A Trip Down Memory Lane: The Early Days of Open Medical

We're switching things up with our Transformation First, Digital Second newsletter, and we thought it'd be best to kick off the new format by letting you know what's changing.

We want to make sure that the content we deliver through this newsletter can be your go-to for reliable, thought-provoking, and enjoyable reads. That's why we're transitioning to a monthly release. You can dive into our story every first Tuesday of the month.

The topics will remain the same. We will continue to cover a wide range of healthcare, technology, and even business-related subjects. And as always, all of our content is driven by our conviction that, in order to provide real value to healthcare, we must first transform and then digitise (hence the newsletter’s name).

Let’s get started with a trip down memory lane, back to the early days of Open Medical. Without further ado, it all started in the hustle and bustle of a trauma and orthopaedic (T&O) department.

Our founder, Harry Lykostratis, walked into the clinic on a seemingly ordinary Saturday morning only to find that all the vital patient information for that day's surgeries had been wiped from the department's only record—a whiteboard.

The problem with the whiteboard wasn't anything new. In an acute setting, you need information in real-time, which you obviously don't get with a whiteboard. It was difficult to plan and reprioritise each new trauma case, all while trying to keep patients safe. The handover procedure was also challenging. T&O services need a reliable handover procedure to ensure no patients fall through the cracks, but the whiteboard method made that process more exhausting than it needed to be.

Harry knew these challenges all too well, but the incident with the whiteboard was the last straw for him.

As fate would have it, Harry had extensive experience developing software and still continued to upskill during his spare time. So, determined to prevent this from ever happening again, he combined his medical expertise with his passion for software development and created Pathpoint eTrauma, a digital trauma management platform.

The system was an instant hit, and what started as a free aid for a few departments quickly became a must-have tool across multiple hospitals. But Harry couldn't do it all by himself, so he founded Open Medical.

Pathpoint eTrauma was initially a pragmatic response to a departmental crisis, but its success laid the foundation for something much greater.

Harry didn't just want to solve the current problem; he aimed to create a solution that would help with all future challenges. He wanted to build a solution that could stand the test of time, supporting trauma care services for years to come. He started by solving the patient safety issue and then went on to improve eTrauma so it would optimise services, improve accessibility, eliminate geographical barriers, and enable prevention through early identification, education, and robust remote monitoring. The benefits of eTrauma were palpable and the system was embraced wholeheartedly.

But Pathpoint eTrauma was just the beginning. As Open Medical rolled out the system, it became clear that the challenges faced by T&O departments were far from unique. Seeing the wider application of our solutions, we broadened our horizons and created digital tools for various specialties like dermatology, preoperative assessments, cancer care, and a whole lot more.

Every single solution we developed—and continue to develop to this day and in the future—does more than just give a temporary fix; we provide healthcare with long-term, future-proof digital solutions that advance with technology and evolve with models of care.

Fast forward to today, and we're a team of clinician-led digital health experts providing award-winning, cloud-based software solutions for healthcare organisations. And our philosophy remains unchanged: we identify core healthcare challenges and address them with foresight and sustainability, all with the mission to achieve sustainable healthcare for everyone through digital excellence.

Until next month,

The Open Medical team