Reimagining Driver Medical Review Through Digital Transformation

By 2030, one in six people globally will be aged 60 or older, with the 80+ population expected to triple by 2050. Nearly 95% of adults over 60 live with at least one chronic condition, and close to 79% manage two or more. This aging demographic signals a growing segment of drivers who may be medically at risk - posing significant challenges to road safety and increasing pressure on driver licensing authorities.

Driver Medical Review (DMR) - a process where individuals are assessed for medical fitness to drive - is critical to public safety. However, it remains complex and time-intensive, involving multiple stakeholders from initial reporting to final licensing decisions. While many agencies have adopted some level of IT infrastructure, legacy systems are often ill-equipped to handle the anticipated surge in medical case reviews.

To meet this challenge, a comprehensive digital transformation of the driver medical review process is not just timely - it’s essential. Modernizing these systems will enable faster, more accurate decision-making, improve stakeholder collaboration, and ultimately enhance road safety outcomes.

The current driver medical review process is a multi-stakeholder, paper-heavy workflow that relies on outdated systems, resulting in delays, subjectivity, and a poor experience for citizens. The common challenges in states with legacy systems include:

Handwritten, lengthy paper forms: Often illegible and missing mandatory information, leading to errors.
Information silos: Multiple sources cause duplicate medical case creation.
Mail communication: Delay case processing.
Lack of self-service: Drivers and reporting sources don’t have self-service options.
Obsolete technology: Increases manual work and lack of business rules leading to inconsistent case decisions and tribunal appeals.
Non-template responses: Subjective and hard to understand, causing driver inconvenience and repeated inquiries.
Costly manual processes: Maintaining manual forms, mail communications, and outdated technology is expensive.

Revolutionizing DMR with Next-gen Digital Techology

Given the current technological trends, it’s clear that introducing advanced digital technologies into driver medical review services is essential to make it more efficient, relevant, and reliable. By embracing digitization, it is possible to modernize DMR processes and address all the legacy challenges effectively. A new digital solution can be envisioned on the following lines:

Core Case Management Solution: This will be the backbone of the DMR solution. There are several cutting-edge technologies to choose from. This can be:
- tailored to the licensing agency’s needs to be built as a cloud-based SaaS, PaaS, or on-premise system, for example, developed using Commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) enterprise application package technologies like Oracle Sales Cloud, Siebel Case Management, Oracle Intelligent Advisor (OIA), Oracle Business Intelligent Publisher (BIP) and so on.
- developed to contain various dashboards to be used by licensing agency officials for day-to-day operations
- developed to support the “1 client 1 record” (1C1R) approach, which will make the customer journey seamless for everyone
Automated Forms Processing: This will make the reading and processing of medical forms faster and more accurate and will provide:
- The ability to upload pre-filled PDF medical forms, that the core case management system will directly consume.
- Intelligent Character Recognition (ICR) and Optical Character Recognition (OCR) tools to convert printed text into digital text for any scanned upload of hand-written forms
System Integrations: This is to ensure:
- Integrations with any other legacy systems for a seamless flow of information
- Connectivity with any third-party applications which is talking to the DMR system
RESTful API Framework: One of the advanced technologies which will:
- Serve as the integration platform.
- Support data exchange between applications in multiple formats, including the advanced and user-friendly JSON format.
Online and Mobile Services: These will serve as engagement channels for citizens, medical practitioners, caregivers, etc, to interact with the licensing agency’s core case management system. This will provide:
- different modes of interaction such as self-service portals, chatbots, mobile apps, etc.
- Scalable design, as developed using modern-day open-source technologies such as Angular, React Framework, and others
- Consistent and high-quality user experience and 24/7 access for citizens.

Infosys offers a cutting-edge framework ensuring rapid, accurate, real-time case exchanges and outcomes between licensing agencies and drivers.

