More and more hospitals are forming integrated systems or cooperating on a regional or international level. Digitalization is a must. In most cases, this cannot be done in-house, which is why managed services like those offered by synaforce are becoming increasingly important. Here are two success stories.
Just as five IT service providers, including the Hartl Group from Lower Bavaria and ITecon from Mainz with their own green data centres, have just joined forces to form synaforce in spring 2023, hospitals and rehabilitation facilities are also forming more and more networked systems. However, particularly strict data protection requirements and regulations make communication and cooperation between the companies difficult, especially since digitalization in the health sector is still in its infancy in many cases.
In addition, there is a great reluctance to use cloud solutions because people fear that they are less secure. However, the cloud is usually much more secure than an on-prem solution. The only question is which cloud. The trend is towards a hybrid solution that combines the advantages of two worlds. Healthcare institutions would do well to seek external advice here, as synaforce does.
Clinics are subject to particularly strict regulations
As Peter Hartl, who built synaforce together with the financing fund Afinum, explained to the Passauer Neue Presse (PNP) on the occasion of the visit of Bavarian Digital Minister Judith Gerlach to his Lower Bavarian company headquarters in Hofkirchen at the beginning of June 2023, enquiries from the health sector come primarily from privately run hospitals. This is because public hospitals are subject to even stricter requirements under the Hospital Act, which make it difficult for external parties to manage health data. "This is a relic from the days of record keeping," noted synaforce CTO Tobias Lehner.
Hartl points out, what he sees as excessive data protection requirements and a flood of security certifications are making further development more difficult for companies like his. "Millions are being squandered because every clinic has to manage its own data" the PNP quotes him as saying.
The demands on digitalization, the cloud and data security are, however, also high for privately run health facilities. At the same time, the clinics, keyword hospital reform, must increasingly survive in competition and keep up with the times technologically in order not to lose out nationally and internationally. Modern computer- or even AI-supported diagnostic tools are expensive, and therefore it makes sense to bundle forces in corporate groups.
Health Blueprint for Managed Services
One of synaforce's customers and a blueprint for its managed services is a private clinic operator operating throughout Germany and a premium provider of rehabilitation and preventive measures with almost 20 locations and well over 2,000 employees. Here, among other things, it is important to centrally manage the workplaces that are distributed throughout Germany. This is much more cost-efficient than deploying or setting up and maintaining the systems on site. However, this requires smooth data management around the clock. Without an external managed service partner like synaforce, this is hardly possible. Because of the aforementioned high requirements for data protection and other regulations in the health sector, experts are also needed here who are familiar with and can address them, as is the case with synaforce.
A solution previously implemented at the customer's had proven to be too rigid and inflexible to meet the growing requirements. So it was clear that a comprehensive new solution was needed to modernize the digital infrastructure and overcome the previous problems. In addition, the client did not even have access to its own IT infrastructure. That changed with synaforce. Because in accordance with the company's philosophy, they met as equals, as the IT department of the health client was pleased to discover.
Process improvement and digitization of histology
"We improved the processes so that they were in line with Bavarian regulations," Hartl remarks at the official press conference for the founding of synaforce on 14 June 2023 in Munich.
Another synaforce success story from the health sector is about improving processes to comply with national and international regulations, which are different in every country. This is about VivaScope, a Munich-based company that is in demand worldwide and is one of the leading providers in the field of tumour and cancer diagnostics. An important aspect here is histology or tissue sample examination for the detection of tumour cells, which are taken from skin particles by digital frozen section, for example. “Together with synaforce, we have succeeded in further advancing the digitalisation of histology and the associated pathology. Because: Digitalization of pathology saves time" is the motto of VivaScope Sales Director Guiseppe Solomita.
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