Providing hardware and software solutions for home users, small business and corporations, the 6pm Group is simultaneously diverse and unique. Predominantly Maltese-owned, the group’s latest addition to its various service and product offerings is an electronic and mobile health solution that provides peace of mind for tomorrow’s challenges.
To get to this position, you have to demonstrate value, integrity and quality
“The 6pm Group is structured on three main pillars: one servicing home users and SMEs; one that provides corporate solutions including infrastructure; and, last but not least, another one providing data centre services,” says Ivan Bartolo, the group’s CEO.
The 6pm Group offers products and services within a wide range of businesses such as banks, hospitals and aviation. It also plays an important role in the health sector.
“We entered the medical sector five years ago, knowing full well how tough the competition in this sector is,” says Bartolo.
6pm first started in this sector with electronic document management and data warehousing. After gaining a few years of experience and the trust of the NHS, the company moved on to develop targeted clinical solutions.
“To get to this position, you have to demonstrate value, integrity and quality,” says Bartolo. “We also work closely with medical specialists.”
6pm have developed a stroke management solution called StrokePad. Accessible from smartphones and tablets, this mobile solution helps emergency teams to plan and provide better care during the first two crucial hours when a patient is admitted to the emergency unit suffering from stroke.
Bartolo emphasises the importance of those two hours: “They are crucial and will make the difference between the patient going on to live a quality life once discharged, or living for the rest of their life wheelchair-bound, or in the worst case scenario, dying .”
6pm’s solution is a digital, automatic check-list that seeks to ensure that the necessary medical procedures on the stroke patient are properly executed.
Bartolo says this leads to a win-win formula: “The patient wants to be treated the best way possible as they want to continue living a quality life. On the other hand, the NHS wants to deliver the best possible care to the patient so that it reduces the cost for caring for the patient following the stroke.”
6pm’s software solutions for the health sector do not stop here. This September, the company is launching a solution for HIV management.
The solution developed assists clinicians with the calibration of medicines – the purpose is to reduce the time taken to find the right balance of medicines required by the patient. This calibration data is then fed to the pharmaceutical industry.
The management solution is also equipped with a clinical workflow engine to enable the progress of the patient to be tracked.
Another medical solution developed by 6pm is emCare, which Bartolo says, “gives users the security that someone else is caring for them through a well-equipped care centre”.
The solution is a joint venture between Caremalta and the 6pm Group and offers several health monitoring services classified under two categories: eMonitoring, which monitors the human body, and eHealth, which monitors the environment where the person lives.
The service will be launched at the Malta Trade Fair on Wednesday.
Beyond healthcare, 6pm is also reaching landmarks in other sectors. The group’s latest endeavour is www.quickfocus.com – a virtual social environment where academics and experts from various industries meet up to exchange knowledge. While postgraduates can access resources and information about the real world of work, people already in the industry can access academic papers while posting their own work experience.
“New graduates frequently go straight for a job in the industry,” says Bartolo. “This means that while they may know what to do, they have no experience in how to do it.”
The concept of www.quickfocus.com is to act as a bridge between the two and makes possible an exchange of information. This exchange can take various forms, from white papers and research documents to webinars, lectures and audiovisual content.
“We’ll be inviting more people to populate the portal, so the exchange of information will not only involve the IT industry but also academia from other sectors. This means that the portal will become an extensive digital handbook on any subject from various business sectors.”
Communication exchange and enquiries is another feature that makes the portal interactive and solution-oriented. This means that if you don’t find what you’re looking for, the point of contact is there at your disposal with an instant response.
“Quickfocus.com is a common sense platform,” Bartolo says. “It’s a bridge between academia and industry. For a €29.95 access fee a year, users can gain real life experience and access information on diverse subjects.”