Medizentrum Eckert: Central patient management in Stackfield

About Medizentrum Eckert

With over 80 locations all over Germany and a few in Switzerland Medizentrum Eckert has been a successful association of multiple eye centers, orthodontists, anesthetists, and ENT specialists. Niklas Steege, who has been working for the Eye Center (Augenzentrum Eckert) for about one and a half years is responsible for personnel and practice management and makes an effort maintaining the CIP.

From pen and paper to a secure, digital solution

Before Stackfield was introduced the entire communication at Medizentrum Eckert was held via paper, email, fax, and telephone. That wasn't only impractical, furthermore, an actual central overview for patients and co. was missing. Niklas Steege explains: "We wanted to make sure that no patient will ever be forgotten or overseen somehow. Thankfully, this never happened until now but considering our size we realized we needed a solution that can be accessed from everywhere at any time."

As Niklas Steege already had some experiences with Trello he had the idea to introduce a similar tool to Medizentrum Eckert. However, because of data security regulations, Trello was out of the question: "As a data protection officer, I know that Trello can not be used with personal data. All servers are located in the US which means Trello is not compliant with data protection laws."

Thus, Niklas Steege started searching for a German alternative in which patient data could be stored securely and that's where he found Stackfield. On that same day, he contacted the support, informing himself about the tool, and created a test account "and then everything got big very fast."

Stackfield's support helping with first steps

As Niklas Steege already worked with a tool like Stackfield and knew how it is best built in the background he concentrated on creating a structure and tasks by himself. "I prepared everything on my own. […] On a Saturday I was then able to do a closed training for the locations." The support helped him throughout the process with various tips and tricks.

Patient management according to the Kanban principle

If a patient needs surgery, their doctor's office usually hands them a referral to the appropriate clinic. However, since Medizentrum Eckert refers patients to its own surgical sites, patient management can be done internally through alternative channels, and this is where Stackfield enters the picture.

In the module Tasks, a unique task card is created for each patient. The title contains the search criteria that are also used in the other programs on site, meaning no major rethinking is required: Name, ID, and Date of Birth. With the help of custom fields that Niklas Steege created in advance, the data can be stored in the right spot on the card. Finally, the task card contains all the information that is normally on the referral slip and will later be relevant for the corresponding surgery location, such as the address, phone number, symptoms, type of surgery, type of implant, and more.

Using labels, the cards are structured, categorized, and highlighted so that the view can be further limited with the filter function. User-defined statuses such as "new surgeries" or "follow-up appointments" create an additional grouping. Niklas Steege applauds how smoothly patient management now works with Stackfield.

Stackfield as an interface between practices and operating room locations

Once the task card is created for the corresponding patient, the patient can be assigned to an OR site. The OR locations can then access the patient information in the task card, see which location the patient is from, contact them, and store the information in their system. "Everything runs automatically, without a lot of paperwork, without a lot of effort," says Niklas Steege. Both parties can view a task together, leading to fewer misunderstandings between sites.

The global search on Stackfield

Accessing patient information and documents quickly and easily was of great importance to Niklas Steege. Here, Stackfield has taken a lot of the work out of his hands. Using the global search, key terms can be searched across rooms and modules. Documents can thus be easily found, edited, and printed. And that seems to pay off: "I actually save almost ten minutes this way."

"We have achieved the jump-start for digitization".

Currently, about 65% of Medizentrum Eckert's nearly 500 employees use Stackfield effectively, and the percentage is steadily increasing. In particular, the simple user interface has made it easy for employees to use Stackfield successfully. "Stackfield has a very simple design," praises Niklas Steege. He is confident of attracting even more employees to use it. "We are very happy with Stackfield."