{"id":155173,"date":"2017-06-01T07:10:33","date_gmt":"2017-06-01T04:10:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tehnopol.ee\/medihub-will-find-you-the-right-clinic-quickly-and-conveniently-2\/"},"modified":"2024-03-13T11:11:17","modified_gmt":"2024-03-13T09:11:17","slug":"medihub-will-find-you-the-right-clinic-quickly-and-conveniently-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tehnopol.ee\/en\/medihub-will-find-you-the-right-clinic-quickly-and-conveniently-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Medihub will find you the right clinic quickly and conveniently"},"content":{"rendered":"

Medihub is the first medical services information and doctor\u2019s appointment booking environment in the Baltics and Nordics. What makes the portal special is that the prices of medical services can be compared not just within a single country, but internationally \u2013 as such, the aim is to develop a \u201ctransparent medical market\u201d unique to the Baltic Sea region or in fact anywhere in the world.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Medihub platform was launched in summer 2016 and is now at the end of one phase in its development.<\/p>\n

Medihub CEO Helary Lainj\u00e4rv sums up the concept behind the Medihub portal: it\u2019s a price information and booking platform. There are big plans \u2013 the aim is to cover the Baltic and Nordic countries\u2019 medical markets completely. \u201cThe price comparison system was tested in six countries first: Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Sweden, Russia and England. By doing so, Medihub proved that the system was scalable and that the prices of medical services in, say, Russia and England could also be compared. As a side note, I would add that naturally only comparable things can be compared and for that reason the total number is now limited to 272 international services, that is growing continuously. Even so, such a representative selection ranging from orthopaedics to dental care is rarely seen. There are only a few portals with international price comparability and even those sites are geared purely to medical tourism,\u201d says Lainj\u00e4rv.<\/p>\n

Over 700 clinics can be found in the portal. Most of them are Estonian and Finnish clinics, but altogether, six countries are represented and the website is being updated daily.<\/p>\n

Lainj\u00e4rv, who also works as a doctor in the Finnish healthcare system, says that he has been dividing his time relatively equally between the start-up and his work as a doctor, but the idea to set up the website occurred to him precisely while practicing medicine. \u201cI was working in Finland and patients started asking more frequently what prices were like in Estonia. When I started looking into it, it was really hard to find Estonian service prices, and there was no comparison of prices between clinics. I found only a very rudimentary price comparison with Finland. So that\u2019s how we got the idea to develop something better and simpler,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Medihub was founded in May 2015 and medical tourism was initially the focus. Now the business model has changed and a course has been set toward developing the entire medical market and serving as a big data company. \u201cInstead of narrowing our focus, we could broaden it. We have the capability of processing data in large volumes, such as making clinics\u2019 procedures rapidly comparable and able to be interpreted,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

At the moment, the website is available in four languages \u2013 Finnish clinics\u2019 services are available in Estonian and vice versa, for example. The translation takes place automatically using algorithms. Lainj\u00e4rv says the most complicated aspect about developing the environment was precisely the algorithm \u2013 the system for making the healthcare services comparable with international counterparts. \u201cYou can\u2019t compare chestnuts and acorns in terms of price \u2013 they\u2019re in different categories. It\u2019s the same thing with medical services \u2013 if a service includes some additional components or is slightly different, they don\u2019t operate on the same basis. People have a hard time getting adequate information on where the same services can be obtained more cheaply,\u201d says Lainj\u00e4rv.<\/p>\n

After the opening of the website, users had problems with medical terms that proved too complicated for the layman. \u201cPeople couldn\u2019t find suitable services because they didn\u2019t know what ophthalmology or gastroscopy was. First we added a simpler version of the service catalogue, which was adopted rapidly by over 90% of the users. We will soon complete and add to the platform the new catalogue, which represents the next advancement and which has taken over half a year to build and develop and took a team of no fewer than 16 people,\u201d adds Lainj\u00e4rv.<\/p>\n

