11 months after the new record system was put into use, the situation at the hospital is described as increasingly worrying according to a recent status report. Managing director Grethe Aasved believes that work on improvements in the system is going too slowly, and that employees notice little of the changes in everyday life. This is revealed in a recent report to the board. – This leads to increasing despondency and resignation in the organisation, and it is urgent to take powerful measures, according to her assessment to the board. Managing director Grethe Aasved at St. Olav believes the situation is increasingly worrying at the hospital. Photo: Tariq Alisubh / news Severely mismedicated The number of clinics warning of a very high risk to patient safety has doubled since the end of August. The risk assessment at hospital level is therefore still in the red for patient safety. Errors and deficiencies in the new record system have had serious consequences for several patients, according to the report. One patient was seriously mismedicated, and received a low dose of chemotherapy daily which was actually supposed to be given once a week. The reason is that the drug reconciliation does not work well enough in the Health Platform. The patient was admitted with severe poisoning. Another patient with suspected cancer, who was to be called in for a CT examination quickly, was not examined until after three months. This is due to poor message flow after the introduction of the Health Platform. The patient was diagnosed with cancer. Morten Troøyen, clinic manager at the Clinic for Imaging at St. Olav, regrets that the problems with the Health Platform affect the patients. Photo: Jøte Toftaker / news Apologies to the patients – I think it is very regrettable that this has given us problems which are now affecting the patients. That’s what Morten Troøyen, clinic manager at the Imaging Diagnostics Clinic at St. Olav, says. – These errors have appeared along the way, which we were not in a position to see. He further says that the errors that are discovered are continuously corrected, or that they create manual routines. – This makes the workflow more demanding. We must have more people to do the same job than before. At the same time, Troøyen believes that the record system has improved, so it is more secure now than at the start. – But we are not where we should be. Therefore, the work on error correction must continue with full force. Vivi Bakkeheim, representative of the superiors at St. Olav, demands powerful measures that improve the user-friendliness of the Health Platform. Photo: Bent Lindsetmo / news – Time is running out The trustees at St. Olav are very concerned about the situation, and recently sent a report of concern to the Norwegian Health Authority. They refer, among other things, to a survey which shows that 9 out of 10 doctors at St. Olav believe that patient safety is threatened because of the Health Platform. 86 per cent of those who answered are afraid that they themselves will make mistakes because of the Health Platform. – We need more powerful measures than what has been achieved so far. It’s going too slow. Time is running out. That’s what Vivi Bakkeheim says, enterprise union representative for the Association of General Practitioners at St. Olav. She says that it is difficult for employees to keep their motivation up. – The fact that the number of reports of adverse consequences for patients is increasing is felt heavily by both employees and managers. Month after month, the solution is worked on, but the employees notice far too little change. Bakkeheim believes that an overall assessment must be made as to whether it is right to continue. – Money cannot be poured into something that is clearly so difficult to achieve. We should put one foot on the ground to see if this is sustainable or not. The new records system Helseplattformen was put into use at St. Olav on 12 November last year. 11 months later, they are still struggling with serious errors and shortcomings. Photo: Morten Waagø / news Running out of money – Increased staffing is a necessary measure going forward, says managing director Grethe Aasved in her assessment to the board. This will have significant negative financial consequences for St. Olav, which is headed for a deficit of NOK 220 million in 2023. In the board documents, it appears that additional costs and lost income due to the Health Platform in both 2023 and 2024 mean that St. Olav may run out of liquidity in 2024. St. Olav’s hospital must have a supply of liquidity from Helse Midt-Norge early in 2024 to ensure continued operation, the documents to the board state. Measures and status will be discussed at the board meeting on Thursday 19 October.
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Heading towards a big deficit – news Trøndelag – Local news, TV and radio
