Cardiolex Medical AB
Integrated ECG Solutions for Enhanced Patient Care

As the ambulance made its way through the bustling traffic on the Gota river bridge towards Sahlgrenska University hospital in Gothenburg, the patient inside was sweating profusely and clutching his left side due to the shooting pains across his chest. Meanwhile, at the hospital, the duty doctor had identified from the ECG readings in the ambulance that the patient had a mild cardiac arrest. Sahlgrenska University hospital had recently installed a digital ECG management system from Cardiolex into its existing framework. The moment the patient enters the ambulance, his information is recorded in the vehicle’s ECG system, which in turn is connected to the hospital’s ECG system. EC Store and EC View, two of Cardiolex’s solutions, retrieve his past ECG records from the online regional ECG database, and register and integrate it with the readings from the ambulance’s ECG system. Any missing patient information will automatically be completed with the help of EC Store’s connection to the national patient database. With this information, the duty doctor could diagnose the attack and the treatment to be given prior to his arrival at the hospital, also give advance directives on the next steps once the patient arrive, thus ensuring higher chances of saving the patient’s life.

“Cardiolex offers state-of-the-art ECG devices providing a complete solution within ECG, from receiving the ECG signal from the patient to managing and storing the generated data,” states Johanna Genberg, CEO of Cardiolex. Cardiolex’s IT solution, EC Store is installed in collaboration with the hospital’s existing IT department to receive ECG reports from the different devices.

Independent of the brand or type of ECG device used, the reports are integrated from the ambulance and in-hospital readings, for example patient monitoring systems, as well as from external sources such as clinics and care centers. It also has a process for retrieving patient data from the national database in order to improve the workflow and secure correct patient information. The user can view the ECG’s on any device in the same format independent of the platform or source through the client EC View. The ability to connect various brands and types of ECG equipment into EC Store, a central storage function, which can be further connected with HIS, EMR, PACS and other similar systems singles out Cardiolex from its competitors. Existing faculty members or ‘super users’ are trained by the Cardiolex team to take over the responsibility of internal training. For far-flung locations, the team does the training, maintenance, security, and upgrades remotely.

Cardiolex has achieved a major milestone in 2018 with the migration and conversion of more than 10 million existing ECGs recorded by competitive devices in healthcare organizations through its databases and making it work in the hospital’s new systems. Through this feature, Cardiolex’s aim of a digitalized and paperless workflow is being implemented in most of the hospital systems. “With a lot of effort, our team succeeded in developing a search tool for the hospital faculty to find ECGs quick and easy and independent of the original format in a secure environment,” chimes in Helene Ringenson, Product Manager for Cardiolex.

On enhancement of existing solutions, Johanna explains about Cardiolex’s partnership with the Glasgow Royal Infirmary (GRI) team led by Prof Peter Macfarlane on developing algorithms to help assess a patient by the interpretation and analysis of ECG that is received. Built on this algorithm, a major platform is being developed to help the team apprehend the best clinical approach possible by visualization and analysis of the resting ECG tests that are performed in the procedure.

Being a European organization with major clients from the same economy, Cardiolex’s products have been designed keeping in mind the demands of the market such as the different languages, workflows, and systems in the healthcare sector. “Cardiolex hopes to expand and improve the sustainability of ECG to reach our goal of all ECGs being available anywhere and on any technical platform by adding more functionality for quality and feasibility to existing features in terms of device connectivity,” concludes Johan Arvedson, International Sales and Marketing Director for Cardiolex.