Periodic Reporting for period 1 - ETIMan (ETIMan: Emergency and Triage Information Manager, disrupting the Emergency Medicine industry)
Reporting period: 2019-08-01 to 2020-01-31
Somewhat surprising for 21st century, but state-of-the-art methods for deploying and managing procedures in case of critical situations such as mass casualties incidents are still paper-pen-radio based. While being robust and straightforward, they result in problems relating to patient data synchronizing and monitoring, time-to-response, situational overview, staff training, and over-reliance on administrative handling on the account of medical staff. As result, unnecessary resources are spent, and more lives could be saved.
MCI On-site practical challenges:
1. Getting an immediate and accurate overall situation overview (i.e. number of victims / hurt, triage categories and their location) and being able to optimally deploy (additional) resources.
2. Triage and registration performed at different places by different teams maintaining different lists which in turn have to be sorted manually, is indubitably an error-prone and slow approach that needs optimization.
3. Optimal coordination and preparation of hospital capacities is a significant priority.
4. Attempts to track the way of single patients, their attendants and transport vehicles within the rescue chain are not very successful, although this is of key interest to avoid casualties.
5. To monitor patients in different stages of their changing condition.
MCI Organizational and societal challenges:
6. Reduce number of death casualty cases that could be prevented with better rescuing organization.
7. Reduce costs, mostly in supporting resources and tasks (administration, communication, etc.). Costs of (re)input the data at MCI events can be significantly reduced.
8. Maintain high level of preparedness and improve training processes. Since ratio of MCI simulation exercises to actual MCI events is 10:1, e-learning, training and maintaining of preparedness level are actually key activities of emergency teams. It is vital for future digital solutions that aim to replace paper+pen methods, to contain also some sort of user improvement tracking, learning material and e-learning functionalities.
Overall innovation objective is to digitize emergency medicine procedures so that they will empower medical staff, reduce unnecessary costs and help saving more lives.
MCI On-site practical challenges:
1. Getting an immediate and accurate overall situation overview (i.e. number of victims / hurt, triage categories and their location) and being able to optimally deploy (additional) resources.
2. Triage and registration performed at different places by different teams maintaining different lists which in turn have to be sorted manually, is indubitably an error-prone and slow approach that needs optimization.
3. Optimal coordination and preparation of hospital capacities is a significant priority.
4. Attempts to track the way of single patients, their attendants and transport vehicles within the rescue chain are not very successful, although this is of key interest to avoid casualties.
5. To monitor patients in different stages of their changing condition.
MCI Organizational and societal challenges:
6. Reduce number of death casualty cases that could be prevented with better rescuing organization.
7. Reduce costs, mostly in supporting resources and tasks (administration, communication, etc.). Costs of (re)input the data at MCI events can be significantly reduced.
8. Maintain high level of preparedness and improve training processes. Since ratio of MCI simulation exercises to actual MCI events is 10:1, e-learning, training and maintaining of preparedness level are actually key activities of emergency teams. It is vital for future digital solutions that aim to replace paper+pen methods, to contain also some sort of user improvement tracking, learning material and e-learning functionalities.
Overall innovation objective is to digitize emergency medicine procedures so that they will empower medical staff, reduce unnecessary costs and help saving more lives.
Task 1: User acceptance study: We conducted a User Study to identify specific needs of target user groups and validated the solution vis-à-vis these needs. This enabled us to understand user acceptance by checking existing design and functionality against the needs of buyers, and to prioritize future developments.
Task 2: Market study: We conducted a strategic product positioning and European market analysis to understand market conditions and further refine the total available market size, growth and market penetration, IPR, competitors, and potential partners.
Task 3: Technology study: We evaluated technical alternatives for scalability, support, price and availability of resources, and prioritized a workflow for further development, localizations and piloting.
Task 4: Dissemination and sales approach test: We set out a test commercialization framework, where we were able to perform on small scale the following: dissemination actions with potential buyers, industry players and stakeholders, tested strategy for acquisition of clients, sales channels formation, participation in sector-related events.
Task 5: Financial and economic viability analysis: we performed a thorough financial analysis of revenue, cash flow, break-even, and cost breakdown of all planned future activities. We also determined a commercially viable model with established risk assessment & contingency plan covering management, financial situation, technical challenges, and partnerships.
Main results are:
1. Confirmed technological framework and architecture, with set-out product development outline, future client customizations and features added, and validated design.
2. Validated market approach with several lead qualification approaches identified and tested
3. Fully confirmed product economic and financial feasibility, and further application to EIC Accelerator or similar funding schemes.
Task 2: Market study: We conducted a strategic product positioning and European market analysis to understand market conditions and further refine the total available market size, growth and market penetration, IPR, competitors, and potential partners.
Task 3: Technology study: We evaluated technical alternatives for scalability, support, price and availability of resources, and prioritized a workflow for further development, localizations and piloting.
Task 4: Dissemination and sales approach test: We set out a test commercialization framework, where we were able to perform on small scale the following: dissemination actions with potential buyers, industry players and stakeholders, tested strategy for acquisition of clients, sales channels formation, participation in sector-related events.
Task 5: Financial and economic viability analysis: we performed a thorough financial analysis of revenue, cash flow, break-even, and cost breakdown of all planned future activities. We also determined a commercially viable model with established risk assessment & contingency plan covering management, financial situation, technical challenges, and partnerships.
