Komed Health

Just four years after launching in Switzerland, Komed Health is striving to be the leading integrated communication platform for healthcare, enabling clinicians to make informed decisions faster and improving patient care across the board.

The Company

Komed Health is transforming healthcare communication to help doctors, nurses, and other healthcare workers deliver best-in-class patient care, and ultimately save lives. Based in Zurich, Switzerland, the company was co-founded by Marc Bornträger and Luiza Dobre. 

After visiting several hospitals and speaking with doctors and nurses, Marc and Luiza were shocked to see the antiquated technology being used by these otherwise state-of-the-art healthcare facilities. The two set out to enable healthcare workers and their institutions to better communicate with one another through a secure and powerful real-time communication platform, purpose-built for hospitals.

The Challenge

Komed Health saw first-hand how outdated legacy IT systems were negatively impacting healthcare organizations. Inefficient communication between nurses, doctors, and higher-ups wasn’t just making it hard for healthcare workers to share information; it was resulting in less than stellar patient care.

Marc and Luiza noted that many hospitals were using communication platforms such as Slack or WhatsApp. The problem was that the data stored on these platforms was not secure, and certainly didn’t meet the standards for privacy regulations in a hospital environment. Additionally, these platforms weren’t able to integrate with the existing healthcare IT infrastructure so that electronic medical records, lab results, information systems, and more could be shared easily.

The Strategy

When considering how to build an effective healthcare-driven communication platform, Komed Health first had to decide between native or cross-platform app development. While native apps are known to produce the richest user experience, at the time, it simply wasn’t in the budget for Komed Health. That quickly led them to pursue a cross-platform development approach, one that enabled their team to build for iOS and Android using web technologies without sacrificing any quality from a software or hardware perspective.

Next, Komed Health wanted to find a platform that their existing team of developers could easily use. Already well-versed in Angular, the Komed Health developers saw value in Ionic, which not only allowed developers to build using Angular, but also React, Vue, or JavaScript. Having the flexibility to use different frameworks for different projects was something the Komed Health team greatly valued.

Lastly, Komed Health sought a pure web approach to app development that easily allowed code to be shared between their web and native platforms. The hope was to operate from one codebase that provided Komed Health with everything they needed in terms of components, functionality, and theming. Ideally, this web-first approach would simplify the app development process for Komed Health, while still resulting in a quality app that was on par with the performance of other native apps.

The Selection

As a leader in cross-platform mobile app development, Ionic was one of several tools that the Komed Health team evaluated, along with React Native and NativeScript. After considering the comparative value of each platform, Komed Health found Ionic to be most suited to their particular needs.  

A cost-effective solution for delivering a high-performance app that didn’t require outside developer talent, Ionic proved to be the app development platform Komed Health desired. 

Where React Native and NativeScript fell short was in enabling the ability to deliver truly cross-platform experiences across mobile, desktop, and web from a single codebase. Additionally, the Komed Health team saw great value in Ionic’s pure web-based approach, which allowed them to continue using the same web development frameworks, tools, and languages that they already knew and enjoyed working with.

Using Capacitor, an open-source native runtime for building Web Native apps, Komed Health has benefited from native code integration that enables effective project configurations and improved developer performance. 

Key Benefits & Results

• Efficiency: Komed Health found their cost-effective solution for delivering a future-forward app that empowered the healthcare environments it was deployed in. Operating from a single codebase made it easy for team members to share their work internally. Marc and Luiza have enjoyed creating a team of experienced developers who are able to exchange ideas and collaborate more easily together.
  
  
• Continuous Improvements: Thanks to operating from a single codebase, the Komed Health team is able to iterate very quickly using the user feedback that they’ve gathered inside of hospitals. Instead of dealing with the requirements needed between various platforms and telling their various web developers different things, and then designing multiple app versions, Komed Health is able to quickly implement changes to multiple platforms with the help of ionic.
  
  
• Truly Native Experiences: Having previously used Cordova, which wasn’t meeting their needs, Komed Health found Capacitor to be a truly native runtime that delivered for them in a major way. The Komed Health team had no trouble switching over from Cordova, especially since many of the existing Cordova plugins were backwards compatible with Capacitor. Through Capacitor, Komed Health was able to build and deliver custom features that further improved the overall app experience. From building out push notifications developed through custom native code to encrypting and storing data in a secure location through a custom Capacitor plugin, Komed Health unlocked the freedom to build what they wanted, when they needed it. In the words of Co-Founder, Marc Bornträger, “Capacitor really does feel like a future-forward platform, and everything that Ionic promised that it would be proved to be true for us.” The main benefit of Capacitor over Cordova is the direct access to the native layer, including full access to the native SDKs without any complicated abstractions.
  
  
• Flexibility: Angular? React? Vue? With Ionic, Komed Health has options. Being able to operate from different JavaScript frameworks for different projects enables Komed Health to operate in whatever way makes the most sense. Ionic’s framework-agnostic approach means Komed Health can harness the full power and flexibility of the open web while still delivering a high-quality app experience.

Capacitor really does feel like a future-forward platform, and everything that Ionic promised that it would be proved to be true for us.

Marc Bornträger, Co-Founder