Investment in eHealth prehospital care

The Prehospital ICT Arena is an open and nationwide collaborative effort within prehospital healthcare, i.e. often unscheduled emergency care administered before a patient has arrived at the correct healthcare unit. Stakeholders within healthcare, business and academia are collaborating to ensure that eHealth and ICT is exploited and utilized to its full potential within prehospital healthcare.

“Healthcare is facing major challenges, and a part of the solution involves us taking advantage of the opportunities afforded by new technology. This requires all stakeholders in a particular line of business, for example prehospital healthcare, to coordinate with each other and work towards shared goals. This is the purpose of the Prehospital ICT Arena, which is a neutral collaborative platform that allows involved parties to discuss challenges as well as sharing and generating knowledge. One way this is achieved is by testing solutions via collaborative projects,” says Bengt Arne Sjöqvist, Program Manager for the Prehospital ICT Arena at Lindholmen Science Park.

Investment from the Development Secretariat at Region Västra Götaland means the arena can continue its work, but also pursue new initiatives to develop and further expand its operations.

“Many parties and systems collaborate within prehospital healthcare, but they do not always coordinate in the most effective way. That is why we started the PrehospIT-Stroke project at the arena. The focus here is on finding a joint method of managing and communicating information that improves care of acute stroke patients, from alerting 112 via ambulance care to receiving care at the right hospital. This could involve, for example, computerized decision and documentation support, secure access to information in patients’ medical records and other systems, or video consultations for remote patient assessments. A well-designed system also offers great opportunities for follow-up and operational development,” Bengt Arne Sjöqvist explains.

Another challenge is to ensure that patients end up at the right healthcare unit immediately.

“Not all patients need to go to the nearest hospital or emergency room. In some cases, the patient could be referred to their local primary care center, specific healthcare department or treated at home – treat and leave. This lightens the burden on emergency care and reduces healthcare costs while still providing patients with the best care. It also requires effective IT support, or in other words eHealth,” says Bengt Arne Sjöqvist.

The Prehospital ICT Arena is run by Lindholmen Science Park together with around 30 stakeholders across Sweden. Financing from the Region Västra Götaland Development Secretariat will amount to SEK 2 million over two years.

For more information, please contact:

Bengt Arne Sjöqvist, Program Manager, Lindholmen Science Park, via e-mail: bengt.arne.sjoqvist@lindholmen.se

Simon Ungman, Press Manager, Lindholmen Science Park, Tel: +46 (0)31-764 70 21 or e-mail: simon.ungman@lindholmen.se.