Global Excellence 2020

Acquisition International - Global Excellence 2020 81 Acquisition International - Issue 1 1 53 Oct20624 Meeting the Needs of Tomorrows Healthcare Utilising smart technology in the medical sector is a growing industry and one such company that is experiencing huge success is Omsyn, based in Norway. We speak to one of the co-founders about how the company is changing the face of healthcare. nnovative telemedicine company, Omsyn, offers solutions based on sensors, sound and images by combining the use of ballistocardiograph sensors with machine learning (or artificial intelligence) to facilitate communication between patients, healthcare providers and relatives. With the aim to use their technology to identify conditions, predict deteriorations and hence contribute to prevention of disease, Omsyn is committed to providing technology and services to meet the needs of tomorrow’s healthcare – a vision which has not changed over the years since the firm’s inception in 2014. Omsyn has a head office in Stavanger, Norway, and a sales office in Saltsjö, Sweden, under the name of Nordisk Telemedicin AB. Dr. Vidar Arnulf is Co-Founder, General Manager and Medical Officer of Omsyn. He believes that the technological solutions and tools that Omsyn provides help to bring medical knowledge to people where they live. Being able to provide diagnostics, to follow up on treatments, and to be able to predict disease or deteriorations before they happen it truly what sets the firm aside from its competitors. Not least - to provide this at an affordable cost ensures the best possible healthcare to as many as possible. “In my view tomorrow’s hospitals will be located in people’s bedrooms,” explains Vidar. “At least many of the tasks performed by hospitals today, may be provided at patient’s homes. To be a facilitator of this Omsyn was founded, and I believe this both distinguish us, and makes us successful.” Vidar is also the founder of Norway's leading health insurance company, Vertikal Helseassistanse AS and founder and medical director of Alivia Swiss Health Management AG. He has previously been chief physician and managing director of the Norwegian Air Ambulance, section chief physician and assistant director at Østfold Hospital and senior adviser in the Norwegian Board of Health and the National Insurance Administration. As a MedTech company, Vidar and the team at Omsyn are committed to, and live by, the Hippocratic Oath, which has formed the relationship between medicine and technology. Part of that oath includes the words: “I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon's knife or the chemist's drug.” Vidar embellishes that, although technology has become an increasingly important part of medicine, it is still medicine and, in its core nature, is art. “I find this inspiring as technology can be used to give physicians a better understanding of their patients, give them other means of communication, and give them instant access to historical data, and thereby enable them to better perform the art of medicine.” Connecting competence is a key word to describe how Omsyn synergizes energies between medicine and technology. For example, it can bring the medical specialist to the patient, bring the sensor data from the patients’ home to the AI feature, predict a myocardial infarction, and send a warning to the patient together with an appointment to a cardiologist. Vidar is quick to sing the praises of the Omsyn team. His recruitment approach of “hire for attitude, train for skill” and stood him in good stead over the years and is paramount to the firm’s ongoing success. “Companies are made of the people working there,” he enthuses. “In my view management should be measured - not by the quality of the individual leaders - but on the performance of the organisation they lead. So, in summary - a company’s success is down to those working there, a company’s failures are down to their leaders.” The list of challenges that Omsyn has faced is long, and probably longer than the list of challenges it did not face, jokes Vidar. They have been both faced technical challenges, commercial challenges and financial challenges along the way, all of which have been met and overcome in order to create a stronger, more sustainable company. Regarding the future, Vidar plans to develop new services for customers and continue to invest in the process of using machine learning technology to predict adverse situations, and once again, he refers to the Hippocratic Oath: “I will prevent disease whenever I can, for prevention is preferable to cure.” Contact: Vidar Arnulf Company: Omsyn AS Web Address: omsyn.no I Most Innovative Telemedicine Solutions Company 2020 - Norway