Making patient safety the no. 1 priority

Data creates value

With its great focus on research and innovation in health technology, Karolinska University Hospital in Stockholm, Sweden is one of the leading hospitals in both the Nordic region and Europe. In collaboration with Systematic, Karolinska University Hospital has now developed Columna VitalShare in order to gather, store and display clinical measurements of patients’ health data, such as heart rate, blood pressure, saturation, and body temperature. 

“We have the technical knowledge and skills to develop such a solution, while staff from the hospital have the practical experience to know what the most useful and effective solution should be in order to facilitate their day-to-day work and to ensure that patients get the best treatment”, says Henrik Rosenberg Rasmussen, Account Director at Systematic. The collaboration between Karolinska University Hospital and Systematic have been centred about utilising each other strengths and insight to develop Columna VitalShare.

Optimizing patient safety

The key functions of the Columna VitalShare solution are to collect, store and display data from a wide range of medical devices. By focusing on the value of data, it is possible to optimise patient safety by collecting patients’ measured results. This happens, for example, when a department admitting a patient can search for data from the department where the patient was previously examined or treated. 

Using the Columna VitalShare solution, hospital staff can easily get a visual overview of a patient’s clinical data, collected automatically during their stay at the hospital. The Columna system is a new and improved solution for the clinicals, who will receive an overview of the progresses rather than simply having individual “snapshot” data in separate and manual measurements.

Such data provides hospitals with new opportunities, and the Columna VitalShare solution helps ensure fewer data entry mistakes, easier workflows, and a more reliable foundation for doing research. The solution is now in use at Karolinska University Hospital where it supports hospital staff in getting a better overview of patient data, ensures a strong basis for treatment and care decision-making, as well as being a great contributor to increased patient safety.

A valuable collaboration

The collaboration between Systematic and Karolinska University Hospital arose following an IT tender that included an agreement for a partnership. The purpose of the partnership is active collaboration between hospital and supplier with the aim of jointly developing innovative IT solutions.

Karolinska University Hospital’s focus on research and innovation in health technology align with Systematic’s specialist capabilities in relevant technologies, know-how in the field of healthcare, and proposals for practical solutions. Combined, these competencies create a shared understanding of the clinical context, the user situations, and the many technological possibilities.

The actual data collection from medical equipment takes place in the DeviceConX system, for which Systematic’s partner company NantHealth is responsible.

“In addition to our innovation experience, we provide our partners with both technical and healthcare know-how. Our collaboration with hospitals outside Denmark means we establish an international perspective on health IT, which we also bring home to our Danish customers. Our partners and customers can therefore get qualified international sparring, be challenged in their habits and be inspired to try new, innovative approaches to addressing their challenges,” concludes Henrik Rosenberg Rasmussen.

Columna VitalShare was implemented at Karolinska University Hospital in Stockholm, Sweden during the spring of 2018. Parts of the system consist of standard solutions, while other parts are new and were developed in collaboration with Karolinska.