Running a hospital generates many demands but few straightforward solutions.

How do you collect and connect health data, so clinicians can always access a complete picture of their patients? How do you engage and empower patients to take charge of their health? And how do you deliver the best care today while innovating for tomorrow?

If this sounds familiar, it’s because healthcare executives around the world are facing similar challenges.

Thailand’s @Bumrungrad International Hospital, one of the largest private hospitals in Southeast Asia, had the same questions. But it also had @InterSystems technology at its service.

Hospital leadership had built an organization that treated more than 1 million patients from 190 countries per year, but Bumrungrad’s digital environment lacked the capability to connect data from many disparate sources. It was time for the premier hospital to call on its core strength, innovation, once again.

Bumrungrad pointed to interoperability as the answer.

By unifying patient data on a single platform, an advanced electronic medical record solution could support the hospital’s world-class care delivery and its ambitions for the future. Bumrungrad’s leaders chose InterSystems TrakCare to make that vision a reality, and we were honored to help them usher in this monumental shift.

After implementation, the hospital leveraged visibility into data across millions of records to streamline internal processes, offering highly-personalized healthcare and managing patient journeys and revenue cycles.

The results were stunning: 95% patient satisfaction ratings in several departments, dramatic drops in paper usage, and reduced journey times for patients.

“One of the biggest benefits was interoperability,” said Ignacio Diaz, Bumrungrad’s Chief Information Technology Officer. “We also achieved unmatched performance, which helped us serve patients quickly. No one should have to wait for a lab result, and now they are available almost immediately.”

Bumrungrad’s marketing team tapped patient insights from InterSystems TrakCare to bolster outreach applications, creating a competitive advantage in the high-end medical tourism landscape — a significant revenue stream for the hospital, which welcomes half its patients from abroad.

At each step, our customer support team was ready to help Bumrungrad overcome emerging challenges.

“We feel that we have a partner who actually helps us when we need it,” Diaz said. “We solve problems together, and it’s one of the best pleasures.”

Access to data-driven insights enabled Bumrungrad to open new clinics and double down on virtual care. And interoperability laid the foundation for further innovation. 

“We are in a great position to provide patients and doctors access to the information they need, no matter where they are,” Diaz said. “Healthcare is becoming virtual, personalized, and precise, and real-time data exchange underpins the innovation required to get there.”

Bumrungrad is prepared for that future. But how did the hospital’s work help individual patients?

Significantly.

Nothing demonstrates the boost to care quality better than the story of senior intensivist Dr. Tossapol-Kersirichairat and a patient from Bangladesh.

The gastroenterologist received word that a flight was airlifting a man with acute pancreatitis. His organs were failing. His odds of survival were 50/50 — a coin toss — and each second without treatment raised the risk.

Dr. Toss opened his electronic medical record system and accessed insights into the patient’s history, medications, and allergies — before the air ambulance had even landed, the doctor knew what to expect.

When the patient arrived, he underwent several CT scans. InterSystems TrakCare enabled Dr. Toss to access analytics from the imaging systems to make a difficult but crucial decision: The patient required a complex endoscopy procedure.

Three months later, he boarded a flight home to Bangladesh.

Dr. Toss had saved the man’s life. Whether you’re in healthcare, technology, or customer service, few outcomes surpass that.

It’s remarkable what you can accomplish

when you place your customer — or your patient — at the center of innovation.

• What enterprise-level problems is your healthcare organization facing? Tell me in the comments.
• Continue our journey together and get access to 40 years of customer service insights. Subscribe to my newsletter today.