SLOUGH, England, July 16, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --

Healthcare providers globally can now benefit from millions of dollars in potential savings thanks to UK-based Hospedia's acquisition of patient flow and bed management provider Extramed today.

     (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20120716/543693-a )

     (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20120716/543693-b )

Hospedia^[1] - the world's leading provider of point of care systems in healthcare, including media, information, clinical support software and infrastructure services at the bedsides of up to 10 million patients a year - will now be able to offer Extramed's Patient Flow management system across all their existing 150 hospital sites across the UK and all new sites signed up as part of its ongoing international expansion.

Hospedia's Chief Executive Tim Weil said: "This is great news not only for Hospedia but for healthcare providers too. Our infrastructure is already installed in over 150 UK hospitals and will continue to grow rapidly as we expand internationally. Combining our platform, software, expertise and reach with Extramed's software, innovation and creativity will not only open up potential savings of $230m a year for our existing sites but also an untold number of hours in time saved for nurses and clinical staff worldwide".

Hospedia currently offers real-time patient feedback, electronic meal-ordering and clinical systems access. With the acquisition of Extramed, Hospedia are taking a massive step forward in delivering the benefits of clinical support services at the point of care through the existing bedside systems.

One of the greatest challenges healthcare establishments face today is the tracking and recording of patient movements and lining up all of the activities and teams required to deliver timely patient care - consuming a large percentage of the healthcare budget. Using Extramed's Patient Flow Management system for Emergency and In-Patient care, hospitals will now be able to improve clinical coding, improve the management of care pathways and schedule discharge activities more reliably which allows more patients to be discharged safely and on-time - in turn allowing more patients to be treated while achieving average length of stay reductions.

Commenting on the acquisition, the COO of Mid-Essex Hospital said: "As an existing customer, I can see huge benefits coming out of this combination that will support changes in patient care and efficiency. Our clinical teams are already engaged with both companies on helping refine their point of care propositions for the benefit of our patients and believe that this could benefit the wider Healthcare space."

This will deliver a fundamentally better means of using IT to support patient care. The new systems will allow traditional manual records and handwritten whiteboards to be replaced by simple to use applications at the bedside, ensuring up-to-the-minute information is propagated across the hospital and so immediately engaging all teams in the delivery of the highest quality patient care.

Extramed Managing Director, Patrick Kelly, said: "Today's acquisition is a very exciting move forward for the company - we are already able to integrate with virtually any existing IT system and enabling access to these systems via Hospedia's bedside platform allows us to deliver a far wider and better service to both patients and healthcare staff. This means that healthcare providers will be able to significantly reduce costs and give staff more valuable time to spend delivering the highest quality care."

Notes

1. Hospedia is the world's leading provider of point of care systems in healthcare, including media, information, clinical support software and infrastructure services. Hospedia has bedside terminals installed in over 150 UK hospitals, serving up to 10 million patients, 5 million visitors, and 500,000 healthcare staff every year.
   
   http://www.hospedia.co.uk 
   http://www.extramed.co.uk
   

For more information, interviews, images and case-studies, contact: Charli Collins, +44(0)2078817785 / +44(0)7818868288 / charlotte@tetra-strategy.co.uk

SOURCE Hospedia