Dr. Dirk Wössner, Chief Executive Officer CompuGroup Medical in DMEA Gold Partner Interview

As a Gold Partner, CompuGroup Medical has been one of the mainstays of the DMEA for many years. Chief Executive Officer Dr. Dirk Wössner explains how the company supports hospitals, builds bridges between sectors and closely monitors the patient journey.

In your view what has changed since the pre- COVID-19 period?

Recent months have been very eventful for the entire e-health sector. We are all aware that digitalisation is the most important factor for an interlinked and efficient health system that puts the patient first. However, the coronavirus pandemic has demonstrated with unparalleled intensity just how valuable digital applications and processes are for doctors, other medical personnel, healthcare and, of course, patients.

And that is why this topic has gained traction recently. One example: I personally regard the Hospital Future Law (KhZG) in a sense as the green light for a new era for the German healthcare community. This gives us hope for the future because, when compared with many other countries, the pace at which digitalisation is being introduced here is embarrassingly slow. However, I remain convinced that the impact of the KhZG in particular will show the benefits to be gained from effective automation and the selective use of technology.

Especially here in Germany, the home of our group, and in our capacity as a leading e-health supplier, we believe we can build bridges between healthcare professionals and politicians. We take an overarching view of digitalisation and are bringing it into medical practices, pharmacies, laboratories and hospitals, AND we also focus on the patient journey.

Let us turn our attention specifically to the commercial activities of CGM in the hospital sector. What has been the situation in recent months? What have been the notable achievements of CGM?

Major developments have taken place in the clinical sector over the past two years. Of particular importance to me has been the progress in expanding our new product CGM CLINICAL. We have been pressing ahead in functional terms with this next-generation HIS, and in so doing we have won many new customers, in particular the Hamburg-Eppendorf University Clinic, one of the leading university clinics in Europe. Another new customer is Bodelschwinghsche Stiftungen Bethel, one of the largest multi-role providers in Germany.

We are observing that our strategic approach not only helps many customers on a daily basis, but inspires them too. This is due to the completely new possibilities for managing data on the basis of semantic models, which enables us to offer an entirely new user experience. And it is up to us with our wide-ranging vision for providing support in the future for large health clusters. We have made major investments in providing digital support throughout the entire patient journey. And the current response to our efforts is a source of great pleasure.

An important part of this process includes not only our product strategy but also the strategic acquisition of other companies. It is already well known that our purchase of part of the Cerner Group has significantly strengthened our hospitals business. And acquiring VISUS Health IT has substantially boosted our presence in the field of radiology software, an area in which VISUS is the market leader.

And what are the actual highlights that CGM will be presenting to the professionals at the DMEA?

The hospitals market will undergo changes in the coming years and we are aware of keen interest in our modern product CGM CLINICAL. We are the only provider to have created a completely new HIS, and we will be presenting all the aspects of this at the DMEA. We are including a massive number of new features which will be presented in their entirely at the fair. In this way we are also facing up to the demands that the KHZG will impose on hospital information systems.

Following our acquisitions in recent years we will of course be presenting a whole range of new products to our existing customers. We are continuing to develop Medico and with the products from VISUS and KMS our portfolio contains some excellent, brand new products that enhance the CGM range and the company’s reputation as a one-stop shops for clinics.

We are also focussing on patients. We regard it as being very important to be able to create comprehensive scenarios displaying the entire patient journey, extending beyond hospitalisation. In this way we can demonstrate the enormous advantages of cross-institutional and cross-sectoral treatment paths. That is why one of the products that we are highlighting is the CLICKDOC platform. While virtually the entire industry is currently still talking about patient portals, our innovative CLICKDOC platform represents a significant step further. We provide answers to the question of how patient interaction with a central software platform can be digitally implemented in an effective and user-friendly way.