MedDay has Breakthrough Solution For Tsunami Warning System

Stockholm, Sweden (January 24, 2004) - 

The Swedish health services company MedDay has a warning system innovation to detect and inform people about catastrophes like the tsunami wave in South-East Asia on December 26th. For several years, MedDay has developed a cell phone service to detect and restrict epidemics of various kinds, e.g. SARS and bird flu. The very same system can also be modified to send warning messages of possible catastrophes around the world.

MedDay has an application called RegPoint for managing treatment of chronic diseases and detecting and verifying epidemics/pandemics. The application was developed in order for patients to be able to send updated health profiles to their doctors several times a day via cell phones. To expand the range of usage of such an application, MedDay is going to collaborate with the seismology experts of the Uppsala University to provide a tsunami and earthquake warning system.

The quake on December 26th took place at 6:58 AM local time. After approximately 90 minutes, the first waves reached Thailand . Sri Lanka was hit one hour later. The amount of tsunami victims rose very high because there were no proper warning systems in those areas. Many seismological measurement systems had detected the earthquake, but no information was sent in time.

Our systems registered the earthquake eleven minutes after it occurred, almost an hour before the first warning reached the authorities in the affected areas," said Reynir Bödvarsson, leader of the Swedish national seismological network at the University of Uppsala.

Automation can become a key solution. If RegPoint had been connected with the system at Uppsala , thousands of people could have been able to get the warning on their cell phones shortly after the earthquake was detected.

MedDay is going to develop a mobile warning system with seismology experts of the University of Uppsala . The complete system will require a registration, but after that, if a serious earthquake should occur, a message will be sent from Uppsala through GPRS, CMDA or 3G networks directly to all RegPoint users in the affected area. MedDay uses a de facto standard called DMS (Daily Medical Support) for the message delivery. Motorola has been involved in the standard development

It is time to update the tsunami and earthquake warning systems around the world. The American warning system, which is in use today, was created in 1948, long before cell phones were invented," said Sophia Salenius the President and CEO of MedDay. The American system is very reliable, but it takes time to inform people who are not in reach of alarms or local radios. The catastrophe in South-East Asia showed us that today information should spread among people without the delay that cost so many lives."

Today there are Tsunami Warning Centers especially around Japan and the American seaboard. The systems are a combination of seismographs and measure buoys. When the seismograph registers a strong earthquake on the seabed, a message is sent to the authorities that are responsible for the sea buoys. If the buoys register movement that could interpret a tsunami, a warning will be sent to the rescue service on each threatened seaboard. Finally, a warning goes out to the public. This is how the system, which is in use today, works (e.g. Pacific Tsunami Warning System, PTWS).

American systems have severe disadvantages. They are very expensive to create. It also takes a minimum of two years to install the system. Organisations must be built in the area, ready to respond and take responsibility. American systems have been working for several years and since a great deal of facts is gathered, the risk of false alarm is rather small. But if the information does not reach the affected area quickly enough, the system is not useful.

The new Swedish system is inexpensive, and it takes only four to five weeks to install. The warning comes early and consequently the public is reached faster. Eleven minutes after the quake on December 26th, Uppsala could have issued a warning if they had twenty four-seven surveillance and access to the RegPoint solution. One minute later everybody in the area could have received a warning on their cell phones. The possibility of a false alarm exists, since no measure buoys are used, but one can not be too alert in an earthquake risk zone.

For further information, please contact:

Sophia Salenius                 Reynir Bödvarsson

Managing Director, MedDay         Project Leader of Swedish

Mobile : +46 76 807 87 10          National Seismological Network

Email: sophia.salenius@medday.net Department of Earth Sciences At the University of Uppsala

Phone: +46 1847 12378

MedDay AB is a health services company focused on bringing wireless technology to the global health care community. MedDay has developed a de facto standard for communication between doctor and patient called DMS (Daily Medical Support). The first application based on the standard is RegPoint, a disease detection and management system. The RegPoint product suite consists of three software components: the RegPoint Pocket, RegPoint Care and RegPoint Supervisor.

MedDays products support a symptomatic detection and reporting capability at the individual citizen level and allow remote communication and wireless data transfer between individuals in a mobile population and health care facilities/physicians. The services are designed to ensure enormous cost savings for health care systems and health management companies while at the same time increasing the quality of life for patients in ways that have not been previously possible. MedDays goal is to revolutionize public health threat detection and chronic disease management. Ultimately MedDay wants to make world a better place to live.

RegPoint application is tailored for monitoring chronic diseases like diabetes, Parkinson, cardiovascular disease, and other chronic conditions. RegPoint allows doctors to stay informed of their patients health conditions. RegPoint can be registered by a device, for example, a blood sugar monitor that transfers the data automatically using a Bluetooth connection. The information is sent via the RegPoint Pocket on a mobile phone to the doctor. The data is automatically transferred to the attending health care professional, so the patient needs to do nothing. This allows the doctor to monitor the patients compliance to treatment and find out medication errors if they occur and correct them. The RegPoint solution can also be used for early detection of SARS, Avian A Influenza (BirdFlu) or other public health threats, such as bio terrorist attacks etc.

The DMS (Daily Medical Support) standard has created high interest in China . One of the reasons for dramatically risen costs in Chinese health care is diabetes that has spread widely. The Beijing Medical Health Department (BMHB) is one of the collaborators with MedDay and Motorola. Also initial co-operation has started with the Health Bureau in Beijing . The system has been tested in the Beijing Xuanwu Hospital . The DMS service can be applied with GSM, CMDA and 3G networks.

<p>For further information, please contact:</p>

<p>Sophia Salenius, Managing Director, MedDay

Email: sophia.salenius@medday.net</p>

(28/1/05)