Me trying VR from Neurostorm, a digital tool for Parkinson disease treatment. Currently, they are developing a tool to increase surgeon skill and knowledge with VR
Known as one of leading countries in innovation, Sweden transforms most of the traditional services into a digital platform. This approach involves all public and private sectors including the health care sector. Having 11% of National GDP, this “mevvah-mevvah” money escalates Sweden to aim and lead into a world-class public healthcare system. The apps such as 1177.se and Kry are some examples on how the country puts the health care system at another level, accessible and user friendly to aim high quality of its people’s health, both from the stakeholders and patients perspective.
I remember the reason why I chose Sweden as my master degree destination is Sweden’s advanced hi-tech system for health care. I worked as a medical doctor in Puskesmas Kasihan Bantul (Health care center) for 6 months after finishing my medical internship. During the day, there were around 75 – 150 people who visited the outpatient clinic. To be honest, as a doctor I felt exhausted from treating those many patients for 6 hours per day. Moreover, the examination and assessment that I did for a patient couldn’t reach the maximum quality of service. Of course, it is impossible to do proper patient examinations within less than 10 minutes, unlike what they do in Sweden’s vardcentral. At that time, I thought that I needed to find the solution about how to transform the amount of this burden into a proper system that would help the quality of healthcare both for patients and stakeholders. Thereby, I found digital health and telemedicine as a part of the solution. Unfortunately, the Telemedicine platform is already available in Indonesia but the regulation has not been made clearly. But here in Sweden, the platform has been used and well-known since 2016. So, I decided to choose Master Bioentrepreneurship in Karolinska Institutet as my journey in seeking how med-tech, innovation, and digital health works in improving health care and public health services, not only in Sweden but also in the world.
Thanks to a high level of digital maturity, the Stockholm region is aimed to lead the health tech revolution. Sweden is predicted to be the best in the world at utilizing digital platforms and eHeath by 2025. In Stockholm County, they have endowed more money to implement an entirely digital platform and revitalize electronic health records with a new, more modern, and flexible system. With an expected total cost of 2.2 billion kronor, the new initiative is the organisation’s largest IT investment ever.
Since 2018, patients can access digital versions of their health records like patient’s history, test result, medicines, appointment bookings, and doctor’s notes on the web using Bank-ID, Sweden’s electronic identification system. Furthermore, they have “1177” as a single online health app to navigate the healthcare system and book a physical or virtual appointment with a general practitioner. One of the best-known examples of digital innovation is Stockholm-based telehealth startup “KRY”, an app that connects patients with doctors for digital consultations, diagnoses, and treatment.
Kry is one of some digital innovations that Sweden has. Here, I will show you the other ultimate digital innovations that they have to tackle the health care problem and improve the quality of life.
1.KRY
KRY, founded in 2015, is a digital health app, allowing users to consult with a qualified health professional in minutes, via their smartphone or tablet. Since launching, KRY has established itself as one of Europe’s leading digital healthcare providers with over 1.4 million completed patient meetings. It works as follows: The patient accesses the app and her/his identity is directly authorized via a mobile BankID. The mobile BankID is developed by banks to serve and identify the citizen outside the financial sector. Sweden has one mobile BankID that works for all applications, so users do not need to access multiple identification tools. KRY’s doctors, nurses and psychologists are experts in their fields, with many years of experience providing high-quality care. They also have clinicians who can speak over 25 languages – including Arabic, Persian, Spanish and Russian. The novel element of the Swedish telemedicine apps is that they are designed to work seamlessly as part of the public welfare system. Another interesting aspect in using this app is that the service is included in the procurement system. It means you can reimburse the service using Swedish national insurance.
KRY user interface
2.1177.se
1177.se is a product of the Swedish National IT Strategy, first formulated in 2006, whose main purpose was to strengthen the way towards better health care. The website is jointly owned by all Sweden’s counties and healthcare regions, and is a resource that anyone can turn to when they need trustworthy, professional advice on care and illness, wherever they are in the country. It’s closely connected with the 1177 telephone information service, as both are based on the same medical database. Sweden has integrated medical records using this platform. So, every hospital from any part of Sweden has the same sources and patient data. The patients can also take a look at their medical history, test results, order examination, and doctors’ notes using this platform. During the COVID-19 Pandemic, Sweden uses this as the main platform and triage to assess and screen the disease.
