Lund, Sweden – 25 April 2014 – Anoto, the world leader in digital writing technology, today announced that Phoniro, a leader in digital access technologies, has developed its Health Diary solution around Anoto’s digital pen technology. The Phoniro Health Diary is being used by hospitals in Sweden to monitor patients with terminal illnesses such as cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and severe heart conditions.
The Health Diary solution was developed by Phoniro following the positive results from several scientific clinical studies carried out by Doctors Leili Lind and Daniel Karlsson at the Department of Biomedical Engineering, Linköping University and Sics East Swedish ICT, the Swedish institute of computer science. The studies investigated whether digital writing technology could be a suitable method for the patients to report their state on a daily basis, without the need for a physician or nurse present, making it possible to take care of the patients in their own homes.
Using Anoto’s digital writing technology in combination with Phoniro’s Health Diary, patients with terminal illnesses report their condition and levels of pain and discomfort which is transmitted to the hospital as it is written, allowing physicians and care teams to take immediate action should a patient need urgent treatment.
“We developed the Health Diary solution based on the results from several scientific studies showing that digital writing technology is a suitable and easy to use tool for patients in a telehealth solution,” said Magnus Fröberg, business development manager at Phoniro. “We previously used Anoto digital writing technology in an elderly care scenario and knew that the technology could be used to track patient progress whilst they are being cared for in their own homes. When dealing with terminal illnesses, patients want to stay in familiar surroundings and the Health Diary solution empowers them to live a normal life, safe in the knowledge that their care is being actively monitored by a team of healthcare professionals.”
Patients using the Health Diary mark down their condition once a day, recording levels of discomfort and overall wellbeing, and various measurement data, which is then transmitted directly to the hospital where clinicians are able to make informed assessments of the patients’ condition and take appropriate action. Responsible physician decides on symptom and measurement data limits – individual for each patient – and the system generates an alarm if values are below orabove these limits.
The solution is currently being used by Linköping University Hospital in Sweden and is being offered on an international basis as well.
“The Health Diary is a powerful solution that enables hospitals to provide patients with the best possible care for terminal illnesses, whilst avoiding unnecessary hospital admissions,” said Fröberg. “The solution is currently being used by Linköping University Hospital in Sweden but it could have far reaching benefits for other hospitals both in Sweden and internationally.”
Prior to the Health Diary solution, Phoniro has had a long history of deploying Anoto digital writing technologies. It has deployed over 10,000 Anoto digital pens across Sweden to assist Swedish municipalities to better track and manage visits for elderly carers. The pens are now being used in over 30 Swedish towns, making the pens a viable option to capture data for the new Health Diary solution.
“Digital pen technology can make a real difference to how patients are treated,” said Stein Revelsby, CEO of Anoto. “By empowering the patient to be cared for in their own homes and in the environments that are most familiar to them, hospitals need to ensure they can track and monitor patient wellbeing in real time. Through the use of digital writing technologies, patients can report how they feel and the dosages of medicine they have taken, data that is then analysed by doctors in real-time. The ease of use of the digital writing technology makes it easy for the patients to track and record required information without having to teach the patients a new technology to use.”
For more information, please contact:
Stein Revelsby
CEO Anoto Group
+46 733 45 12 05
or
Janne Virtanen
Davies Murphy Group
anoto@daviesmurphy.com
01256 807 360
About Anoto Group
Anoto Group AB is a global leader in digital writing solutions, which enables fast and reliable transmission of handwriting into a digital format. Anoto operates worldwide through a global partner network that delivers user-friendly digital writing solutions for efficient capture, transmission, distribution and storage of data. Anoto is currently in use across multiple business segments, e.g. healthcare, pharmaceutical, bank and financial services, transportation and logistics, government and education. The Anoto Group has over 100 employees and is headquartered in Lund (Sweden), with offices in Basingstoke, Guildford and Wetherby (UK), Amsterdam (NL), Boston (US) and Tokyo (Japan). The Anoto share is traded on the Small Cap list of NASDAQ OMX Stockholm under the ticker ANOT.
For more information, please visit: www.anoto.com.
Follow Anoto on Twitter at: @Anoto
