News • Patient transport
Greek ambulance service EKAB acquires EpiShuttles
Generous donations made by companies and individuals funded seven state-of-the-art isolation pods for COVID-19 patient transport in Greece. The Greek ambulance service, EKAB, acquired seven top modern isolation pods, known as EpiShuttle, from the generous donations made to them.
With the EpiShuttles in place, the ambulance service can perform patient monitoring and full intensive care of infected patients during air, sea and land transport. In case of a local outbreak, patients may now receive fast and safe transportation, even from remote locations. Thus, the EpiShuttle contributes to keep both tourists and Greek citizens safe.
Behind this innovation is a team of medical doctors and engineers with first-hand medical experience with previous epidemics, the founders of EpiGuard. The EpiShuttle make transport safe, reduce cost and increase operational efficiency. An ambulance usually requires 2-4 hours of disinfection between every contagious transport, and with an entire helicopter, it takes almost a day, says Ellen Cathrine Andersen, CEO of EpiGuard explains.
They are completely airtight, and as a second barrier it has negative pressure with P3-filtration to prevent any contaminated air from escaping from the isolator. The EpiShuttle keeps the staff safe. Also, once the patient is loaded, medical staff do not have to wear full Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) during transport of highly infectious patients. This allows for longer shifts and reduces the risk of mistakes due to fatigue or reduced situational awareness, Andersen explains.
In addition to 174 Mobile Intensive Care Units EKAB has three Augusta A-109 Power helicopters. It has been recently estimated that approximately 500,000 patients are transported by EKAB per year. Furthermore, 2000 to 2500 medical flights were conducted per year.
EpiGuard is a Norwegian company established in 2015 providing better solutions for safe transportation of contagious patients. Our team of medical experts and engineers developed the EpiShuttle based on analysis and clinical first-hand experience from previous global epidemics. Our medical background ranges from intensive care, infectious diseases, internal medicine and anesthesiology, and transport medicine. EpiShuttle improves patient safety and care, the safety for health care providers, reduce costs and increase operational efficiency. Saving one – protecting everyone.
Source: EpiGuard
04.09.2020
