SAP’s new healthcare solution introduced to help treat chronic diseases

SAP has announced a new solution called SAP Health Engagement built on its HANA platform to connect patients directly to physicians and health program managers.

SAP Malaysia managing director Terrence Yong said that the company is focused on helping healthcare organisations run better by enabling personalised healthcare experiences.

 The solution is said to provide health providers, health insurers and pharmaceutical companies the ability to build custom applications to help patients track their health through goal setting, as well as pull personalised assessments for chronic diseases and conditions. By directly linking patients to healthcare professionals with real-time data and high-speed analytics, the technology will let physicians and health program managers make early interventions to improve health outcomes and will help lower healthcare-related costs later in life.

 “SAP is advancing technology that improves people’s lives and places them at the center of care,” said Werner Eberhardt, general manager of personalised medicine, SAP. “The SAP Health Engagement solution enables healthcare companies to develop applications that help patients manage chronic conditions, offer personalised home care and engage patients in clinical trials. When they have a 24×7 connection to their doctors, patients can more effectively partner with healthcare professionals on managing their health.”

 As a precursor to SAP Health Engagement, SAP partnered with Roche Diabetes Care Germany to develop SAP Health Link, a solution that can help to prevent diabetes.

 It intends to enable healthcare professionals to connect through digital services with patients at risk of developing type 2 diabetes (T2D) and thus accompany these patients on their journey to lifestyle change. Based on the learning from this partnership and feedback from a broad range of customers, SAP Health Engagement was created to offer a flexible development toolkit that can be used to create applications tailored to any chronic disease or condition. Such applications can also address clinical-trial patient engagement and personalised home care.

 Meanwhile, SAP Malaysia managing director Terrence Yong said that, with Malaysia’s population expected to stand at just over 31 million this year, it is of concern that according to the International Diabetes Federation, there were 3.3 million cases of diabetes here as of 2015.

 “In light of the growth of such diseases expected to negatively impact the country, SAP in Malaysia has been focused on helping healthcare organizations run better by enabling personalised healthcare experiences through integrated records and collaborative medical analytical capabilities,” said Yong.