TXP Medical Launches New Coronavirus Information Sharing System for Yamaguchi Prefecture -Supports the facilitation of hospitalization coordination operations for patients with new coronavirus infection-

TXP Medical Co. Ltd. (headquarter: Bunkyo-ku Tokyo, President: Tomohiro Sonoo, hereinafter "TXP Medical") has launched the Yamaguchi COVID-19 Information Sharing System (hereinafter "YCISS") for the purpose of visualizing and facilitating information sharing among medical institutions, home and overnight care facilities, public health centers, and the Yamaguchi Prefectural Government's Office for New Coronavirus Infection Control for patients infected with COVID-19 in Yamaguchi Prefecture. 

Since 2017, TXP Medical has been providing Next Stage ER, an emergency medical platform that integrates fragmented medical data under its corporate mission of "saving lives with medical data" to the emergency medical field.

TXP Medical has also developed and managed the "CRISIS" critical illness COVID-19 database provided by ECMOnet Japan, a non-profit organization, and built a website to visualize the database.

 【Background】
In Yamaguchi Prefecture, the number of positive patients who were hospitalized or admitted to hospitals in the fourth wave increased more rapidly than before, and a high percentage of them progressed to respiratory failure, which placed a very heavy burden on each medical institution.

Under these circumstances, it is important to accurately and promptly share information on the distribution of patient symptoms among the parties concerned, and to coordinate hospitalization based on a common understanding of the content of such information. However, since most of the coordination work has traditionally been done by fax and telephone, the necessary information sharing tended to be delayed when the workload of public health centers and hospitalization coordination headquarters became tight due to the rapid spread of infection.

In addition, flexible responses are required in accordance with the ever-changing medical system and institutional design for new coronavirus infection, but it has been difficult to construct a highly practical system that meets these requirements using the conventional waterfall system development method.

【Expected Benefits】
YCISS will enable centralized management of patients with COVID-19 and real-time visualization of the acceptance status of COVID-19 patients at medical institutions. In addition, daily symptom progress of COVID-19 patients can be constantly shared among public health centers, coronavirus infection control headquarters, medical institutions, and residential treatment facilities.

In the future, based on this information, smooth acceptance requests and admission/leaving control to medical institutions and accommodation/recuperation facilities will be realized based on more granular clinical information on individual patients. As an added benefit, it is expected to streamline the compilation of various clinical epidemiological information related to COVID-19, reduce the burden on medical and administrative staff in the prefecture, and provide better medical care to patients.

In addition, YCISS realize an agile development system, which enables rapid system updates in response to daily changes in the relevant laws and regulations and systems related to COVID-19. In fact, the system is already being equipped with additional screens for patients who are eligible for antibody cocktail therapy, and we plan to provide more customized versions of the system in the future.

The system is expected to meet the on-site needs of organizing and digitizing the cumbersome hospitalization coordination process, which until now has been carried out by paper and telephone.

【Yasutaka Ishimaru, Director, Health Promotion Division, Health and Welfare Department, Yamaguchi Prefecture】
As a result of the spread of COVID19, the workload of various related occupations has increased dramatically. Under these circumstances, we believe it is necessary to make maximum use of digital transformation technology to maintain and improve the quality of service provision and reduce the workload of front-line workers.

We strongly expect that this initiative will be highly effective in strengthening cooperation among related institutions in order to promptly connect infected patients to appropriate treatment and recuperation and reducing the burden on public health centers and medical institutions.

【Tomohiro Sonoo, Chief Executive Officer (doctor), TXP Medical Co. Ltd.】
Information sharing and hospitalization coordination tasks associated with the spread of COVID-19 are similar to the selection of medical institutions in emergency medical services. We have developed and provided this system based on an information communication platform between emergency teams and hospitals. As the fifth wave of infection raged, YCISS facilitated the smooth development of hospitalization coordination operations and visualization of medical institution resources for persons infected with COVID-19 in Yamaguchi Prefecture, which had previously been carried out using whiteboards and telephone calls. We believe this is a model case for medical DX nationwide. We will continue to promote true medical DX through reforms that also integrate operations.