The Interview Hub: Inside the Swedish Tech Scene

Episode 1: Doctrin AB - Speaking with Sofia Ljungmark - Chief Product Officer.

As a somebody working in the recruitment space across Sweden, I am constantly reminded how differently the Swedish & UK governments have reacted to the crisis.

One thing that makes my work more interesting, even though I am confined to lockdown myself, is knowing that in the Swedish Technology market there are always interesting people and fascinating companies to work with.

It’s the reason why we recognise Stockholm as one of Europe’s hottest Tech Start-up hubs, and that’s why I’m proud to be able to introduce the first episode of “The Interview Hub: Inside the Swedish Tech Scene“, a mini-series in which I speak to people from some of the most exciting companies in Sweden and explore their business so to find out how they are adjusting to a new landscape.

For the 1st episode of “The Interview Hub: Inside the Swedish Tech Scene“ I was excited to speak to Sofia Ljungmark the CPO of Doctrin AB about the impact the COVID-19 crisis has had on their business and how they have reacted to those changes.

Sofia Ljungmark, can you please introduce yourself?

I am the Chief Product Officer at Doctrin, meaning that alongside the CTO I am responsible for managing the product development department and maintaining the vision of Doctrin’s product.

What do Doctrin do?

Doctrin are one of the largest medical platform providers to the healthcare industry in Sweden. Our product provides a digital entrance to their service for both patients and healthcare professionals. The platform connects the digital and physical care that patients need via chat services and video consultations. By using our platform and thereby changing processes, health centers can increase both quality and efficiency, aside from giving their patients a digital communication channel with nurses and doctors.

How do Doctrin differ from their competitors?

We offer a platform for delivering digi-physical service, which means that the flow does not have to end digitally for the patients. Our platform manages everything from administrative issues such as accessing medical records to arranging physical care if need be.
Another important differentiator is that our medical content covers all possible patient situations, is evidence based.

With that in mind – people like to turn to the internet in order to self-diagnose. How does Doctrin’s platform provide a different outcome?

The platform never takes any final decisions. It asks specific questions about the patients’ needs or symptoms to make the best recommendations possible, and those recommendations are always coming from a qualified medical specialist.

With regards to COVID-19, what impact have you seen on the MedTech Market?

Well it’s not really damaging our market in the same way it has for others, in fact now the need is much bigger for our kind of solution, since our platform that allows doctors and nurses to carry out their meetings online – this is exactly what the industry wants and needs right now.

What changes have Doctrin experienced as a result of the virus?

We are seeing a much higher demand for video consultations over chat now because I think that running a video consultation is much closer to the IRL set-up that people were used to before. We are seeing a much higher percentage of customers approaching us.

We know that in Sweden there is yet to be a forced lockdown – what measures have you taken to keep your staff safe for the duration of this pandemic?

Even though Sweden is different from other countries, the recommendation in Stockholm is that people should be working from home. So, everybody at Doctrin is working from home as suggested, we’ve also had to look closely at our contingency plan to ensure that should people in Doctrin fall sick that we can carry on the business as normal. Luckily, that hasn’t happened!

We know that Doctrin has seen a change in demand for their service, how have Doctrin adapted their service to cope with this change?

From February to March the number of patient cases on our platform increased by about 50%, which is a huge increase in such a short amount of time. We needed to take a deeper look at increasing the capacity of our platform to ensure that we can continue to provide the same level of service to an increasing number of customers and patients.

Also, we are taking part in more national tenders for quick Corona solutions.

What should we expect to see from Doctrin in the future?

Growth into more international markets, the demand is there, it’s just a question of if we grow from Sweden or from the new countries. It’s definitely something we are thinking about a lot!

Finally, what advice can you give to other people or companies about getting through this crisis?

“I don’t know if I can advise business’ in other markets, but one thing is to truly learn how to work effectively from home. If you have a proper set-up with the tools, you will find that it actually works really well. My mum is the principal of a high-school, and she was really worrying about how they can work from home, but with the right plan in place it has worked really well for them too.”

A massive thank you to Sofia for taking the time to speak with me about Doctrin.

If you would like to participate in this series of interviews or would like to discuss recruitment solutions, please don’t hesitate to contact me on bharris@skillfindergroup.com