Ortivus reports losses due to delays
- 22 February 2008
Swedish health IT developer, Ortivus, has released its year-end report for 2007, announcing an operating loss of 53.9m Swedish Krona, despite initiating several projects in Europe.
The company has been installing its MobiMed and CoroNet systems across the continent, but report profits have suffered due to “delayed product launches and certain misjudgements.”
MobiMed is a mobile system used for patient monitoring and for transmitting vital data and patient records from the emergency site, or ambulance, to the hospital and CoroNet is a wireless cardiac monitoring system that enables hospitals to meet the need for greater patient monitoring flexibility in cardiac nursing.
The company reports that deals have been initiated in Spain, Germany, Italy, Sweden and England.
In Spain, Ortivus, together with its Spanish partner, Dextro Medica, was awarded an order from Madrid Samur to install MobiMed, and in Denmark, supplied the research units of Skejby Hospital in Århus with special PCI monitors developed for use during artery surgery as well as the CoroNet system.
However, other projects have been subject to delays, with Ortivus waiting to complete installations of its systems.
In England, Ortivus reported that it has only managed to deliver a third of its contracted work with Connecting for Health. The company report receiving an order worth 14m Swedish Krona (£1.1m) for electonic patient record work, but only being able to make a partial delivery in 2007 worth 4.7m Swedish Krona (£387,000). The company reports: “due to delays of the project it is still too early to estimate when the different applications can be deployed. Ortivus has fulfilled its commitments, and is ready to start delivery.”
The deal commented on is with Fujitsu, local service provider to the Southern Programme for IT, who selected Ortivus to be the electronic patient records supplier for ambulances in the region, using the MobiMed application.
Elsewhere, in Germany deployments were held up whilst “a number of strategy changes were made in order for the company to meet the tough competition by better leveraging on its position and competence.”
Ortivus say that lessons have been learnt from 2007, and the forecast for 2008 looks promising.
“The company has taken strong measures regar¬ding cost reductions and changed market strategies. Efforts to safeguard the long term profitability growth, including a review of the Group structure, will continue during 2008. The efforts for volume growth for Mo¬biMed and CoroNet outside the Nordic region are entering into a new phase, and the company has a positive view on the long term profitability potential,” the company says.
“This is an important milestone in our growth strategy to expand the international market for MobiMed. We are happy to see that our strategy is starting to payoff and believe this project will have important effects for our further efforts.,” says Mikael Strindlund, CEO of Ortivus.
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Joe Fernandez
