In recent years, telemedicine has become increasingly popular as a way for people to receive medical care from the comfort of their homes on a flexible schedule. However, there are still some prejudices and misconceptions concerning the medical accuracy and the quality of doctor-patient interaction of these new services. These can be condensed to three prevailing biases that I have most commonly encountered through the years of my experience, which I aim here to dismantle, demonstrating the capacity of digital medical practice and telemedicine to deliver exceptional and quality medical care in an empathic way.

Misconception 1: Telemedicine is low-quality care

One of the main prejudices about digital doctor consultations and telemedicine is the idea that the quality of care is lower than in in-person care. This perception may stem from the interpretation that when the patient is evaluated from afar, as with a video appointment, the level of information the doctor receives from the patient could fall short of the standards of traditional appointments, and lead to miscalculated diagnoses and improper treatment.  

The key is to understand that not all medical decision making requires data points that are based on physical examination. There are a large number of afflictions, by some estimates around 70% of all primary care needs, where high quality medical decisions can be made solely on the grounds of a detailed anamnesis of medical history and current symptoms combined with clinical information that can be obtained via digital means, such as high-quality images and remote measurements.  

In the pursuit of top-quality care, the correct approach is to actively utilise digital appointments in the specific, common medical scenarios that are well suited for it, and direct those patients requiring physical examination to traditional services. With the advances we are currently seeing in the field of remote monitoring and health data collection by smart devices, we can expect to see a rise in the range of medical issues that are well suited for remote consultations. Advancing digitalisation has allowed telemedicine to move beyond the basic pixelated video-calls that add very little value to the original process.   

Many studies have shown that telemedicine can provide care that is just as effective as in-person care for many conditions, such as hypertension, and depression. Individuals can also effectively manage their diabetes via telemedicine-based consultations, on par with those opting for in-person care. Notably, diabetes patients at Harjun Terveys, a Joint Venture Company established by Mehiläinen and the Päijät-Häme region in Finland, achieved a notable average weight loss of -5 kg during the first months of the programme. This accomplishment was attributed to the utilisation of tailored digital wellbeing programs tailored to cater to chronic illnesses, highlighting the tangible benefits of integrating telemedicine into healthcare strategies.

Misconception 2: Telemedicine is impersonal 

Another misconception about digital medical practice and telemedicine is that it lacks empathy. Some people assume that because the doctor is not physically present with the patient, they cannot provide the same level of emotional support or connection. Instead, telemedicine can provide emotional support and connection in a variety of ways by utilising the right tools of communication. A scientific study conducted in collaboration with the University of Helsinki concluded that digital chat consultations are an effective means of conveying empathy and care for patients. 

Many patients feel more comfortable and open discussing sensitive, difficult, and embarrassing health issues through telemedicine, as they can do so from the privacy and comfort of their own homes with an impression of greater psychological safety and anonymity. For many, the threshold to physically going to a doctor to discuss sensitive issues such as mental or sexual health can be so high, that they simply do not seek the help they need. Telemedicine can help lower this threshold. 

Telemedicine can facilitate more frequent check-ins and communication between doctors and patients, which can foster stronger relationships and improve overall care. It can also allow doctors to see patients in their home environments, which can provide important context for understanding their health issues and lifestyle factors.

Misconception 3: Telemedicine is only for rural areas 

Many people also believe that telemedicine is only suitable for rural areas where access to healthcare is limited. While it is true that telemedicine is particularly beneficial for rural areas, it is also useful in urban areas where access to healthcare can be just as challenging. Telemedicine provides a convenient and cost-effective way for patients to access care, regardless of their location. City-dwellers are often busy professionals, and telemedicine allows them to better accommodate healthcare in their tight schedules. 

Overall, breaking down prejudices about digital doctor work and telemedicine is crucial for expanding access to high quality medical care. While there may be some challenges to providing care through digital means, such as access to technology, the benefits of telemedicine cannot be ignored. By providing convenient and effective care, telemedicine can help improve health outcomes and reduce healthcare disparities.

Interested in seeing the BeeHealthy platform in action? Unlock the potential of digital transformation and request your demo today.

