The Swiss company has just won the Grand Jury Prize and the Public Choice Award for the Hug @ Home mobile / web application. Developed with two healthcare professionals, this app helps to identify the problem and tell the patient whether to go directly to the emergency room or wait 24 hours. It also allows for a consultation with a doctor by videoconference, set a “traditional” appointment and provide various services. This is something to avoid unnecessary trips to patients and unclog emergencies!
Specialists of innovative and tailor-made solutions, the sister companies Choobs and iabsis have sent two teams to participate in the second Hackathon of Geneva University Hospitals and imad. During this event that aims to accelerate the good ideas to turn them into functional prototypes, 78 participants worked for 36 hours on a dozen projects.
Answer to a real problem
The Choobs-iabsis team aimed to tackle a problem addressed by Dr. Sanae Mazouri-karker, Chief of the clinic of the Ambulatory Emergency Unit and the Service of Primary Rescue Medicine of the HUG supported by Dr. Hervé Spechbach, Deputy Doctor responsible of the Ambulatory Emergency Unit. These two doctors, managers of the HUG had started from the observation that the emergencies are often congested and the waiting times relatively long despite a lot of efforts put in place to reduce the waiting time. In order to find a solution to improve the comfort of the patients and unclog the waiting rooms, they teamed up with the developers of Choobs and iabsis and with Dr. Laure Zoé Kaestli, Doctor of Pharmacy and Project Manager Visio 20/20 HUG. This multidisciplinary team imagined Hug @ home.
This application can guide the diagnosis based on the information given by the patient. The latter can thus benefit from medical advice validated by a multidisciplinary medical team, whether he should immediately go to the hospital, make a videoconference consultation with a HUG doctor or set up a traditional appointment with a doctor via an electronic agenda. The app also makes it possible to send a medical prescription to a pharmacy, to send a practical medical file related to the patient’s complaint or illness, to send a detailed medical report of the consultation to the attending physician (as long as the patient either agree) or send the invoice directly to the patient and arrange a follow-up appointment for any patient who has received support through this service. Also features that serve the same purpose: avoid that people who can be diagnosed remotely go to the emergency department for situations that can be resolved remotely without immediate clinical examination.
This application makes it possible to make a first diagnosis directly by the patient, to find out if he or she should go to the hospital immediately, make a videoconference with a HUG doctor, or arrange a traditional appointment. The app also makes it possible to send a medical prescription to a pharmacy, to send a practical file related to the pathology, to transmit a description of consultation to the attending physician (as long as the patient agrees) or to send the invoice directly to the patient. So many features that serve the same purpose: to prevent people who can be diagnosed remotely go to the emergency room.
The development will continue
The Choobs-iabsis team will not stop at the realization of the prototype, created during the Hackathon with the Breeze collaborative development platform of Avaya. This project should continue longer term through the financial benefits of these 2 awards and other future funds.
The management of Choobs and iabsis wishes to congratulate their colleagues and all the participants of the team that contributed to the birth of Hug @ home: Rémi Strasser, Gilles Hemmerle, Olivier Bitsch, Nick Doulgeridis and Tobias Kuster, as well as Laure Zoé Kaestli (doctor of pharmacy and project leader Visio 20/20) and the project leader, Sanae Mazouri (clinical head doctor in the First Aid Medicine Department and the Ambulatory Emergency Unit).
For further information, please contact:
Tobias Kuster, info@choobs.com / info@iabsis.com
Note to editors
Choobs Ltd. offers innovative and tailor-made solutions in the field of IT and communication. Its automation and enterprise communication simplification solutions combine artificial intelligence and unified communications technologies with its long-time partner Avaya. They enable customers to realize significant savings while increasing productivity, combining the potential of email, voice and video. It was co-created by Daniel and Tobias Kuster in 2002 in Geneva and is based in Grand-Saconnex (GE).
iabsis Sàrl specializes in the development of innovations through integrations of Open-Source technologies, combined with custom web and mobile applications. Since its creation in early April 2017 in the Grand-Saconnex by Tobias Kuster and its two partners, Gilles Hemmerlé and Olivier Bitsch, iabsis has been able to earn awards and references from major companies such as EasyJet, Mercedes, Procter & Gamble and Amsterdam Airport for various solutions combining open source technologies, machine learning, digital assistants based on artificial intelligence as well as web and mobile applications to optimize processes.