Benefits of a Modern and Responsive Driver Medical Review System

A public sector digital transformation program should always be citizen-focused, improving the client experience and introducing a new way of interacting with the government through digital channels. The digital transformation of a Driver Medical Review program as outlined above can deliver significant benefits, including but not limited to:

Enhanced Road Safety: Technology helps quickly identify and remove medically at-risk drivers from the roads.
Faster Reinstatement: Fit drivers can return to the road sooner, thanks to technological advancements.
Socio-Economic savings: Result of preventing collisions and related costs.
24/7 Access: Cutting-edge technology provides citizens with round-the-clock access to services.
Improved Holistic Experience: Robust digital tools make case processing faster and more reliable, leading to happier stakeholders.
Increased Efficiency: Technology reduces manual errors, eliminates process inconsistencies, and automates mundane tasks.
Cost Reduction: Digital and paperless communication channels significantly cut recurring costs for all stakeholders.

Case Study in DMR Transformation

Infosys recently transformed a provincial driver licensing agency's Driver Medical Review (DMR) program. The legacy paper-based system led to inconsistent decisions, duplicate case creation, delays, and citizen dissatisfaction. We digitized the process within 17 months, introducing online portals for drivers and doctors, chatbot support, and email integration.

The core case management solution was built on Oracle Siebel a robust and scalable CRM platform well-suited for complex public sector workflows. We also leveraged Siebel Open UI for a modern, responsive user experience. Oracle Customer Hub and Oracle Enterprise Data Quality ensured a unified and accurate view of citizen data across systems. Oracle Intelligent Advisor (OIA), formerly Oracle Policy Automation (OPA), enabled dynamic policy enforcement and automated decision-making, while Oracle Analytics Server (OAS), formerly BI Publisher, supported robust reporting and insights.

To deliver scalable and resilient architecture, we integrated Spring Boot for microservices, Angular for rich front-end experiences, and IBM WebSphere for enterprise-grade middleware. OpenText was used for secure document management and correspondence.

Together, these technologies formed a comprehensive digital ecosystem that transformed the DMR process, enabling seamless integration, enhanced automation, and improved citizen engagement.

Online Services: 24/7 self-service channels for medical reporting.
Automated Form Processing: ensures faster and more accurate reading and processing of medical forms.
Policy Automation: Streamlined policy management processes.
Automatic Assignment of Medical Cases: Efficiently assigns cases based on predefined criteria.
Business Policy-Based Auto Decisioning: Ensures decisions are made consistently and accurately.
Automatic Case Processing Capabilities: Reduces manual intervention, speeding up case resolution.
Template-based client correspondence: Easy to understand, crisp, and consistent communication.

The direct benefits that the program provided to the agency encompassed a range of significant advantages, including but not limited to:

30% of cases are successfully handled via automation, allowing for a 5% annual growth with current resources.
Shortened case processing times, resulting in 80% of incoming documents (medical reports) being actioned in 5 days or less.
Enormous reduction in repeated medical case inquiries by anxious drivers.
Direct dollar savings by avoiding printing and shipment costs of paper-based forms and correspondence.

Conclusion

The relevance of driver medical review programs will become more prominent due to the increasing aging population. Continuing to use legacy systems would pose significant risks to public and road safety. Authorities must implement several mitigating measures, including policy-level changes, to keep medically at-risk drivers off the roads and prevent collisions, injuries, or death.

Licensing agencies could begin their transformation journey by embracing the latest digital technologies. These technologies play a crucial role in driver medical review processes, enhancing both the efficiency and accuracy of evaluations. Leveraging cutting-edge technology speeds up the overall medical review process significantly, ultimately contributing to safer roads and substantial socio-economic savings for the government.

About Authors

Dheeraj Eshwar Bangera, Program Director, Infosys Public Services

Dheeraj is an experienced leader with over 17 years of experience. He has worked with Global Fortune 500 companies and government entities, delivering high-impact results in the face of rapidly evolving technology landscapes. Dheeraj's expertise lies in defining product and technology roadmaps, overseeing large-scale transformation programs, and providing program oversight to ensure business success. He has a wealth of experience across industries, including the public sector, telecommunications, media, heavy equipment manufacturing, and banking. He leverages this knowledge to drive efficiency and bring best practices to each program he leads. He is the delivery leader for public sector accounts in North America.

Abhishek Dadpe, Senior Consultant

Abhishek has over 13 years of experience as a process and domain consulting expert with Infosys. He has extensive experience in collaborating with business stakeholders to transform business requirements and needs into effective application solutions. He has rich experience in Public Sector/Government, Banking and Financial and Retail domains. He specializes on spearheading large-scale CX implementation techniques and has a commanding grasp of varied CX business processes and systems across industries.