The Bee Project - Empowering Healthcare Communication

Welcome back to the dynamic world of healthcare innovations! In this post, we will showcase the third outcome of Hack Healthcare 2023 – The Bee Project, which aimed to improve communication and access to medical records by bridging the gap between the first and second lines of healthcare.

The project proposed enhancing patients' access to their medical records to address the lack of awareness and understanding surrounding medical data accessibility and usage. The solution involved a comprehensive promotional campaign that would create a centralised platform for patients and citizens to access their medical records, empowering patients and fostering better communication between healthcare providers.

The Bee Project addressed:

• Low Awareness among citizens, with only 13% accessing their medical records due to unawareness about the existence and functionality of e-health platforms.
• Lack of Empowerment: Individuals often lack the knowledge required to access and utilise their medical data, inadvertently side-lining themselves from their healthcare management.

The Bee Project's strategy revolved around a national campaign that encompassed various media channels. Key features of the solution included:

• National Reach: The campaign aspired to achieve widespread national adoption, ensuring uniform access to medical records across regions.
• Regional Customisation: Regional budgets were set to cater to specific needs, promoting tailored solutions for different locales.
• Ambassadorship: The campaign’s creditability and authenticity were bolstered by the inclusion of notable ambassadors from both the public and healthcare sectors.
• Multi-Channel Promotion: TV, buses, radio, and other media were harnessed to reach a broader reach.
• Benefits: The project had a multifaceted impact, to increase patient empowerment, prevention measures, patient-centric healthcare, and seamless data interoperability.
• Awareness: The campaign intended to raise awareness about medical data access and its importance.
• Communication Improvement: A major focus was on fostering better and more fluid communication between healthcare stakeholders.

This project resulted in many benefits, including enhancing prevention measures. It was possible through building awareness and understanding of how to access medical records and their importance, which brought about improved patient empowerment and engagement by giving them ownership of their medical data.

Thanks to involving patients in their care management, the project fostered a patient-centric healthcare system. High accessibility of patient medical data is possible due to the establishment of a unified platform with better interoperability between different healthcare systems and data silos.

As you might have already noticed, the Bee Project caused a chain reaction of benefits, unfolding the importance of patient engagement in their data management and guaranteeing seamless communication among patients, healthcare providers and stakeholders. Moreover, it highlighted the importance of consent and data security, particularly in handling sensitive health data. The utilisation of Itsme, a secure identification system, aimed to address concerns about data sharing and privacy.

The Bee Project's innovative approach to enhancing communication, empowerment, and awareness within the healthcare sector reflects a significant step towards bridging gaps and promoting patient-centred care. By focusing on a comprehensive national campaign and leveraging notable ambassadors, the project endeavours to create lasting change in the healthcare landscape, emphasizing the importance of data accessibility, communication, and patient empowerment.

We are going to close this series with the next ninth post. We’re inviting you to stick around just a little bit longer so that you will not miss the last project created during Hack Healthcare 2023!

People & Organizations Involved: Several individuals and organizations played pivotal roles in the development of The Bee Project:

• Eva Van Meirhaeghe, Altrio
• Benny Van Bruwaene, BT Clinical Computing
• Kristof Schutyser, Altrio (not continuing with the project)
• Marie Loriaux, Clinique de l’Europe (not continuing with the project)
• Morgane Deleval, Zorgi
• Mike Hagens, Bingli