Bookplan: Capgemini’s solution for resource optimization and logistics in hospitals.

Capgemini is in the midst of transforming itself from a traditional consulting organization to a consulting services and software house. The software based business model is supposed to generate recurring revenue, boost margins and support the associated consulting services business.  With the Bookplan product for the health care industry, Capgemini in Denmark is one of the front-runners in this transformation process.

Bookplan is a planning solution for hospitals that has been developed to handle all the specialized resource needs for appointment booking. Based on the resources and their calendars, the system is able to book appointments and provide hospital staff with real-time overviews on patients treatment flows through the departments so as to actively support functions such as changed time-frames from surgical wards and out-patient clinics.

Customer centric development

Bookplan has been developed in a very close partnership with Danish hospitals. The kick-off dates back to 2001 when Capgemini landed a development project with Arhus Amt. The solution that was developed quickly caught the attention of other Danish hospitals. Today Bookplan is in operation at 30% of Danish hospitals and is used by more than 12,000 clinical users.

Germany to move first

Approaching a local market leadership position, Capgemini Denmark reached out to their sister companies in the neighboring countries to test the interest and market demand. Germany responded swiftly and enthusiastically.

With close to 2,000 hospitals, the German market is more than 20 times bigger than the Danish market. Patients at German hospitals spend on average twice as many days in the hospital as is the case in Denmark, thus the optimization potential in Germany is enormous. According to Capgemini the low level of digitalization in the German health care sector drives a substantial demand for new solutions. Capgemini Germany has decided to take a fair share of this growing market and Bookplan is a strategic component in this strategy.

German Solutions for German Customers

The German market is served by Capgemini in Germany. The investment in translation of the product to German has been taken up front. Local market requirements have been identified through close contacts with potential Germany customers. These requirements have been included in the product roadmap and development plans.

Jakob Heuch, Bookplan Sales Executive with Capgemini in Denmark

“The decision to enter the German market is strategic,” says Jakob Heuch, Bookplan Sales Executive with Capgemini in Denmark. “We have already invested substantially in product localization for the German market and we will continue to do so. Our German Capgemini colleagues have allocated and invested in the resources required to exercise sales and pre-sales activities in German. We promote Bookplan in Germany as an advanced Danish solution for German Hospitals backed by an effective German organisation. We will continue to manage and develop the product in Denmark, but the German customer and market requirements will play an important role for the Bookplan product roadmap.”

Open to cooperation

A product like Bookplan will have to integrate with other software applications in the individual hospital thus Capgemini is very open to cooperate with other software vendors. In the local market, Bookplan is integrated with Systematic’s Columna and Cambio’s Cosmic.

“The big players in Germany are Siemens, Agfa and SAP,” says Jakob Heuch. “We work closely with these and all other EMR (Electronic Medical Record) vendors to ensure smooth operation of Bookplan in every Hospital who decide for our solution. To easy the integration with other software systems we comply with the standards for systems integration in the healthcare industry such as HL7.”

The world is our market

Germany is by no means last stop for Capgemini’s Bookplan. It is merely the first stop.

“There is a need for Bookplan all over the world,” says Jakob Heuch, “and we intend to satisfy that need.  As our Capgemini colleagues register sufficient market demand and readiness to invest we will move into the new markets. As the sales cycles are fairly long, the decision making process complex and often associated with public tenders, we need the local support and commitment from our Capgemini colleagues in each market.”

The Danish IT healthcare mega project

The Capital Region of Denmark and The Administrative Region of Zealand (RH/RS) are in the process of selecting a vendor for their c. DKK 1 billion (€135M) investment in a new IT-healthcare platform.

The purpose of the tender is to ensure HIMMS level 6 and later 7 IT support of clinical and administrative work within the health care organizations of Zealand. The healthcare platform will need to support close to 40,000 IT users. It will need the capacity to be used by up to 12,000 clinical and administrative users at 17 hospitals and 54 other healthcare institutions simultaneously.

Jakob Heuch does not wish to comment on our questions concerning Bookplan’s position in this tender. We assume that Capgemini has secured Bookplan’s representation in a subcontractor arrangement with one or more of the suppliers. An opportunity representing 50% of the home market is too important to ignore.