In practice, this can range from video calling with a doctor, systems for storing electronic patient records, an app for ordering medication from a pharmacy, a fitness watch for monitoring activity (also known as mHealth), an AI tool for physicians to improve diagnostics, to a system like Bike Labyrinth, which keeps people active in an enjoyable way.

The goal of eHealth is to make healthcare:

• more accessible for people in areas where healthcare is scarce;
• more efficient by reducing administrative burden and errors;
• more coordinated by enabling data sharing between healthcare providers;
• more patient-centered, giving patients a sense of autonomy.

Saving time

You might think: those are admirable goals, but learning how to use all these eHealth products takes time and effort. Does it actually reduce workload and save time, or is this just empty promises?

Research into the effectiveness of eHealth certainly exists, but it tends to be highly specific to a particular type of eHealth. Because these studies vary so widely in nature, a large overview study was recently initiated to examine the effectiveness of various forms of eHealth and to determine whether the outcomes point in the same direction. This study focuses on eHealth aimed at smoking prevention, healthy nutrition, promoting physical activity, and maintaining a healthy weight. The researchers are analyzing data from previously published studies that examined the effectiveness of eHealth in preventive care. This meta-analysis will hopefully answer the question of whether various eHealth strategies are truly effective in improving (in this case preventive) care (Farragher et al., 2026).

In terms of time savings, the effectiveness of eHealth was primarily examined for electronic patient records and the extent to which the use of eHealth impacted workload. For electronic patient records, use was found to be time-saving once implemented, though training was required to achieve this.

Increasing or reducing workload

For other eHealth strategies, the analysis was less clear-cut. A small proportion of studies found that eHealth increased workload, but a large proportion indicated a reduction in workload or no difference at all, depending on the type of eHealth used. For example, one overview study showed that when nurses used bedside terminals to register patient data, this could save 24.5% of the time normally spent on documentation per shift. Having central computers also reduced documentation time by 23.5%. In direct contrast, another study reported that point-of-care systems for performing diagnostic tests at the bedside actually increased documentation time by 17.5% (Keuper et al., 2024).

Barriers frequently cited by healthcare workers include a lack of training, increased workload, and limited trust in technology. Acceptance of eHealth was also shaped by concerns about professional roles, autonomy, privacy, and disruptions to workflow. Factors that lowered the threshold for healthcare workers included management support, a positive organizational culture, a good balance between innovation and care responsibilities, and targeted training initiatives (Walzer et al., 2025).

In short, the success of eHealth does not depend on technology alone. How an organization supports its healthcare workers in using digital tools is equally important, if not more so.

Training in eHealth

Interestingly, there are studies showing that when appropriate training is provided for working with eHealth tools such as an electronic patient record, this had a significant effect on the number of minutes healthcare workers spend searching within the system. This in turn left more time available for patients (Sieja et al., 2021; Dastagir et al., 2021; Pollak et al., 2019).

What role does Bike Labyrinth play in this?

Bike Labyrinth also falls under eHealth, in the category of "exercise strategies," and given its interactive nature, also in the category of "exergaming." After all, the goal of Bike Labyrinth is to get people moving in a fun and relaxed way, helping them stay healthy. Our own research shows that healthcare workers have a clear sense of these values. In addition to the fact that for many healthcare workers Bike Labyrinth brings enjoyment to their work with clients (239 respondents, answered 181 times), the second most common response was that it saves time (76 times), makes the therapy they provide more efficient (69 times), and makes their work more interesting (66 times). That makes us very proud, because that is exactly who we want to be: a company that develops a product for and with the healthcare sector.