Denmark’s Region North partners with Corti to bring AI to emergency medical hotlines

Stretching all the way from northern Germany to the deep seas of Skagerak dividing Denmark from the rest of Scandinavia sits Jutland, primarily known for its beautiful nature. 

At the tip of the landmass, ‘Region Nordjylland’, the North Denmark Region is a distinctly beautiful area, covered in scenic beaches and picturesque grey and beige dunes; the region’s striking nature sets it apart from anywhere else in Denmark.

Besides the extraordinary landmarks, it is home to 579,000 citizens. Locals here are not known for being flashy or extraordinary, and neither is our protagonist, although his work is remarkable in every way. 

Meet Jan Lindberg, an enthusiast, and local patriot, overseeing all operations and development at the Emergency Medical Service (EMS) Control Room in the North Denmark Region. Jan is in charge of ensuring every patient in the region receives the help they need, when they need it the most. 

Although Denmark is a small country, long travel distances between patients and healthcare facilities can create challenges when providing medical care for critical conditions such as cardiac arrest, in comparison to larger cities like Copenhagen. Jan’s core mission is to elevate pre-hospital readiness, by overcoming the challenges posed by the local circumstances. These constraints have led Jan and his team to turn every stone, to be able to deliver world-class emergency medical assistance, even at the edge of the continent. 

Disrupting existing practices and driving innovative solutions and technological advancements; Jan is committed to making an impact on the lives of citizens during the most vulnerable time of their lives.

‍“We want the North Denmark Region to be one of the safest places in the world, ensuring that all have access to the same quality of care, no matter where we are.”
- Jan Lindberg, Head of the EMS Control Room in North Denmark Region

‍Together with his team, Jan has chosen to leverage Corti’s technology to save more lives. By implementing Corti’s platform Audia, the AI-powered assistant solution, the North region’s emergency medical services will be assisted in detecting critical illnesses, such as out-of-hospital cardiac arrest during emergency calls, faster and more efficiently. By putting digital growth and development at the forefront of their agenda, the North Denmark Region is paving the way for building improved connectivity between citizens and medical care.

‍“Bringing innovation to North Denmark Region is the key to our development - we have seen how technology enhances performance and I am determined to continue leveraging amazing solutions like Corti’s AI, to help us elevate our pre-hospital care and overall well-being.” - Jan Lindberg, Head of the EMS Control Room in North Denmark Region

‍When we embarked on this partnership, the main challenge was to decrypt how to make our artificial intelligence ready for the local circumstances and tailor it to the local IT infrastructure. Intonation, the melodic pattern of the language, and pitch variation are highly distinct in the regional dialect, compared to what Corti’s artificial intelligence had been built on in the lab.

As we are overcoming these challenges, the partnership is proving to be the beginning of a new era in virtual healthcare in the North Region of Denmark. ‍

“The North of Denmark is a special place to call home and our work strives to ensure people continue to feel cared for.” - Jan Lindberg, Head of the EMS Control Room in North Denmark Region‍

The solution will utilize learnings from thousands of historical calls to enable emergency call-takers in the North to detect critical illnesses faster and more accurately. 

The goal of the technology is not to take over the job of the emergency call-taker. On the contrary, the AI will support the staff with a valuable second opinion, which could make the difference when it matters the most.

Since the incubation of the technology in 2016, Corti’s AI has been a frontrunner in human-computer collaboration, proving that the future of artificial intelligence in healthcare, is about enhancing human decision-making, instead of replacing it, hopefully providing the call-takers with even more freedom and agency.

As COVID-19 has made the world more digital, many seek to move out of the cities and live closer to nature, which will benefit a spectacular place like the North Region Denmark, where it’s up to the local patriots like Jan to ensure that all of the hopefully many newcomers will have access to all the same benefits as they did in the city, when it comes to health and safety. ‍

“One of the cool things about our partnership with Jan and his team has been their mentality of development, trying new things, especially in the field of digitalization. There is a very strong ambition of providing better healthcare, with a focus on deploying things safely.” - Andreas Cleve, CEO Corti ApS‍