Healthtech firm debuting in Scotland, aiming to help hospitals combat overcrowding

A Norwegian healthtech firm is making its debut in Scotland – where it aims to help combat overcrowding in emergency departments and hospital wards.

SmartCrowding said it is expanding overseas after success in its home country, and is currently in discussions regarding live pilots with hospitals and NHS Trusts north of the Border.

The software as a service provider also noted that its chief operating officer Ian Lindsay-Watson has strong family roots in Scotland with his great-grandfather having represented the nation in international rugby.

The firm is expanding overseas following success in its native Norway (file image). Picture: contributed.

The business said health services in Scotland have been under huge pressure for years, and it aims to directly address the issue of overcrowding in hospitals. This will “help medical professionals to maximise budgets, reduce stress for staff and patients alike, improve medical outcomes, shorten waiting times and, ultimately, help them to save more lives”.

SmartCrowding was founded in 2014 by Øystein Evjen Olsen, previously chief medical officer at Stavanger University Hospital. He said that within the first four months of the firm’s offering being implemented in the hospital, waiting times and total times spent in the emergency department were reduced on average by a little over 50 per cent, and spikes in capacity were dealt with much faster, as patients were moved through the flow more efficiently.

The firm says its offering is suitable for any ward scenario in all medical settings where patient flow and bed capacity is of critical importance. It adds that it is best suited to high-pressure environments such as accident and emergency, maternity and psychiatric wards.

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