In an era defined by rapid technological advancements, healthcare providers face increasing pressure to adapt and incorporate digital solutions into their service provision. Traditional methods of healthcare delivery alone are no longer sufficient to meet the evolving needs of patients and the expectations of a digitally savvy population.

Why must healthcare providers invest in digital service solutions to complement their existing services and enhance patient care?

Improved Access to Healthcare

Digital service solutions bring healthcare directly to the fingertips of patients, irrespective of their geographical location. Telemedicine, for instance, enables remote consultations, diagnosis, and treatment through video calls, eliminating the need for in-person visits in many cases. This accessibility ensures that patients in rural areas or those with limited mobility can receive timely medical attention.

By investing in digital services, healthcare providers can expand their reach, and thereby increase their profitability, as well address the pressing issue of healthcare access.

Enhanced Patient Engagement and Empowerment

Digital service solutions empower patients by involving them more actively in their healthcare journeys. Mobile applications enable individuals to access their personal medical information, schedule appointments, and receive personalized reminders – all in their pocket.

These tools promote patient engagement, encouraging individuals to be in the driver’s seat of their own health. Through a mobile application, healthcare providers can foster stronger patient-provider relationships and improve overall patient satisfaction.

Streamlined Administrative Processes

Digital service solutions offer healthcare providers the opportunity to streamline administrative processes, reducing paperwork and manual data entry. Electronic health records (EHRs) simplify patient data management, ensuring accuracy and enabling efficient information exchange among healthcare professionals.

Automation of administrative tasks, such as appointment scheduling and sending payment requests, reduces the burden on staff, allowing them to focus more on patient care. These streamlined processes enhance operational efficiency, leading to cost savings and improved resource allocation.

Data-Driven Decision Making and Personalised Care

Digital service solutions produce huge amounts of data that can be used in evidence-based decision-making and informing personal care. Advanced analytics tools can analyze large data sets, identifying trends, patterns, and insights that aid in early disease detection and prevention.

By harnessing the power of digital technologies, healthcare providers can make informed decisions about treatment plans, monitor patient outcomes, and tailor interventions to individual needs. This data-driven approach leads to more efficient and effective healthcare delivery.

Collaboration and Coordination Among Healthcare Providers 

Digital service solutions facilitate seamless collaboration and coordination among healthcare providers, breaking down barriers between different specialties and care settings. E-referrals and prescriptions, secure messaging tools, and teleconferencing enable efficient communication and information sharing, promoting interdisciplinary teamwork.

This enhanced collaboration leads to better care coordination, reduced medical errors, and improved patient outcomes. Investing in digital solutions fosters a connected healthcare ecosystem that benefits both providers and patients.

In an increasingly digital world, healthcare providers cannot afford to overlook the immense benefits of investing in digital service solutions. By embracing these technologies, healthcare organizations can improve access to care, enhance patient engagement, streamline administrative processes, enable data-driven decision making, and foster collaboration among providers. The integration of digital solutions complements traditional healthcare services, ushering in a new era of patient-centered, efficient, and personalized care. It is crucial for healthcare providers to embrace this digital revolution to meet the evolving needs of patients and stay at the forefront of healthcare innovation.

Interested in seeing the BeeHealthy platform in action? Unlock the potential of digital transformation and request your demo today.

Digital tools have transformed the healthcare industry in recent years, providing healthcare providers with the ability to improve efficiency, reduce costs, and enhance patient outcomes. The revolutionary BeeHealthy platform is leading the way in this digital healthcare revolution.

The BeeHealthy platform is a comprehensive digital platform that offers a range of services, including virtual consultations, online appointment booking, e-prescriptions, and online laboratory results. By leveraging digital technology, the platform is a game-changer for healthcare providers’ profitability and patient satisfaction.

Reaching more patients and providing more personalised care

One of the key benefits of the BeeHealthy platform is that it enables healthcare providers to reach more patients. With the Digital Clinic module’s virtual consultation feature, healthcare providers offer their services to patients who may not have access to in-person care, such as those living in remote areas. The Digital Clinic also enables patients to immediately access physicians 24/7. Depending on your business model, you can use it to increase revenue opportunities or use the Digital Clinic as a digital gatekeeper to block unnecessary visits to the physical network. Whichever the case, patients love it, as they receive more convenient and accessible care.

