In nine months, José de Mello Saúde took an existing patchwork of legacy web properties and transformed them into twenty new websites managed by a single content management system - finally giving business the autonomy to change and update content. The project also integrated the new sites with back-end systems, both increasing their usability and extending availability to mobile devices. Within a year, web visits increased 95%, appointment setting increased 151%, and content updates were centrally controlled.

 â€œWe needed a consolidated system to effectively deliver and manage nine web and mobile patient portals for each of our units.”

José de Mello Saúde is a healthcare services provider founded in 1945. Every day, more than five thousand healthcare professionals deliver medical care in one of José de Mello Saúde’s many facilities, including five hospitals, one institute, four clinics, assisted living facilities, and home care teams.

Despite having a web presence for several years, José de Mello Saúde found that their properties were no longer meeting customers’ expectations. Information regarding services or offers to patients was constantly outdated and patients were unable to find the information they needed online.

Additionally, the content system was hard to use, offered no mobile support, was disconnected from the hospital’s back-end systems and was maintained by outside contractors.

The project was high-risk as it needed to be implemented at multiple facilities and locations - potentially affecting thousands of doctors and nurses and thousands of visitors to the José de Mello Saúde website.

“With twenty public-facing web and mobile sites as well as real-time, online scheduling, the project scope was large and complex. OutSystems provided outstanding flexibility delivering tremendous value and innovation to our patients.” 

Luis Cardoso de Meneses, Digital Marketing Manager

Why OutSystems?

When presented with a seventeen-month project timeline using a leading content management system, OutSystems Platform was selected* because of its ability to deliver change-ready web and mobile applications to the market quickly and easily. How much faster? Using OutSystems, the custom-built CMS would have been ready in five months - faster than the content it would manage. It also provided transparent integration to the hospital management and human resources systems.

Nine Patient Portals managed by highly customized Content Management System completely integrated with the Hospital Management Systems

Solution Capabilities

• Real-time appointment scheduling
• Multi-language
• Real-time integration with the units’ back-end systems
• Clients personal area (myCUF)
• Content management system
• Micro-sites builder to support new offers

Every clinic, hospital and institute now offers its clients the possibility of interacting with the hospital anytime, anywhere. The portals offer features such as filtered searches by disease or specialty; scheduling for medical and exam appointments; comprehensive information about the services and specialties provided; information regarding health insurance agreements; and data on diseases and treatments. Additionally, the mobile portals allow customers to click to connect with the call center to make an appointment - using geolocation to find the closest 24/7 unit.

To power all this, José de Mello Saúde and their partner Truewind designed and developed a comprehensive Content Management System that can be updated directly by the business. The system then automatically updates all web properties integrated with the hospitals’ back-end systems. Changes in the back-end are also automatically published to the web properties.

“Today, we’re able to make changes in less than ten minutes.”

For the organization, the most valued results of the project include, amazing user experience, autonomy, ease of maintenance, and flexibility to evolve and introduce new features. Within a year, web visits increased 95%, appointment setting increased 151%, and the vast majority of main information is now accessible to users within three clicks.

José de Mello Saúde now has a modernized online presence in both web and mobile. The system seamlessly updates the systems of records, and changes are immediately visible online, accelerating time-to-market and independent of external providers. This change has added savings regarding effort to maintain and reuse content across the group.

The online digital marketing group’s reputation inside the organization has risen dramatically because they can comply with requests from individual hospitals in minutes. And new launches of medical services (e.g. a new surgery) are immediately made available in the unit’s website so appointments can be set.

Today, José de Mello Saúde is in a path of continuous innovation and has already released a second version of this solution that includes capabilities like mychart personal area solution (myCUF), real-time appointment scheduling, and four new web-sites.

• Over 95% increased visits
• 151% growth in scheduling
• 20 web and mobile websites
• All information is now accessible to clients within three clicks
• Unified view of clients mychart area
• Content changes are autonomously done by marketing in minutes
• Integrated with existing hospital back-end systems

Company Overview

José de Mello Saúde, S.A., together with its subsidiaries, provides healthcare services in Portugal. It operates through Private Healthcare Services, Public Healthcare Services, Infrastructures, and Others segments. It operates 7 hospitals with a total of 566 inpatient beds, 385 consultation rooms, 41 operating theatres, and 6 delivery rooms; 9 outpatient units with 229 consultation rooms that offers specialty consultations, exams, dental care, check-ups, physical, and rehabilitation medicine; a diagnosis and treatment unit with 56 consultation rooms; and 8 clinical imaging units for bone densitometry, ultrasound scan, mammography, radiology, magnetic resonance imaging, and computed tomography exams.