SurgeCon: An Emergency Department Surge Management Platform

Eastern Health is working with Memorial University of Newfoundland, MOBIA Technology Innovations, and SurgeCon Innovations Inc. to refine an innovative software solution that utilizes a unique algorithm to calculate emergency department activity and patient load to predict and mitigate emergency department overcapacity. This automated system, developed at Carbonear General Hospital by Dr. Chris Patey and Paul Norman, RN, improves emergency department performance by reducing wait times for patients.   

This intelligent assessment tool will quantify and predict patient surge, improve departmental communication, help move patients through the emergency department and consequently, reduce overcrowding. The SurgeCon platform has also been awarded a $4.8 million grant from the Canadian Institute of Health Research (CIHR), the Newfoundland and Labrador Provincial Government, Eastern Health, Memorial University and the Trinity Conception Placentia Health Foundation to validate the SurgeCon platform for scale across a variety of emergency departments within Eastern Health.  Memorial University’s Faculty of Medicine and the primary investigator of the CIHR supported research initiative, Dr. Shabnam Asghari, have formed a team of researchers to carry out this research over the next four years. 

Learn more about this initiative on Eastern Health’s StoryLine blog, How a dynamic duo is transforming emergency care.