Moreover, the platform’s Online Booking module offers online appointment booking, allowing patients to schedule appointments at their convenience, reducing administrative overhead for healthcare providers, and improving patient satisfaction by reducing waiting times.

With the platform’s Patient History and Timeline modules, patients have personal access to their medical records, e-prescriptions, health checks, surveys, reminders of upcoming appointments – all in the patient’s pocket 24/7. These features cut the need for patients to contact or physically visit the doctor. 

Another advantage that enables healthcare providers to increase adherence to care is the Care plans module. In the Care plans, patients have access to guided patient journeys and coaching programs for illness prevention or lifestyle change management addressing weight management, stress, activity, nutrition, and sleep. This not only improves patient outcomes but also enhances patient satisfaction.

Boosting healthcare providers’ financial success

The success of the BeeHealthy platform is evident in the financial results of healthcare providers that have adopted the platform. By streamlining workflows and reducing administrative overhead, providers can focus their physicians’ time on patients. If operating in a capitation-based model, providers have been able to decrease unnecessary physical visits while increasing the overall availability of care. In fee-for-service models, healthcare providers can increase revenue while improving the quality of care.  

By supplying more convenient, accessible, and personalised care, healthcare providers can attract more patients, manage demand, and improve patient outcomes. As the healthcare industry continues to evolve, digital tools like the Digital Clinic will play a critical role in shaping the future of healthcare delivery.  

In conclusion, the digitisation of healthcare services through the BeeHealthy platform has resulted in favourable financial results for healthcare providers. The platform’s ability to offer convenience and accessibility to patients, perfect resource usage, and reduce overhead costs has made it a game-changer in the healthcare industry.  

As healthcare continues to evolve, healthcare providers must embrace digital solutions to remain competitive and profitable. BeeHealthy is the solution to achieve both, and it’s an investment worth considering for any healthcare provider looking to create profitability while improving patient satisfaction.

Interested in trying the BeeHealthy platform? Request a demo.

Healthcare has traditionally been organised by the terms of the providers, leaving patients with the burden of navigating through a complex network of services. This not only causes frustration but can at worst lead to unnecessary delays and adverse health outcomes. Meanwhile we are witnessing a surge in mental health issues and lifestyle-related diseases. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that by 2030, the proportion of total global deaths due to chronic disease is expected to increase to 70 percent and the global burden of disease to 56 percent.  

So far, effective means for supporting the prevention and treatment adherence of these diseases have remained elusive. Digital tools hold the potential to change the way we promote health, treatment, and recovery. Applications can help us to guide patients through their health journeys in a multitude of scenarios from getting pregnant to going through surgery or making a lifestyle change to prevent the onset of chronic disease. Research shows that generating behavioural change requires gamification and continued support, and typically the barrier is not a lack of knowledge on what needs to be done, but rather the failure to actually execute the beneficial changes.  

Digital patient journeys can provide the patient with well-timed reminders that help build improved, sustainable habits. In addition, they can be used to clarify the stages of treatment and care, providing the patient with clear knowledge of what needs to be done next at any given time. Health care professionals, in turn, are able to scale up their work as they can effectively monitor the patients’ progression on their given pathway, and provide interventions when they are needed, instead of waiting until the next physical encounter.  

Our experience from different markets such as Finland and Switzerland show that people want to engage and be active in managing their health. Case examples include patients undergoing an orthopaedic procedure, coaching program patients aiming to make a lifestyle change such as quitting smoking or losing weight and diabetic patients.  

Our evidence shows that when we empower patients with continuous support and guidance we can improve treatment outcomes, increase patient satisfaction, and make better use of care personnel’s time. The BeeHealthy platform facilitates patient engagement and supports the patient journey. It is currently used in over 10 countries by over 1,5 million people.

Just as bumblebees look for certain flowers and the environment where they have the best opportunities to live and grow, BeeHealthy team members had looked for the best possible work environment and culture before joining BeeHealthy. 

Shared values, goals, attitudes and practices characterise the workplace, which forms the culture, a bit like the organisation’s DNA. Conceptually, it’s the way people think about the work they do, the values ​​they believe in, how they see the company growing, and what they do to achieve it. 

