An insurance company in Austria develops a telemedicine system
Customer Company Size
Large Corporate
Region
- Europe
Country
- Austria
Product
- IBM System z10
- IBM DB2
- IBM Rational
- IBM WebSphere
Tech Stack
- IBM DB2
- IBM Rational
- IBM WebSphere
Implementation Scale
- Enterprise-wide Deployment
Impact Metrics
- Cost Savings
- Customer Satisfaction
Technology Category
- Application Infrastructure & Middleware - API Integration & Management
- Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) - Cloud Computing
- Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) - Cloud Databases
Applicable Industries
- Healthcare & Hospitals
Use Cases
- Remote Patient Monitoring
Services
- Cloud Planning, Design & Implementation Services
- Data Science Services
About The Customer
The customer is a public insurance company based in Austria. It provides health, pension, and accident coverage to a large number of railway workers and miners, totaling 260,000 individuals. The company was facing a significant challenge due to a dramatic increase in the percentage of the population suffering from type 2 diabetes. The lifetime costs per patient were averaging EUR150,000, which was a significant financial burden for the company. In response to this, the company decided to shift its focus from traditional care to preventive care. The goal was to slow or even halt the advance of type 2 diabetes through effective screening, treatment, and management of at-risk or already afflicted patients.
The Challenge
The Austrian public insurance company, which provides health, pension and accident coverage to 260,000 railway workers and miners, was facing a dramatic increase in the percentage of the population suffering from type 2 diabetes. The lifetime costs per patient were averaging EUR150,000, prompting the company to shift its focus from traditional to preventive care. Effective screening, treatment and management of at-risk or already afflicted patients can slow or even halt the advance of type 2 diabetes. However, proactive treatment requires close cooperation between physician and patient, with success directly dependent on precise medication management and challenging lifestyle changes demanding a high degree of motivation. The insurer required a convenient way to monitor compliance on a daily basis, in near-real time, while offering ease of use to facilitate patient autonomy and participation.
The Solution
In collaboration with IBM, the insurer developed a telemedicine program that helps physicians monitor patient compliance with prescribed treatment programs, including adjusting medications and treatment quickly and remotely. The core of the system is a mobile diabetes memory diary, a custom-designed database solution built on an IBM DB2 data server hosted on an IBM System z10 Business Class server, developed with IBM Rational and IBM WebSphere software. The solution integrates medical devices such as blood pressure gauges, blood glucose meters and weight scales with cell phones to help patients monitor their vital values. The solution automatically forwards patient data to the diabetes memory database, and an algorithm compares actual results to expected standards, immediately notifying physicians if results exceed critical thresholds. Physicians then respond rapidly to adjust patient treatment to avert the cascading complications that can worsen the disease.
Operational Impact
Quantitative Benefit
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