Luxembourg’s shortage of general practitioners and specialists is increasing the load on health professionals. This software engineer may have found one solution to alleviate the pressure: smarter IT systems.
Stefan Itu knew that his wife’s job would be busy when they moved from Romania to Luxembourg in 2008. Dr Tudorescu is an endocrinology and diabetes specialist, “kind of a busy specialty,” explains Itu, with between 15 and 25 according to publicly accessible specialist directories. During the SARS CoV2 pandemic the pressure rocketed. Juggling video consultations, issuing prescriptions and invoices and managing the agenda started to get out of hand. So Itu began to build a solution, developing software and templates that would enable his wife to carry out processes with the single click of a button, enabling her to focus more on the patients.
“Some other medical practitioners friends tried it and in 2024 we decided to commercialise it,” he says.
Today Medical Office is a boutique SaaS serving private practices across specialisations. “We designed the software to be a companion to medical professionals,” says Itu, adding that clients include doctors approaching retirement with limited computer experience yet who adopted it rapidly.
A 2022 British Medical Association report from the UK highlighted a problem common across many European systems: millions of hours of doctors’ time are lost each year to ‘inadequate’ IT systems. From fragmented information systems to delays, the report also found that seamless sharing of information is “far from being addressed”.
While healthcare systems have been slowly digitising services, a Deloitte survey of European clinicians associated digital systems with being “Slow, Complex and Bureaucratic.” Meanwhile, a 2023 US report from the National Library of Medicine found a link between inefficient work processes and underperforming tech and burnout and frustration.
Luxembourg is undergoing its own digital transformation with the immediate direct payment (PID2) coming into force on 1 January. It means that patients no longer have to pay doctors large sums and claim money back from the CNS. Under the new scheme, they will only pay their contribution. Medical Office is one of the first locally-developed PID2-compliant solutions, Itu believes. The platform also uses strong multi factor authentication, and includes data safeguarding measures such as data encryption, and recovery procedures in case of data centre failure or attacks.
“We pay close attention to this, because it’s medical data which is very sensitive, and whatever happens, it has to stay protected,” he says.
But changing habits in a country takes time. Itu observed that some doctors still issue paper invoices without computers. Other applications exist but some are overly complex for the market, says Itu.
With so many fragmented partners and processes, Itu and his team focused on ensuring the platform, which is sold under a monthly SaaS licence, is intuitive and interoperable with other systems. Currently, he plans to focus on reaching more clients in Luxembourg while working with partners such as the CNS, private labs and companies.
“I think the next challenge will be to integrate the CNS’ roadmap,” says Itu, referring to the European Health Data Space (EHDS), an EU initiative creating a unified, secure framework for sharing electronic health data across member states.
Itu believes that platforms like him can help health professionals catch up and embrace this new framework, freeing them up to focus on the work that counts: helping patients.