Medihub doesn\u2019t have any direct competitors in the Baltic Sea region. Internationally, there are many websites that broker and list prices for services in a single country. There are only a few websites with multi-country price comparisons, but these focus purely on the medical tourism, including more expensive and exclusive clinics. Nor is the aim of these websites to foster transparency for the medical market at either the regional or international level.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is noteworthy price disparity on the medical market. Even within the same country or city, prices may vary severalfold, to say nothing of the difference between countries. Such a large price difference cannot be explained solely by differences in quality. In processing the data, we soon realized that in a number of fields, the medical market was completely opaque for patients and thus competition was deficient. In this situation, the market participants\u2019 ability to alert clients to their existence \u2013 to promote themselves \u2013 is essential. Patients don\u2019t have enough information when it comes to buying fee-charging services. Often they take action based on emotions, rumours and advertising and don\u2019t have actual freedom of choice. We have done a lot of work to make it easy for users to search for services and compare prices. Compared to international competitors, we are already in the vanguard, but compared to our own vision, we\u2019re only halfway there,\u201d says Lainj\u00e4rv.<\/p>\n

He emphasizes that the key question when it comes to platforms similar to Medihub\u2019s is finding the right model: \u201cWe can keep the site running with heavy advertising and lure users, but this isn\u2019t an engine that will act as a self-starter and lead to more,\u201d he notes. He adds: \u201cIf developing a portal with self-generating growth isn\u2019t successful, the marketing expenses for a portal propped up by advertising are very high and it will lag behind the competitors who have found a model for viral growth. Automating processes is also extremely important; otherwise, user support expenses will grow.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve looked for the right model \u2013 for example, we realized while testing that local people often weren\u2019t interested in Latvian or Finnish prices. They wanted to know how much the service costs in their own town. So we had to make our services comparable not only internationally but also by each town. That in turn meant that we had to broaden our focus and add even more clinics to achieve market coverage. As early as a month or two after entering the information, surprising perspectives cropped up \u2013 the differences in prices for dental care varied severalfold even within Estonia. Price lists are often so complicated and specific, and that makes it hard for people to make sense of them and compare them. Even if a person compares 2-3 clinics, they still don\u2019t have a full picture of the service providers, such as doctors who have just started practicing.<\/p>\n

Major differences also emerged in the case of laser eye surgery \u2013 when we put all clinics on equal footing, it turned out the ones who marketed and advertised more didn\u2019t have anywhere close to the more favourable prices. A third-generation operation in one clinic might cost the same as another clinic\u2019s first-generation operation. The price difference was 30-50% in Estonia, as competition is more efficient than in dental care,\u201d says Lainj\u00e4rv.<\/p>\n

Relatively few appointments have been made through the environment at this point, as people are not used to comparative shopping for medical services. Still, we\u2019ve consciously made a point to avoid paid advertising, because before you pour in the water, the bucket has to be watertight, so to speak. The question is about growing trust and convenience \u2013 people want to compare prices, but when it comes time to make an appointment, people call the clinic directly. In Medihub, reservations for appointments are aimed at foreign clients.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are implementing developments and corrections based on user surveys and we plan thereafter to introduce the environment more broadly, but the process is always unpredictable in the case of new developments,\u201d says Lainj\u00e4rv about future plans. He adds: \u201cIt\u2019s a little reminiscent of the process used by an artist to make artwork \u2013 the artists here are the users and the builders are the engineers, which increases unpredictability but also makes it interesting. If people lack patience or the builders don\u2019t want to listen to what the artists think, there is no hope of getting a good result.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Medihub is the first medical services information and doctor\u2019s appointment booking environment in the Baltics and Nordics. What makes the portal special is that the prices of medical services can be compared not just within a single country, but internationally \u2013 as such, the aim is to develop a \u201ctransparent medical market\u201d unique to the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":155174,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"_s2mail":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-155173","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-success-story"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tehnopol.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155173","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tehnopol.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tehnopol.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tehnopol.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tehnopol.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=155173"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.tehnopol.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155173\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":155415,"href":"https:\/\/www.tehnopol.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155173\/revisions\/155415"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tehnopol.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/155174"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tehnopol.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=155173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tehnopol.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=155173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tehnopol.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=155173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}