Terveystalo: Reshaping healthcare business with new mobile services

In today's busy lifestyle, well-being is threatened by excess amounts of sitting, being overweight and a general increase in mental problems. Getting the right treatment at the right time and with the right professional is crucial. The role of prevention in health care is playing an increasingly important role.

But how to enable a change for the better in the busy everyday life? Despite increasing knowledge of good health, lifestyle changes and specific health goals are often difficult to achieve. Customers meet with a health care professional at the appointment, but may be left unsupported in the day-to-day life where the actual change takes place.

Also, taking care of one’s health is not always easy and understandable. It can be difficult to interpret instructions from long medical records. Often, a small “nudging" would be needed to maintain a treatment regimen or lifestyle change. Asking for help, accessing the needed services and information should be easy anytime and anywhere when you need them.

This is not always easy. Firstly, the threshold for visiting a doctor’s office can be high. Secondly, small cities and rural areas can be affected by lack of doctors which can lead to situations where access to certain professional groups may be impossible due to long distances. And lastly, healthcare has traditionally been practiced in reserved appointments with health care professionals and the health care has been led by the doctor and not the customer. Our main focus was to understand customers' health care and wellbeing challenges, and provide meaningful solutions that address those needs.

We started by conducting a study where the aim was to deepen our understanding of the customers’ needs and behaviours. We also included different health care professionals, customer service personnel and other relevant stakeholders in the study in order to ensure that we understand the end-to-end experience from multiple points of view.

Based on the research, we understood that effective care comes from continuity, everyday change and timely help from a healthcare professional. Our customers appreciate easy access to treatment, continuous support from a professional, and a sense of care.

We identified that there are recurring needs that we need to take into consideration in all decisions throughout the project:

• The need for a health care professional is not tied to any specific space or moment in time
• In order to reach long term health goals, it is essential that the right health care professional is there for the customer when she needs help
• Building a trusting relationship between the customer and health care professional is mutually beneficial and will lead to better results
• It should not be the customers responsibility to remember all the details of what was discussed and planned during any appointment
• The customer should have a feeling that she is heard and cared for in all situations and that she understands what is going on

Based on the gathered insight we designed an intelligent, data-driven Oma Terveys mobile application that helps customers manage their health in the long term. The application works at all stages of the customer path to better health and it keeps the customer informed of what happens before, during and after each appointment.

Our solution is based on the three cornerstones that together will respond to the biggest challenges facing healthcare in our time:

1. Customer data: Instead of showing only historical patient text records, we created insightful and relevant automated content and data visualizations that help customers manage their personal health at the right time.
2. Easy access to care: By simplifying the process of getting help and aligning the work of the different health care professionals, we can guarantee access to care at the highest speed, increase consistency and improve the quality of life for the customer.
3. Preventive health care: Focusing on preventive health care by offering a tailor-made digital health plan for everyday use.

We implemented the iOS and Android applications with React Native framework. For the video appointments, a native SDK for both plaforms was integrated in the app.

We interviewed our customers and tested the application with them on bi-weekly basis throughout the project. It was important for us that we listen to our customers during all phases of the design and development in order to ensure that the things we build are addressing the real customer needs. After the first release of the application we also started to use the application analytics and written customer feedback in our regular planning sessions to guide our path forward.

Customer: Terveystalo

Design: Futurice, Palmu

Production: Futurice, Terveystalo, Tietotalo, Ninchat, Knowit