Swiss software company creates large patient portal for German clinics
Over 140 hospitals in Germany are now connected via a joint interoperable patient portal and can be accessed digitally by patients. With almost 35,000 connected beds in Germany, the platform covers an order of magnitude that represents almost the entire hospital capacity of Switzerland. The Swiss software company the i-engineers provided the technical solution, which is also in use in this country.
The interoperable patient portal «Mein-Krankenhaus.Digital» has successfully entered the operational phase. Since the end of 2025, patients have been booking appointments online, submitting documents digitally and communicating directly with the connected facilities. In total, over 140 hospitals from more than 70 providers across Germany are now networked with each other. The project is not complete with the start of live operation. The platform is deliberately designed to be open and can be gradually expanded and networked with other players.
Hospitals rely on collaboration instead of isolated solutions
The large-scale project was initiated by the hospitals themselves and organized by the Clinic IT Cooperative (KIG), which was set up by the participating institutions specifically for this purpose. The aim was to join forces and create a common digital infrastructure instead of a multitude of individual solutions.
The i-engineers from Zurich was commissioned with the technical implementation as part of a tender. The company's software solutions are already in use in numerous Swiss hospitals, including the University Hospital Basel, the Baselland cantonal hospitals and the Hirslanden clinics.
Despite the high level of complexity, parallel digitalization projects in the hospitals and tight deadlines, the interoperable patient portal was implemented within the planned time and budget. «Mein-Krankenhaus.Digital shows that hospitals can also drive digitization forward together on a large scale,» says Severin Summermatter, CEO of the i-engineers. «A platform architecture that integrates different hospital systems via common standards and makes them reliably compatible with each other is crucial.»
Interoperability is the key
The technological basis of the MK.D project is the health-engine® from the i-engineers, an interoperability platform-as-a-service from the cloud. It connects the hospital's internal primary and peripheral systems to the backend of the portal solution via standardized software gateways and enables secure data exchange across organizational boundaries. Based on this, various front-ends are provided: the patient portal as the central application for digital interaction with patients, as well as portals for referring physicians and hospital staff, each of which offers target group-specific functions.
Digital patient journey with measurable benefits
Initial feedback from patients and hospital staff shows a high level of acceptance. The system enables an end-to-end digital patient journey for potentially more than two million users: from booking appointments and transmitting documents to communication or video consultations. At the same time, hospitals benefit from more efficient processes and more targeted capacity management. For the approximately 15,000 hospital employees who will work with the solution in the future, this means a noticeable reduction in their day-to-day workload.
Networking despite a heterogeneous system landscape
The project addresses a central challenge that also exists in the Swiss healthcare system: historically evolved, heterogeneous IT system landscapes that make data exchange difficult. The platform and the patient portal based on it are designed in such a way that they can be integrated into a wide variety of system environments. The project is therefore one of the few to productively implement interoperability on this scale.
Order of magnitude with relevance for Switzerland
The scale of the project is exceptional from a Swiss perspective: with almost 35,000 beds, the connected capacities correspond to almost the entire bed landscape of Swiss hospitals. By way of comparison, there are around 27,500 beds available in German-speaking Switzerland and around 9,000 in French-speaking Switzerland. The project has thus created a platform that could digitally map practically all of Switzerland's inpatient care.
Severin Summermatter, CEO of the i-engineers, adds: «The patient journey must not end at hospital boundaries. MK.D shows how digital networking can succeed. Swiss hospitals, especially those with multiple sites, have all the prerequisites to implement a comparable solution so that different players can use a common, interoperable patient portal. It is crucial that the hospitals act together now.»
Source and further information: the i-engineers
This article originally appeared on m-q.ch - https://www.m-q.ch/de/schweizer-softwareunternehmen-erstellt-grosses-patientenportal-fuer-deutsche-kliniken/
