Luz Saúde was established in 2000 and is one of the largest health care groups in terms of income operating in the Portuguese market. The group provides its services through 24 units (including eleven private hospitals, a hospital of the national health service operated under the Public-Private Partnership program, ten private outpatient clinics and two senior residences), located in the North, Central and Central-South regions of Portugal Continental and in Madeira.
Luz Saúde, one of the largest private health groups in Portugal, better known for its Hospital da Luz brand, has always had the vision of being a reference of excellence in medicine practice combined with innovation. The client is at the center of the activity and it’s his satisfaction and involvement that guide management practices. Creating conditions that facilitate, approximate, streamline and improve the relationship between all is the basis of the investment on information technologies.
The web plays a key role here, and Hospital da Luz has always allowed clients to rely on this channel for a series of services. "The idea of the Digital Clinical Center was born to support our clients to better manage their health, taking advantage of the latest communication and information technologies", says Ivo Antão, administrator of Luz Saúde.
To do this, it was necessary to create a new area in the Patient Portal of the Hospital da Luz Network (portalcliente.luzsaude.pt/en/), also developed by Create IT, where each client can register personal data and measurements, quickly and intuitively, and monitor its evolution. "During appointments, doctors can have access to this data, enhancing a more detailed knowledge of the health of the client", highlights Ivo Antão.
The choice of Create IT for this project was based on the success of the partnership working experience. "We have been working with Create IT since 2012, making it easy to keep this winning investment to develop the new functionalities that integrate the Digital Clinical Center. The relationship we build, the trust, the mutual knowledge and the results are just a few aspects that justify this natural continuity", says Petra Matias, project manager.
In order to address to the new challenges of Hospital da Luz, Create IT has developed the 'My Registries' area of the Patient Portal, which allows users to register their most relevant data and measurements according to their specialty, in a secure and confidential way (with two levels authentication), anytime, anywhere, through their computer, tablet or smartphone. These data include, for example, vital signs, headaches, weight and height, cholesterol and female calendar.
The client and the doctor have access to the entire information history, both the recorded data and the overview visualizations that allow to follow the evolution through charts, and identify patterns through a calendar view, proving to be of excellent value in management chronic diseases.
The Digital Clinical Center, like the Patient Portal, was developed based on Umbraco technology. Create IT has defined, from a functional point of view, the whole process. Umbraco is an open source content manager with all the important characteristics for the management of a portal of the present times and is a very versatile, extensible and easy to use platform, guaranteeing the desired autonomy of Luz Saúde. The layout and user interaction were By responsibility and aimed on providing an excellent user experience for both mobile and desktop clients.
The project was developed over 12 months: after the design and conception, a three-stage implementation process was followed, starting from the simplest features to the most complex ones. "Create IT has played a leading role in the design phase and is entirely responsible for structuring the ‘My Registries’ area", refers André Santos, technical manager of the project. According to him, Create IT collaborated with Luz Saúde in the specification and implementation of the services, in the layout of the various screens developed by the design partner, as well as in the implementation, integrating the HTML and guaranteeing the response to webservices, having the mission of implement the whole necessary logic to make this all work together. Finally, in the phase of operationalization, it was responsible, together with Luz Saúde, to deploy the three distinct phases, in three different moments.
The recording of measurements in the Digital Clical Center contributes to a better follow-up of the patient by the health professional, particularly in cases of chronic diseases, since he has access to a complete and continuous ‘photography’ of the client. On the other hand, the client benefits from synthesized and easy-to-read views through charts and calendars that provide more information to improve the self-monitoring of their chronic condition.
"In addition, this project has opened doors to innovative ways of monitoring clients, offering new channels that break physical barriers and enable Luz Saúde to be at the forefront in this area", highlights out Nuno Guerra, CEO of Create IT.
The project was successfully developed and implemented thanks to the dedication of the teams Create IT, By and Luz Saúde team, and the agility in solving questions and gathering feedback.
