HiQ AND PREDICARE REDUCE WAITING TIMES AT ACCIDENT AND EMERGENCY UNITS
HiQ has, together with Predicare, created a system that will shorten waiting times for the initial medical assessment at accident and emergency departments. The new system will be delivered to virtually all Sweden’s A&E units by the start of the new year.
From the moment a patient arrives at an accident and emergency unit every minute is crucial. It is important to determine as quickly as possible how urgent it is for the person concerned to receive the necessary care. In order to help medical staff to accurately determine the need for relevant medical treatment even more quickly, Predicare and HiQ have now developed a web application based on the so called RETTS decision-making support tool (RETTS = Rapid Emergency, Triage and Treatment System).
“We want to simplify and rationalise the A&E admission process even further. When every minute counts, no one wants to waste time searching through a folder to look for information or to determine how to prioritise the treatment of patients. We have already helped to reduce emergency care waiting times by 30 minutes per patient; now waiting time will be shortened even further. We want Swedish emergency medical services treatment to be the best in the world, and this new system helps us to move Sweden closer towards this goal. It is extremely satisfying for us to have HiQ as our partner in this project,” says Predicare’s Bengt Widgren, who is a doctor himself.
Each year some 1,500,000 people seek help at Sweden’s A&E units. When the patient arrives, an initial medical assessment must be made at once. In this new version of the RETTS system, medical staff enter details of the patient’s symptoms and this information generates a list of criteria to be used when determining the priority of treatment. The system speeds up the process, reduces administration and increases medical safety.
“Like every other aspect of society, medical care is becoming increasingly dependent on IT. Medical technology is an incredibly important area and one that is growing in our segments of the market. For example, we are currently working on technology to treat cancer and have developed a simulator that teaches dental students maxillofacial surgery. This is precisely what HiQ is working for – to make life better and simpler for people,” says Lars Stugemo, President and CEO of HiQ.
Predicare has been created to realise the vision of developing the RETTS decision-making support tool in a systematic and professional way for use in Sweden and abroad. RETTS-IT has been developed for use by both medical staff at accident and emergency units and by ambulance crews.
For more information, please contact:
Lars Stugemo, President and CEO HiQ. Tel. +46 8 588 90 000
Peter L. Häggström, Head of Corporate Communications HiQ. Tel. +46 8 588 90 000, +46 704 200 103
HiQ simplifies and improves using hi-tech solutions within communications and software development. The company is a leader in these areas and has the Nordic region as its home market. HiQ employs more than 1,300 staff and has offices both in the Nordic countries and in Russia. HiQ is also listed on the NASDAQ OMX Stockholm Mid Cap List. For more information, please visit www.hiq.se.
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