Wants to introduce a new patient record system in Trøndelag
The health platform will be introduced as a new patient record system in Trondheim municipality and at St Olav’s hospital from our 2022. Now the question is how many other municipalities in Trøndelag are hanging on.
Helseplattformen AS, which is owned by Trondheim municipality with 40 percent and Helse Midt Norge with 60 percent, wants to include as many municipalities as possible from Trøndelag and Møre og Romsdal in the introduction of the American patient record system.
– We will roll out the solution to Trondheim municipality and St Olav’s hospital on the first of May 2022. Then it will be six months, so we will have Helse Nord-Trøndelag in place and then some of the municipalities, which have signed an option agreement. Then we will have Røros, Os and Holtålen on site, among other things, says Ellen Annette Hegstad project manager applications in the Health Platform to Nea Radio.
In total, there are 65 municipalities in Central Norway and per. On 9 September, 28 municipalities have signed and an option to join a pilot project within the Health Platform. The remaining municipalities in Trøndelag have not yet dealt with questions about the Health Platform in the municipal council, but all municipalities in Central Norway have signed and an option agreement which means that they can use the system if the municipal council adopts it.
Everyone agrees that the idea of a common patient record system is good. The disagreement is about whether choosing Epic System’s system is the best for the municipalities in Trøndelag.
American system
The health platform is a common patient record developed by the health service in Central Norway based on technology from the American Epic System Corporation. EPIC EMR (Electronic Medical Record / Electronic Patient Record) is the name of the program which will be called the Health Platform in Norwegian.
It is Helse Midt-Norge RHF (Helse Midt) and Trondheim municipality, which have shared in a joint procurement, while some of the other municipalities in the health region have signed an option agreement with the possibility of entering into agreements at a later date.
Controversy at introduction
In both Denmark and the UK, the introduction of the patient record EPIC RMF led to major controversies. In England, staff, patients and management at Cambridge University Hospital quickly lost faith in the system in 2016 after its introduction. It can take many months and a tremendous effort to restore faith in the system.
The journal Dagens Medisin has mentioned situation in Denmark in an article from 2018.
– Among other things, the clinicians have told the media that cancer patients do not treat on time, described serious medication errors and that productivity in hospitals is falling, says Jørgen P. Bansler, professor of computer science at the University of Copenhagen to Dagens Medisin about what happened in Denmark after the introduction .
He goes on to point out that EPIC RMF is a more difficult system to use.
– This is a very complex system that is more difficult to understand, configure and use. The user interface is in many ways illogical and confusing. It seems very old-fashioned and does not live up to generally accepted criteria for the design of good user interfaces, says Bansler to Dagens Medisin.
Have learned from other countries
Øyvind Høyland is project manager in the Health Platform, and works with introductions for the municipalities to be used in the solution in November 2022. He says that they have visited hospitals abroad to learn from introductions of the system at other hospitals.
– We have visited hospitals in England, Denmark and Finland and put on what they have done. Obviously we have a lot of learning from there and we try so we can teach others. Then we look at collaboration meetings with them that measures they have implemented after a few years, we implement before we introduce the system, says Høyland to Nea Radio.
He is still aware that the introduction of such a system will bring about change for the users.
– at the same time, this is a big change for the health service, it is a big change for every health worker. And change can lead to and experience chaos. The measures we have initiated make us think we are in a better position and even the introduction in Denmark and England, says Høyland.
In the rest of Norway and in Innlandet county municipality, other solutions are chosen. This means that there will still not be a common patient record in Norway after the introduction of the Health Platform in Central Norway. No matter how many municipalities participate.