How the Adult Neurology Clinic at UCK Gdańsk replaced the duty phone, SMS and email with one secure, HCP-controlled channel and brought 97% of invited patients with it.

The University Clinical Centre in Gdańsk

‍The University Clinical Center in Gdańsk (UCK) is one of Poland’s largest public clinical centres and a highly specialised academic hospital affiliated with the Medical University of Gdańsk. With 1,200 beds and nearly 5,000 employees, it provides advanced diagnostics, treatment and rehabilitation across almost every field of medicine.

Its Department of Adult Neurology is a leading regional centre for neurological care and one of Poland’s foremost centres for cerebrovascular disease treatment. It pioneered mechanical thrombectomy for ischaemic stroke in the Pomerania region and is recognised for diagnosing and treating both common and rare neurological conditions.

Between two visits a year, the rest of the care hadnowhere to go

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic, progressive autoimmune disease of the central nervous system, in which the immune system attacks nerve tissue in many places at once¹.

Treatment is a long-term commitment: injections or infusions, on schedule, for years. Forgetting a dose is the first or second most common reason patients fall off therapy³, and adherence drops further when symptoms disappear, injections get difficult, side effects wear on, or depression and anxiety take hold⁴.
Nearly all of this plays out between appointments: an MS patient typically sees their neurologist about twice a year, and everything in between ran through whatever channel was at hand, and each one leaked⁵.

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Every between-visit need travelled by whatever channel was at hand and landed in one joint bucket, with no one knowing whose turn it was.

One secure, clinic-controlled channel as the primary way to reach the team

The Adult Neurology Clinic at UCK Gdańsk replaced the duty phone, SMS and email with one secure app, set by the clinic as the primary channel for between-visit contact. Every message now arrives in a chat with a clear owner: the nurse takes care of most matters, and the physician steps in for clinical calls, on rules the clinic itself defined.

Today 575 patients use the app for everything that once scattered across three channels, from routine questions to symptoms that cannot wait.

Organized work for the care team and uninterrupted care for patients

Six months after implementation, we went back and measured what had actually changed. The clinic that once juggled a duty phone, SMS and email now runs its between-visit care in a single app, and work is simply more organized: roles are clearly defined, and messages do not get lost between channels and staff.

The workload has found its right shape too: 3x less messages arrive to the physician, because they are taken care by the nurse. Each question lands with the person meant to answer it, and the whole team can see it has been handled. Here is what that looks like in numbers, on both sides of the channel.

From three leaking channels to oneapp that routes itself

Patients of the clinic saw their doctor and nurse every three months, and between those visits there was silence. Reaching the clinic meant scattered channels: over 500 people used the duty phone, SMS and email, often through intermediaries such as the front desk. There was no single, organized channel of contact and no scalable model of care between visits, so messages landed in a joint bucket, and some of them got lost. Today one app has replaced email, phone, SMS and private channels: roles and responsibilities are clear, communication is organized, and patients are safer for it.

We built it around the people who use it, and reached 80% adoption in a week

Our implementation approach is built around close collaboration with the people who will use the Doctor.One app. We began with workshops and user research, giving equal weight to the needs of the care team and their patients. Together, we defined success, identified risks, and shaped the rollout.