Main results are:
1. Confirmed technological framework and architecture, with set-out product development outline, future client customizations and features added, and validated design.
2. Validated market approach with several lead qualification approaches identified and tested
3. Fully confirmed product economic and financial feasibility, and further application to EIC Accelerator or similar funding schemes.
Progress beyond the state of the art:
Current state-of-the-art paper+pen & radio processes are useful, intuitive and robust. But they are also time-consuming, laborious and not medical related methods for manual patient data (re)writing, which are error-prone all along their chain, and offer little tracking and management support. ETIMan will instead bring data synchronisation, better situational overview, patient tracking ability, e-learning support and reduced costs. In-house developed ETIMan technology offers faster real-time communication protocols, adjustability and customization to buyers’ specifics, affordability and compatibility with existing systems.
Expected impact:
(1) On MCI and Emergency cases:
-ETIMan enables instant medical communication between operators in MCI site, headquarters and hospital staff, which increases overall efficiency by 20-30%. Also, real-time monitoring and supervision of processes, data inputs & outputs, communications and on-site dynamics as it happens, increases productivity by 20-30%
-ETIMan enables tracking patients through different stages of the rescue chain (MCI-treatment-transfer-hospital). Also, medical staff can better monitor and track patient’s changing condition on MCI site. There can be more patient medical data entered in less time, which improves monitoring, diagnose and medical decisions;
-Enables 30% more medical treatment (and less laborious administration) with same staff resources.
(2) On internal healthcare organizational routines:
-Optimized for e-learning and analytics. Every action and event change is tracked and analysable, which makes it a great tool for MCI simulation exercises; This also reduces MCI simulation and staff training costs by 50%
-It combines 2 operational modes, for daily emergency and MCI cases. This brings digitalization on working place, synergies, better utilisation of resources and faster adaptation of medical personnel to new collaboration tools. Most importantly, ETIMan is one tool for whole Emergency medicine niche!
-ETIMan reduces costs for up to 230k per year/buyer, due to optimization of staff and other resources, and due to being a contemporary e-learning solution that cheapens MCI simulation exercise.
-It is easy-to-use enough to be used without extensive training, highly customizable and adjustable to specifics of user profiles and to buyers’ needs.
(3) On technical and technological field:
-Multi-media support: voice, video streaming, text, messaging, GSM and IP conversations, database inputs/outputs; including multi-media library, documentation and collaboration space.
-As SaaS it can be applied on smartphones as advanced and sophisticated mobile/tablet app, on desktop in headquarters and hospitals, on dedicated hardware and even directly from browser without special software installation or additional hardware.
-Operates on low bandwidth, resulting in operating capabilities even when WiFi, GSM, and mobile signals are limited. Support for 4G and 5G connectivity also differentiates us to other solutions.
Current state-of-the-art paper+pen & radio processes are useful, intuitive and robust. But they are also time-consuming, laborious and not medical related methods for manual patient data (re)writing, which are error-prone all along their chain, and offer little tracking and management support. ETIMan will instead bring data synchronisation, better situational overview, patient tracking ability, e-learning support and reduced costs. In-house developed ETIMan technology offers faster real-time communication protocols, adjustability and customization to buyers’ specifics, affordability and compatibility with existing systems.
Expected impact:
(1) On MCI and Emergency cases:
-ETIMan enables instant medical communication between operators in MCI site, headquarters and hospital staff, which increases overall efficiency by 20-30%. Also, real-time monitoring and supervision of processes, data inputs & outputs, communications and on-site dynamics as it happens, increases productivity by 20-30%
-ETIMan enables tracking patients through different stages of the rescue chain (MCI-treatment-transfer-hospital). Also, medical staff can better monitor and track patient’s changing condition on MCI site. There can be more patient medical data entered in less time, which improves monitoring, diagnose and medical decisions;
-Enables 30% more medical treatment (and less laborious administration) with same staff resources.
(2) On internal healthcare organizational routines:
-Optimized for e-learning and analytics. Every action and event change is tracked and analysable, which makes it a great tool for MCI simulation exercises; This also reduces MCI simulation and staff training costs by 50%
-It combines 2 operational modes, for daily emergency and MCI cases. This brings digitalization on working place, synergies, better utilisation of resources and faster adaptation of medical personnel to new collaboration tools. Most importantly, ETIMan is one tool for whole Emergency medicine niche!
-ETIMan reduces costs for up to 230k per year/buyer, due to optimization of staff and other resources, and due to being a contemporary e-learning solution that cheapens MCI simulation exercise.
-It is easy-to-use enough to be used without extensive training, highly customizable and adjustable to specifics of user profiles and to buyers’ needs.
(3) On technical and technological field:
-Multi-media support: voice, video streaming, text, messaging, GSM and IP conversations, database inputs/outputs; including multi-media library, documentation and collaboration space.
-As SaaS it can be applied on smartphones as advanced and sophisticated mobile/tablet app, on desktop in headquarters and hospitals, on dedicated hardware and even directly from browser without special software installation or additional hardware.
-Operates on low bandwidth, resulting in operating capabilities even when WiFi, GSM, and mobile signals are limited. Support for 4G and 5G connectivity also differentiates us to other solutions.