Modernising a National Medical Data Exchange Platform in Switzerland

The client is the health division of a major Swiss telecommunications company, and the operator of Switzerland’s leading medical data exchange platform. The platform enables hospitals, clinics, laboratories, and other healthcare providers to share medical imagery and structured clinical data securely, in compliance with DICOM standards and Swiss EPR (Electronic Patient Record) requirements. With coverage across 200+ hospitals and 70+ laboratories, it forms a critical part of Switzerland’s national digital health infrastructure.

/Key Results

62% market share: The platform is now used by more than 6 in 10 Swiss hospitals
200+ hospitals connected: Up from selective rollout to national coverage across Switzerland
70+ laboratories: Automated data exchange replacing manual, error-prone workflows
Full DICOM compliance: Complete alignment with the Swiss medical data exchange standard
New clinical capabilities: Priority message routing, delivery tracking, inbox rules, and hospital-wide dashboards — none of which existed before
Highly positive stakeholder feedback: Four structured demo sessions completed with strong validation from client leadership

/The Challenge

Despite its strong market position, the platform was running on an ageing architecture that had accumulated significant technical debt over several years. Both the frontend and backend had grown difficult to maintain, slowing down the delivery of new features and increasing the risk of defects in a clinical setting where reliability is non-negotiable. The API layer was inconsistent, making it hard to integrate with the electronic medical record systems used by hospitals. And clinical users — doctors, nurses, lab technicians — were working with an interface that felt outdated and unintuitive.

Technical debt in frontend and backend: Accumulated complexity slowing feature delivery and raising defect risk
Inconsistent API design: Integration with hospital information systems unnecessarily difficult
Poor user experience: Outdated inbox and message management frustrating clinical users daily
No message prioritisation: Critical clinical communications treated identically to routine messages
Scalability constraints: Architecture unable to support expansion to additional Swiss cantons

/Project Goals

Reduce technical debt: Modernise both frontend and backend to enable faster, safer feature delivery
Standardise the API layer: Build a clean, OpenAPI-first interface that makes hospital system integration straightforward
Improve clinical UX: Redesign the interface to match how clinical users actually work
Add critical capabilities: Introduce priority message routing, delivery tracking, and hospital-wide dashboards
Maintain compliance: Preserve full DICOM and Swiss EPR compliance throughout the modernisation
Enable national scale: Build an architecture capable of expanding across all Swiss cantons

/mindit.io’s Solution

mindit.io took a discovery-first approach — mapping existing processes and documenting the technical landscape before writing a single line of code. This grounded the refactor in real clinical workflows rather than assumptions, and allowed the team to identify exactly where the biggest risks and biggest opportunities lay.

The Angular frontend was rebuilt from the ground up with a modern, responsive design validated against real hospital use cases. The backend was migrated to Java 11 / Spring Boot 2, with all platform logic consolidated into a single, well-documented API — specified in OpenAPI from the outset so frontend and backend teams could work in parallel without coordination friction. New clinical capabilities were delivered incrementally, with four formal demo sessions ensuring the work stayed precisely aligned with stakeholder expectations.

Angular frontend: Full rebuild — responsive, accessible, validated against clinical workflows
Java 11 / Spring Boot 2 backend: Consolidated, well-structured codebase with OpenAPI specification
Priority message routing: Configurable escalation rules for time-sensitive clinical communications
Secure message tracking: End-to-end delivery confirmation with complete audit trail
Inbox rules & dashboards: Hospital administrators gain full visibility across users and message volumes
Spring Security LDAP: Enterprise identity management integrated with hospital authentication systems
MapStruct & Hibernate: Clean data mapping and persistence layer reducing boilerplate and defect risk

Technologies used: Angular · TypeScript · SCSS · Java 11 · Spring Boot 2 · Spring Security LDAP · OpenAPI · REST · MapStruct · Hibernate · DICOM · HL7 · Swiss EPR compliance · CI/CD pipelines

/Results

Market share: Fragmented → 62% of Swiss hospitals
Hospital coverage: Selective rollout → 200+ hospitals nationally
Laboratory connections: Manual workflows → 70+ laboratories automated
DICOM compliance: Partial → Full standard — regulatory risk eliminated
Feature delivery: Slow, high-risk → Iterative sprint releases
Clinical user experience: Outdated → Modern, intuitive, workflow-aligned
Stakeholder validation: 4 demo sessions completed — highly positive feedback from leadership

/Customer Testimonial

“mindit.io demonstrated professionalism, technical expertise, and an unwavering commitment to on-time delivery and tailored solutions — exactly what a platform used by Switzerland’s hospitals requires.”

/Strategic Takeaways

Discovery before delivery prevents expensive course corrections: Mapping existing processes and documenting the technical landscape before writing code meant the refactor was grounded in clinical reality from day one. This is what made it possible to improve the platform without disrupting the hospitals depending on it.
API standardisation unlocks ecosystem growth: A fragmented API was the hidden blocker preventing the platform from expanding. Once the interface was clean and consistent, integrating new hospital systems became a routine task rather than a bespoke project each time.
Clinical context changes how you build: Features that are table stakes in a consumer app — like priority routing and delivery confirmation — have completely different stakes in a clinical setting. Understanding the environment shapes every design and engineering decision.
Incremental refactoring beats big rewrites: Technical debt was reduced sprint by sprint, not all at once. This kept the platform available to hospitals throughout modernisation and allowed the team to course-correct based on real stakeholder feedback rather than assumptions.
Long-term partnerships enable continuous improvement: Six years of embedded collaboration means mindit.io understands the platform at a depth that no short-term engagement can replicate. That depth is what allows the team to move fast without breaking things.

/What’s Next?

Whether you’re managing a platform weighed down by technical debt, planning a compliance-critical modernisation, or looking for a partner who can work at the pace and standard your industry demands — mindit.io has the track record and the team to deliver.

Ready to explore what’s possible for your organisation? Get in touch with our team →

/ medical

A leading Swiss telecom health division needed to modernise the country’s most widely used medical data exchange platform — a DICOM-standard communication system connecting over 200 hospitals and 70 laboratories. Years of accumulated technical debt had made the platform slow to improve and difficult to integrate with modern hospital systems. mindit.io refactored the platform end-to-end: rebuilding the frontend in Angular, modernising the backend in Java/Spring Boot, and delivering a clean OpenAPI-first architecture. The result is a platform that now holds 62% of the Swiss hospital market and is built to scale.

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