The CEO duo on their desire to improve healthcare

Sweden stands at a crossroads. In a conversation about the staffing crisis and tomorrow’s solutions, Tobias Perdahl and Daniel Lillienau, co-founders and co-CEOs of Platform24, share their work to make resources go further and secure healthcare for the long term.

The story of Platform24 begins in the emergency department

The story of Platform24 begins in the emergency department at Karolinska University Hospital. Tobias Perdahl worked as a manager and saw the same logistical problems every day. The waiting rooms were full of patients who should have been somewhere else, while the most seriously ill had to wait.

“We often dealt with what went wrong in primary care. There was a frustration that the system wasn’t working, neither in terms of accessibility nor continuity,” says Tobias.

An intelligent link in the care chain

In spring 2017, he met Daniel Lillienau. Daniel had a different background but shared the drive to create societal value and had been working with healthcare from an ownership perspective for several years. He saw a healthcare system of world-class quality, but one that was almost impossible for the patient to navigate.

Together, they decided to build the solution that was missing. An intelligent link between digital and physical care.

“For us, it’s about the interface where healthcare meets the patient. We want to create a relationship and a bridge that didn’t exist before. Patients have different needs at different times, whether it concerns acute problems or a chronic illness, and we want to be the guide that supports them all the way,” says Daniel.

Tobias believes it is precisely the breadth that sets their model apart from other solutions on the market.

“Care providers have a complex everyday life with acute, planned and chronic work, plus an enormous administrative burden. We have built a solution that handles all of this in one single flow. That is what we mean by an intelligent platform. It sees the whole picture that no one else has really taken on,” he says.

A system that saves lives

Since its founding, Platform24 has grown to become a central part of the Swedish healthcare structure. Today, 18 of 21 regions use their system. The milestones are many. The collaboration with 1177 and primary care in several regions, and the introduction of remote monitoring for heart failure patients in the Västra Götaland region, are two clear examples.

But the most important progress is not measured primarily in business terms, but in value for patients and operations.

“What hits you in the gut is when we see that what we do creates value for patients and healthcare staff. We have seen how our system flagged the risk of a brain haemorrhage and supported the nurse in the decision to send an ambulance directly. Getting quickly to neurosurgical emergency care likely saved that person’s life,” says Daniel.

Daniel further explains that they also see healthcare centres that manage to meet 40 percent more patients with the same staffing, while at the same time doubling continuity with the GP.

11 million triages without injuries

The safety question is constantly present in the debate about digital healthcare. Platform24 has now passed 11 million completed triages. The result is a testament to the system’s stability: zero reported serious patient injuries.

“It is a safe system. By comparison, an average of 17 injuries per million cases occur in traditional healthcare advisory services. We are deliberately cautious in our logic and base our work on established protocols, and where things go wrong in traditional healthcare it is usually when triage protocols have not been followed,” explains Tobias.

A reality that demands change

When Tobias and Daniel look ahead, they see a situation that requires new ways of thinking. Over the next 15 years, 500,000 new people will need to start working in healthcare to meet demand.

“That is not going to happen. We can wish for it, but it is not going to happen. Today, every other GP position in primary care is vacant in large parts of the country. We need to radically change the way we work, and it is urgent,” says Tobias.

Technology should handle guidance, sorting and administration. This allows staff to focus on the medical encounter. Tobias sums up their shared drive:

“This is the value that makes me get up in the morning. We need to save healthcare in the long term. That is what I do every day, and that is what we as a company do every day.”