Insights shared by industry relative to healthcare and the advancement of medical technology.

Christoph Lippuner co-founded Semble after witnessing the challenges of a fragmented healthcare system first-hand. Driven by a desire to create meaningful change, he joined forces with fellow tech entrepreneur Mikael Landau, who had also seen the impact of disconnected care.

Demand for mental health services is at unprecedented levels. As of early 2025, a record 2.05 million people in the UK were seeking care, nearly half of whom were children and young adults – and it’s why doctors are referring more patients than ever to private healthcare for faster access to treatment.

But this influx of patients is creating an added strain on existing systems in the sector. More patients means more electronic health records to process, more appointments to book, more data to transfer between business systems like CRM and accounting, more payments to collect, and potentially more staff onboarded to match this demand, impacting HR and operational processes.

Without interoperability between systems, these processes often rely on manual data entry. Staff are left juggling systems that don’t communicate, leading to longer hours, burnout and compromised patient care. Recent research even revealed that one in three NHS doctors are so tired their ability to treat patients is affected. Overworked staff aren’t just exhausted, they’re trapped in inefficient workflows that detract from the very purpose of their role: helping patients.

This silent crisis has dire consequences. Patients face delays, errors increase and the entire system suffers. This cannot continue. But in the face of such crippling challenges, how can healthcare practices look to improve the interoperability of their systems?

Schoen Clinic Chelsea, London: a real-world example

To overcome integration hurdles, many practices are turning to centralised healthcare management platforms that allow them to manage their patient and operational needs in one location. By becoming interoperable, they are driving an increase in their patient capacity and services.

One healthcare provider that was dealing with cumbersome processes due to fragmented systems and workflows was Schoen Clinic Chelsea, London. The practice offers specialist mental health services for children, adolescents and adults across the UK through a tailored, multidisciplinary treatment model with some of London’s most renowned experts. This helps thousands of patients achieve better mental health and wellbeing every year.

Interoperability empowers healthcare providers to elevate both the capacity and quality of their services. Schoen Clinic Chelsea’s implementation journey is a prime example of these benefits in action.

Part one – the existing challenges

Schoen Clinic Chelsea had a number of challenges that arose from a lack of interoperability. Booking processes were fragmented, non-attendance rates by patients were high, and staff were grappling with clunky and time-consuming admin tasks. The clinic comprises a multidisciplinary team of psychiatrists, psychologists, therapists, nutritionists and more – with each of its members having different calendars to schedule appointments without complete oversight of everyone’s workloads. Naturally, this created collaborative deficiencies and led to delays.

In particular, gaps in their system for patient-facing features like direct booking capabilities and automated reminders resulted in non-attendance rates as high as 12%. Producing clinical documentation was an arduous process, with clinicians often working late due to catching up on consultations notes. Moreover, disjointed processes led to recurrent issues such as billing errors and ultimately, a patient experience that lacked consistency, which is particularly crucial when working with patients in the mental healthcare space.

Part two – overcoming adoption hurdles

The new central system encompassed an initial six-week implementation period, followed by training sessions for Schoen Clinic UK’s clinical, admin and finance teams. Each of these teams was provided with an overall workflow stream before their session, so they could start mapping out their individual streams. In other words, they document the sequence of steps, decisions and handoffs that need to happen to complete a task or project. Training sessions were then tailored to each team’s specific needs and workflows.

Building this understanding and specificity of their new system and workflows was an integral step, with managers and users requiring this awareness to incentivise buy-in for the new platform and allow for ongoing training. Training sessions were conducted with each team and provided on-demand afterwards for those team members who couldn’t attend the live sessions.

After training comes migration. The process took around a week to migrate data from the old system to the new cloud-based platform but, crucially, team members could use the platform during that time to limit disruption to workflows. In total, the journey from initial implementation to building a fully functioning and interoperable tech environment and workflow took eight weeks.

For a business moving to a new system and with a number of processes that require training, is a strong reflection of an efficient and well-managed implementation.

Part three – the interoperable effect

By connecting the workflows of clinical, finance and admin staff, all team members now have real-time appointment visibility, instant booking confirmations and automatic reminders. The outcome of this integration is that patient no-shows have since dropped to only 3% for new patient assessments and, crucially, patient capacity has doubled.

Moreover, Schoen Clinic Chelsea has been able to slash report writing time by up to 75%. What once was a task that took 2-3 hours now only takes 45 minutes – and an interoperable network means clinicians can securely access records wherever they are. This multidisciplinary coordination means patients are reporting a more streamlined journey and staff have gained more time to see more patients and provide dedicated time to sessions.

Reassuring patients is a key aspect of mental health services. And what is particularly encouraging about this particular example is that, for the first time ever, the clinic is able to provide patients with same-day clinical feedback following their appointments due to these gains in efficiency and productivity.

An interoperable necessity

The strain on mental health services is severe, both publicly and privately. This demand for treatment, coupled with staff burnout due to longer working hours and patient care suffering as a result, is a well-publicised ailment of the healthcare system. But less talked about is the inefficiencies that come from staff spending large portions of their day working across systems that aren’t talking to each other, one of the root causes of overworking.

Interoperability can significantly transform how healthcare practices operate. Yet the process of migrating to a system that can provide you with that interoperability can seem like a daunting undertaking. The transition requires regular training and incremental implementation steps that keep core applications running throughout the process. As illustrated by Schoen Clinic Chelsea, the benefits from building a truly connected tech environment to meet patient demand are there to be seen.

Ultimately, the entire healthcare system suffers without interoperability – and it’s one thing that can’t carry on. It isn’t a luxury, it’s a necessity.