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IT for improved ambulance services, from emergency call to care

Wednesday, January 7, 2015

Lindholmen Science Park is initiating a new collaborative project, PrehospIT-Stroke, an initiative within prehospital eHealth. The project will pave the way for better use of IT within ambulance services. The focus is on developing joint ways of managing information and communication in order to improve the patient care process, from the emergency call to health care at the right hospital.

Vinnova has approved the application for the PrehospIT-Stroke project within their programme, Innovations for Future Health. The project will be funded by Vinnova and by contributions from the 19 participating parties from health care, business and academia.

Concretely, the project will develop ways of coordinating IT processes between all the actors involved with the purpose of improving ambulance services. The task involves finding common concepts and developing technical interoperability between existing systems. The ideas will be put to the test in the acute stroke medical care chain with the aim of being able to demonstrate quicker and more effective emergency care for those in need.

"The prehospital care chain involves a host of parties and systems. Currently there is no common view as to how information, conceptions and documentation should be handled to best benefit patient care. There is also a lack of consensus over the technical connection between the various systems used. Finding a common language and overcoming the technical barriers would not only pave the way for quicker, better and more reliable assessments and treatment at the acute phase, but also greatly improve the possibilities of follow-up and operational development," says Bengt Arne Sjöqvist, project manager at Lindholmen Science Park and Professor of Practice within Healthcare Informatics at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg.

PrehospIT-Stroke is the brainchild of the Metis Forum, an open arena for cooperation in prehospital ICT and eHealth, which brings together national actors from health care, business and academia with the purpose of improving the utilisation of IT and prehospial eHealth. Metis Forum is run by Lindholmen Science Park with funding from Vinnova and the Västra Götaland Regional Development Secretariat, plus support from participating parties. The operation is led by Bengt Arne Sjöqvist.

"With a broad representation from health care, business and academia, we have the conditions necessary to carry out vital and fundamental projects such as this," concludes Bengt Arne Sjöqvist.

 

For further details please contact:

Bengt Arne Sjöqvist, project manager, Lindholmen Science Park. Email: bengt.arne.sjoqvist@lindholmen.se

Simon Ungman, communications officer, Lindholmen Science Park. Phone +46 31-764 70 21 or email simon.ungman@lindholmen.se