Press release - A break through for Welfare technology in the Region of Southern Denmark - from project to operational 
10/6/2011 8:58:32 AM
On the 27th of September 2011 the Region of Southern Denmark, OUH Svendborg Hospital and Medisat A / S, signed a four-year agreement about the Patient Briefcase for COPD patients.
The Patient Briefcase has been running as a project at OUH Svendborg Hospital since 2006 and is now in operation. The Patient Briefcase is a telemedicine invention that ensures fast return of patients.
This is a great joy to both patients and hospitals. Patients experience peace of mind by being submitted in their own homes rather than in the hospital, and hospital beds are released.
How the Patient Briefcase works
The Patient Briefcase makes it possible for a patient to be attended to and treated in his/hers own home by a specialist doctor or nurse who is still at the hospital. Patient and doctor/nurse can simultaneously see and speak with each other through a screen and a built-in microphone.
The Patients experience with the Briefcase, are the same close personal contact as when hospitalized, but in familiar and safe environment at their own home.
User friendly design
The design of The Patient Briefcase is developed with the one goal in mind, to be so user friendly that the patient quickly becomes familiar with the Briefcase. Therefore, the Briefcase has only a few buttons, and the patient only turn on the Briefcase and push a single button to get instant, visual contact with a doctor or nurse. This means that the patient doesn’t need any experience with a PC to enjoy The Patient Briefcase.
The Patient Briefcase increases patients’ quality of life
The Briefcase is designed for chronic patients such as heart patients and patients with COPD (emphysema) that often have long and frequent hospitalizations. The Briefcase has been a central part of a COPD - project at OUH Svendborg Hospital, and patients in the project cheered the invention: 89% of the patients felt more confident at discharge than at earlier discharges with the same disease, and 94% of the patients will recommend that the Briefcase is offered other patients in the same situation as themselves.
Patients in the project had only one complaint: They would have liked to have the briefcase for longer.
World record
So far 810 patients have been through with more than 8240 completed telemedical treatments
which bring the Region of Southern Denmark and OUH Odense University Hospital - Svendborg Hospital, a
world record in treatment of COPD patients in their own homes with the Patient Briefcase.
Business and Hospital cooperate about the Patient Briefcase
The PatientBriefcase is developed by Medisat A/S in cooperation with OUH Svendborg Sygehus.
The Director of Medisat A/S, Kurt Christensen says:
"Medisat is very happy that the Patient Briefcase now has the seal of approval by the agreement we have signed with the Southern Region of Denmark and OUH Svendborg Hospital. Our mission is completed: “Medisat want to make it possible to be a patient in your own home".
Patients with chronic diseases may thus begin to get accustomed to a life without long submittance periods which pleases the regional chairman of the Regions of Southern Denmark, Carl Holst (V).
"The Patient Briefcase is a shining example of how public and private sectors can work together, so it will benefit to patients and also relieves a health system struggling with rising expenses".
Last year Medisat A / S signed an agreement with Stavanger University Hospital in Norway for the supply of the Patient Briefcase for COPD patients and England has also shown great interest in the Briefcase.
Medisat A/S has also developed the Patient Briefcase for heart patients and rehabilitation.
