she would recommend for future participants considering the estimated four hours per-week time commitment. 鈥淚 would say definitely do it, make the time to make it happen. When I looked at the pitch session and saw all the amazing ideas and concepts that NACHC was going to receive, I was excited for them. Whether my team won or not, they got a very amazing set of products out of this experience.鈥�

To see all of the concepts that were presented, view the .

Care Access Enhanced by Technology

NACHC is moving ahead with due diligence to operationalize not only the winning concept but also integrate positive aspects of the other solutions. Its staff is engaging in further ideation sessions with PYXERA Global to refine the solutions and create a version to put into action.

Patnosh sees clear value in having participated in the Reimagine Series: 鈥淭o get the amount of input that we had from the teams and to have that level of engagement, and then also the quality of the presentations that come in, we estimate that those would have probably been 50 to 75 thousand-dollar engagements just with each team, if we were to contract that out.鈥�

Following the challenge, the Iowa PCA has shifted its plans away from implementing a standalone e-health platform. Feedback from the teams and voice-of-the-customer interviews convinced the Iowa PCA of the need for a simplified, integrated e-health solution that is easy for everyone to use. The organization is currently evaluating new electronic health records systems with a strategic focus on integrated telehealth functions.

Dixon says, 鈥淭丑别 insight from the challenge was so important because it brought in a different voice 鈥� a voice that wants the same things we do: simple tools, the ability to access information at our fingertips, and have a workflow that is enhanced by technology, not negatively impacted by technology.鈥