1177.se user interface
3.Brighter – Actiste
A startup based, Brighter has a vision to create the world where managing chronic diseases is no longer a struggle. They start their first innovation to combat Diabetes using Actiste, a unique service for insulin-treated diabetes patients. Actiste both saves and shares data, via a built-in mobile connection so the patient can easily monitor blood sugar values and take insulin doses. The app provides a good overview and here are reminders and other features. Filling test sticks, needles and lancets will come by mail if necessary. All gathered in one service to help and facilitate everyday life. Actiste consists of a unit for measuring and injecting, an app and a service for overview and monitoring of measured values and activities and automated delivery of consumables. All data from measurements and injected insulin are automatically recorded and stored in the cloud service, giving the patients a good overview and simplifying the life of those living with diabetes.
Brighter user interface
4. Coala Life
Coala is the first integrated and smartphone-based ECG system that detects arrhythmias (abnormal heart wave) and atrial fibrillation based on analysis of both P-wave and RR variability in the ECG measurement. Completely in line with clinical guidelines and with market leading accuracy. The patient could measure his/her chest and thumb ECG using their smartphone in everyday life and it only takes 60 seconds to complete. The results will be presented to the healthcare provider in Coala Care, an easy-to-use web-based system (Coala’s partner). This makes the doctors easy to follow the patients remotely and manage the patient at the same time. The patient data are stored securely and easy to integrate into patient record systems, while the measurements can be downloaded and shared.
Coala user interface
5.Geras Solution
Around 1 of 5 elderly have Dementia and 70 % are caused by Alzheimer’s Disease. Twenty percent of the patients are denying the first signs and symptoms at the first diagnosis. The disease caregiving costs more than the medication itself while the disease progress can be denied 12 – 20 years earlier. The earlier patients get detected the better outcome they have, especially when they are detected in the early stage of the pathophysiology process – Mild Cognitive Impairment. They even could reverse back the cognitive impairment. Geras solution is an app which transforms the entire hospital procedure dementia care to a digital platform without medication treatment. Their goal is to reduce the percentage of individuals who never receive a diagnosis from 75% to 0%. Their product started using collaboration with Karolinska Institutet to finalize the prototype, involving validation, testing and reliability of the app.
Geras Solution user interface
6.AsthmaTuner from MediTuner
One in ten people is having asthma, while the current medicines are very effective, many people are still undiagnosed and aren’t receiving proper treatment. Therefore, MediTuner is a digital health startup, developing clinically-evaluated solutions for asthma patients. The founders both hold PhDs in asthma studies, and hope the platform will help patients self-manage, leading to improved diagnosis and monitoring while also relieving the economic burden of asthma care. Patients download the AsthmaTuner app and share access with their doctor or asthma nurse, who easily uploads a treatment plan based on international treatment guidelines. Patients are then able to measure lung function and register symptoms in the AsthmaTuner app to find out which inhaler to use and the recommended dose that particular day. The app also helps to keep track of symptoms and lung function over time. I remember I used to see how many children and adults that were undiagnosed with asthma when I was in clinical rotation of my bachelor or my work. I am also a patient of asthma disease and beyond happy to see that there is such innovation like AsthmaTuner 🙂
AsthmaTuner user interface
Mirzania Mahya Fathia
M.Sc. Candidate in Bioenterpreneurship
Karolinska Institutet
Editor: Darmawan Prasetya
Source:
- https://www.kry.se/en/
- https://www.investstockholm.com/news/five-stockholm-health-tech-innovations-for-a-brighter-2018/
- https://www.thalesgroup.com/en/markets/digital-identity-and-security/government/customer-cases/digital-doctors
- https://actiste.com/sv/actiste-tjansten/
- https://www.coalalife.com/se/coala-for-varden/
- https://asthmatuner.se/ta-kontroll-over-din-astma/?gclid=CjwKCAjw57b3BRBlEiwA1ImytkDBqN0XvvN7wSxRj0Vygw5eiqrMGLS-yL3AuFDS46zzQDw-a5BlKxoCk24QAvD_BwE
- https://www.sweappscene.com/2018/05/04/geras-solutions/
- https://gerassolutions.com/
- https://asthmatuner.se/ta-kontroll-over-din-astma/?gclid=CjwKCAjw57b3BRBlEiwA1ImytkDBqN0XvvN7wSxRj0Vygw5eiqrMGLS-yL3AuFDS46zzQDw-a5BlKxoCk24QAvD_BwE
- https://karolinskainnovations.ki.se/en/companies/medituner-eng/