You might be eager to know what kind of air we breathe here at BeeHealthy where we have attracted 37 new team members in 2022 alone, and how we nurture and maintain the same spirit as our parent company Mehiläinen? Simply, we share the same values ​​and make sure that they are reflected in our daily activities. BeeHealthy and Mehiläinen’s culture strongly emphasises quality, operations, cooperation, and openness.  The subject is interesting, because there are not many similar cases or studies of similar business ties in the Finnish or global market: the birth of a modern technology start-up company in healthcare and residential care service provider Mehiläinen, which history dates to 1909.

Since at BeeHealthy one of the strong reflections of our culture is openness, I gave one of our valued employees, Enxhi Minaj, a voice to share in her own words what she feels and thinks about our culture:

Culture of action

“To me, culture of action means that we as employees are given the trust and freedom to act responsibly in decision-making in every task assigned to us or tasks where we want to promote our ideas. Isn’t this the best way for everyone to show their full potential? In short, I would like to say that BeeHealthy’s core values ​​make me appreciate my role here and the people around me!”

Culture of quality

“The quality of our service is the primary goal that we all strive to achieve. We care about software security and the way we develop our software.”

Culture of cooperation

“We collaborate and exchange ideas with our colleagues to create and achieve the best optimal solution to our challenges.”

Culture of openness

“When it comes to openness, it makes us better employees. We can freely express our concerns and provide positive feedback to each other, which makes us more productive and happier in the workplace.”

Thank you, Enxhi, for sharing your thoughts! Consciously or not, every employee affects the company culture. Especially when the building materials of corporate culture consist of open communication and transparent feedback, the cultural contribution is more likely to take place in real life. Besides that, company culture is ultimately everyone’s responsibility and people are at the centre of everything. That’s why I encourage everyone to get to know colleagues on a personal level and contribute to the air you breathe and live in at work every single day! 

Since the right culture can increase the level of purpose you find in your work and positively affect your wellbeing, I strongly recommend that you think about what kind of work life home you would like to spend most of your week in? 

P.S. If you are interested in working at BeeHealthy, discover our open positions on Careers.

Harjun Terveys, a Joint Venture Company established by Mehiläinen and the Päijät Häme region in Finland, took the BeeHealthy platform in use at the beginning of 2021. After the deployment of the platform, service availability has risen to an outstanding level with patient waiting times dropping from 10+ days to near zero.  

Harjun Terveys is responsible for public primary health care services (outpatient care, dental care) for the 130 000 residents of Päijät-Häme. Harjun Terveys’ key target is to provide the residents excellent quality and well available public primary care services in a cost-effective way. This is sought through new ways of arranging and producing services. 

‘’We provide the services based on a fixed capitation fee, which means that our aim is to have an outstanding level of availability and to produce the services in a cost-efficient manner, rather than a fee for service model to optimise the number of visits’’ says Joonas Turunen, CEO of start-up phase of Harjun Terveys.

Excellent service availability with digital services

Harjun Terveys’ primary health care services operate on a queue-free operating model, where the patients care starts from the first point of contact and when necessary, with a physical appointment, that is offered on the same or next day. All residents in the Päijät Häme region also have access to care through Digital Clinic, through which they can seek medical help remotely. 

‘’Digital services have enabled the resident’s new ways of accessing health services. The 24/7 access to Digital Clinic is easy and patients can use the services from the comfort of their own homes’’ Turunen adds. 

Digital services also have increased doctor efficiency significantly, meaning that doctors can treat multiple patients simultaneously and faster, without compromising on quality. Digital Clinic has moved a significant share of service demand from the brick and mortar to the digital channel.

Meeting patient service needs with multi-specialty care teams

In addition to digital services, Harjun Terveys operates in a multi-specialty care team model, meaning that professionals from different disciplines, such as doctors, nurses, dental hygienists, psychiatric nurses, physiotherapists, and social care workers, work as a team. Addressing the patients’ service needs begins immediately at first contact, without unnecessary queueing to access services. In the care team model, the service demand is always met during the same day with a major share of the service capacity being booked proactively by the care team. 

Since having the BeeHealthy digital platform up and running, I dare to say that we have the best public digital healthcare services in the country’’ rejoices Turunen.

To learn more, watch our free online webinar:
Revolutionise access to care with Digital Clinic