Fast and secure transmission of laboratory results with the Business Process Suite

Central Laboratory Zurich (ZLZ) provides extensive and highly demanding laboratory services for its shareholders, including Klinik Balgrist, Hirslanden and Hirslanden Klinik im Park, Schulthess Clinic, Zollikerberg Hospital, various medical practices, and ZetLab AG. These healthcare providers deliver services that result in laboratory findings, which must then be transmitted quickly and securely to the right person.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the time between a medical test and the delivery of the result took on new importance for Central Laboratory Zurich as well. In spring 2021, Stephan Maass and his team were therefore looking for a solution that could deliver sensitive laboratory results to the correct patient quickly, reliably, automatically, and securely.

A particular challenge for Xpert was the urgency of the request: the digital solution was needed as quickly as possible. Fortunately, Xpert’s Business Process Suite (BPS) can be adapted to customer needs in an agile manner. Just 12 days after the initial request, the automated laboratory result delivery moved from the pilot phase into productive operation.

The short time from initial request to productive operation clearly demonstrates that the Business Process Suite is ideally suited for implementing short-term requirements quickly and efficiently.

Tested individuals receive a personalized link (order number) to the Xpert Business Process Suite via SMS, sent directly from ZLZ to their personal mobile phone. A unique, anonymized identifier is used on the BPS platform for authentication, enabling the correct assignment and retrieval of the individual laboratory result. During peak periods of pandemic-related testing, several hundred test results per hour were made available in this way.

But how does the Business Process Suite ensure data protection and security when handling such highly sensitive personal information?

Xpert is fully committed to data protection and information security. Laboratory results are transmitted from ZLZ to the Business Process Suite in a completely anonymized form. No patient data is stored. The limited data processed by BPS is sufficient to identify a person using a single anonymized, unique identifier. After 96 hours, the personal laboratory reports in PDF format are permanently deleted.

Key benefits of the Business Process Suite:

• Intuitive: User- and patient-friendly platform
• Quality: Stable operation and secure data delivery
• Scalable: Agile adaptation to changing customer requirements
• Integrable digitalization tool: Seamless integration with various surrounding systems
• Cost-effective: Attractive cost–benefit ratio

With automated and secure laboratory result delivery, ZLZ now has a patient-friendly and reliable tool that provides long-term support for the team and significantly reduces administrative workload—not only during periods of high demand. This allows ZLZ to focus more strongly on its core, value-creating activities. As the foundation of the solution, BPS can be adapted agilely to ZLZ’s changing needs. Beyond this use case, the Business Process Suite is also well suited for mapping digital workflows and for elegantly digitalizing additional administrative processes, for example in finance or HR.