Østfold Hospital Trust

The hospital was one of the first in Norway to implement a quiet working environment, where the audio signals from patient alerts were turned off.

Endless opportunities

DNV Imatis’ platform is used for all integration and messaging exchanges. The platform is fully integrated with more than 50 areas, including clinical and administrative systems such as EHR, lab systems, orderly services, cleaners, patient alerts, telemetry, wireless duress alerts and positioning solutions.

Role-based mobile phones have been introduced at the hospital for receiving patient alerts. Patient alert notifications are displayed on big touch screens in the ward. Whiteboards and mobile phones are also used for allocating rooms to patients.

Enhanced interaction

Patient alerts are received on staff’s mobile phones. An acknowledgement is sent in return as a safety check, before then pressing the nurse presence button in the room. Only then is the alarm turned off.

Various rules can be established and adapted to local work processes.

There is no doubt that digital whiteboards improve the interoperability between services and service levels in the hospital. Østfold Hospital Kalnes is the only hospital in Norway that has achieved HIMSS EMRAM (Electronic Medical Record Adoption Model) level 6 certification. The EMRAM scale can be regarded as a reflection of the hospital’s digital maturity, and ranges from 1 (lowest) to 7 (highest).

Facilitates a good workflow

DNV Imatis’ solution enables users to make changes in the application without technical assistance. Hence, this is one of the main components in the hospital’s digital solutions to support and help to achieve a good workflow and reap benefits in the form of efficient operations. From the beginning, the hospital has created and adapted its applications in step with changes in services and the departments’ needs. They have single-handedly created a ‘crisis’ whiteboard that provides an overview of patient flows and resource needs.

The solution has also been used for important support services such as cleaning and orderly services. Cleaners have a full overview of bed occupancy, the discharge of patients, infection, and key information that they can adapt to their own preferences and needs. Orderlies are assigned tasks from the digital whiteboard by a nurse. They receive these via mobile phone and can easily accept or forward, while maintaining a full overview of their work tasks.

DNV Imatis has given us a completely ‘quiet hospital’. All patient alerts go directly to the staff’s role-based mobile phones, and there is no noise from alerts in wards and patients’ rooms. We only realised the importance of this when we had to turn on the sound system during an upgrade in 2019.

What I love about the blood test app is that you know the exact time, who took the samples and that you received the correct number of tubes. Blood samples are fresh, and some samples must enter within an hour, while others may wait longer.

Benefits

A better overview, more efficient workflow and increased patient safety, on top of an improved working environment, less stress and, last but not least, a quieter hospital for patients and their families. The sharing of information across departments and disciplines also aids the operational running of the hospital.

The hospital has a good partnership with DNV Imatis in relation to the focus on improving patient safety and streamlining work processes. Developing effective products in pace with technological advancements is a joint effort. The latest product is a closed registration loop, designed to improve patient safety and streamline work processes, for example through a new blood sampling app for safe blood testing.