A different picture of “calm and order” is currently being seen in hospitals and specifically in Emergency Departments, Health Minister Adonis Georgiades said, in a first assessment of the implementation of the electronic patient tracking system, the so-called “bracelet”.

“In hospitals, order and calm are unprecedented,” he said during the press conference, noting that the “bracelet” has reduced the waiting time of patients in emergency rooms on call.

At the same time, Adonis Georgiades called the “bracelet” a “revolution”, setting the government’s goal “every month that passes to correct the situation in the emergency rooms.”

How the ‘wristband’ has reduced waiting times and tensions on call-outs

According to the health minister, the system – whose implementation began on May 16 at the Evangelismos hospital and is now in 10 hospitals – stops complaining, gives the patient information on the next step, while at the same time the severity of the case is known, noting that “all this information is captured on a screen.”

He presented data from more than 44,032 patients in 10 hospitals, saying that before the new measure was implemented, the waiting time was 9 hours. However, the ministry’s goal is to reduce it to 5 hours, explaining that in Scandinavian countries the wait is only 4 hours. In this context, he estimated that by June 2026, the average waiting time in emergency rooms will be shorter than in the Nordic countries.

This has been made possible thanks to measures such as:

The extension of morning on-call duty
The simultaneous co-location with health centres
The recruitment of staff

“The first thing we did was expand the morning on-call service. It reduced by 17% the waiting time in the on-call services in Attica,” he noted. “We made Attica’s health centres cooperate with the hospitals. They have not yet reached the point of lighting the system as much as we would like, but many patients are already going to them.”

At the same time, he explained, significant help was also provided by staff recruitment, explaining that only the Emergency Departments in Attica have hired:

188 nurses
97 paramedics (these were the ones with the biggest shortages)
30 doctors
171 other staff

The average waiting times were as follows:

Evangelismos: 5.16 hours.
Agii Anargyroi: 4.15 hours.
Gennimatas Athens: 5.13 hours.
KAT: 4,27 hours.
Athens Athens Athens – Athens Athens Athens – Athens Hospital: 4,27 hours.
Aglaia Kyriakou Children’s Hospital: 2.44 hours.
Laikon: 3.49 hours.
Sismanoglio: 4.15 hours.
Patras General Hospital: 4.02 hours.
Similion Hospital, Patras: 4.02 hours.
Agia Sophia Children’s Hospital: 1.58 hours.

The hospitals

As the Health Minister noted, the electronic system for tracking on-call duties, which has now been installed in 10 hospitals in the country, is expected to be implemented immediately at the Hospital of Karpathos, the University Hospital of Ioannina, Agios Savvas and the Children’s Hospital of Penteli, while by the end of September 10 more hospitals will be integrated, including the General Hospital of Thessaloniki “Hippokratio”, AHEPA, Papanikolaou and Arta.

The contribution of the Red Cross

On the Red Cross’ volunteer programme, he noted that these are “qualified staff who have been hired for two years and are paid”, and stressed the importance of the work they do in three hospitals, even referring to shocking results, as “they have played a very big role in improving the experience of patients on call”. “The selection of these hospitals was based on the heavy burden of on-call patients,” he explained.