labcomplete® - Digital laboratory request and test result communication for doctors and laboratories

What was the initial situation?

Before the development of labcomplete®, medical practices and laboratories in Austria faced several challenges:

• Paper-based or only partially digitized processes: Laboratory requests and results were often still processed through unstructured means, leading to errors, delays, and high manual effort.

• Inefficient and error-prone communication: Without a central system, there were duplicative efforts, a lack of standardization, and risks in data transmission.

• Security requirements in the healthcare sector: Patient data must be encrypted, GDPR-compliant, and processed with a high authentication standard, which many existing solutions did not fully meet.

• Growing number of users: With over 1,000 daily users and several thousand requests per day, a performant, scalable, and stable solution needed to be provided.

Conclusion: There was a lack of a modern, intuitive platform that allows for secure, digital, and standardized communication between practices and laboratories.

How was the problem addressed?

To solve these central challenges, labcomplete® was developed – a fully digital platform for laboratory requests and result communication:

• End-to-end digital platform: Doctors can create laboratory requests and send and receive results directly through a central SaaS solution.

• Secure and GDPR-compliant processing: The solution is based on high security standards including two-factor authentication and encrypted transmission.

• Integration into existing systems: A seamless workflow is enabled through various connections to common medical information systems (AIS) – including data import and label printing.

• Scalable infrastructure: Utilization of a sovereign EU cloud architecture (Kubernetes, Exoscale) for high availability, performance, and security.

• User-friendliness: An intuitive interface, profiles for recurring requests, and optimized processes reduce onboarding time and error rates.

What benefits does labcomplete® bring?

The project has brought measurable advantages for both MedCom and end-users:

For Doctors

• Time savings and reduced administrative effort through intuitive user interfaces

• Lower error rates in requests

• Faster patient care through direct digital transmission

• Support through professional support

For Laboratories

• Reliable and secure receipt of thousands of requests daily

• Automated processing and seamless integration into internal processes

• Reduction of manual steps and administrative relief

For MedCom

• Scalable platform with several thousand daily transactions

• Improved administration of laboratory parameters through a more modern, intuitive product (previously Excel)

• Improved customer loyalty through a sovereign cloud platform with data location in Austria

• Fully automated CI/CD pipelines ensure that software is automatically tested, verified, and safely rolled out with every change – faster, more reliably, and with significantly less risk to the business.

• Point-in-time backups allow systems and data to be reset to an exactly desired point in time – minimal downtime and maximum protection against data loss, even in the event of errors or cyberattacks.

• Monitoring with Datadog monitors services across multiple machines and Kubernetes clusters in real time, detects disruptions immediately, and creates full transparency regarding stability and performance in ongoing operations.

Takeaways

Our Services

• Conceptualization, development, and operation of the entire labcomplete® platform

• Development of web, iOS, Android, macOS, and Windows clients

• Creation and maintenance of Exoscale and AWS cloud infrastructure with Kubernetes, GitOps, and cloud-native technologies

• Monitoring and maintenance of all components

• Strategic consulting

• Maintenance & bug fixing of several legacy systems

• Website

Technical Challenges

Legacy Migration

Transitioning from a long-standing legacy software to labcomplete® required special care from developers and UI/UX designers. On the one hand, it was necessary to maintain and improve the familiar user guidance to make the transition for users as smooth as possible. On the other hand, we had to identify forgotten features of the legacy software, understand them, reinvent them, and enhance them.

Communication with Local Resources

The use of Electron ensures seamless communication with locally installed printers and integration with various offline medical information systems via file system-based interfaces.

SSO (Single Sign-On)

To provide users with a seamless experience and build on established standards, an SSO solution with Keycloak was implemented. This allows the user to log in to all applications with a single login.

Security and Data Protection

Compliance with Austrian data protection regulations and patient data regulations was of utmost priority. Therefore, Exoscale was chosen as the cloud provider.