St. Olav’s hospital in Trondheim adopted the controversial record system Helseplattformen on 12 November last year. More than a year later, there are still errors and omissions. The plan was to introduce the health platform at the hospitals in Møre og Romsdal at the end of April 2024. In the board papers from the administration in Helse Møre og Romsdal, it is stated that based on assessments of patient safety and proper operation, it is proposed to postpone the introduction of the system. – In this way, the resources in the Health Platform can be used to optimize and improve the user-friendliness of the solution until the summer, says managing director Olav Lødemel in Helse Møre og Romsdal in a press release. The board of the Health Foundation will consider the proposal on Thursday 7 December. Major difficulties at St. Olav’s hospital St. Olav’s hospital put the health platform into use on 12 November last year. After over a year, there are still errors and omissions. Very serious errors were discovered as late as last week. 44 referrals to radiology in Nord-Trøndelag, Møre and Romsdal and the company Evidia did not reach the right recipient. – This is serious, especially for five patients who did not get an appointment before the deadline. We fear serious consequences. The error has existed since we started using the Health platform over a year ago, says director Grete Aasved at St. Olav’s hospital. One patient – one record The health platform was supposed to be a response to the then government’s vision that every patient should have one digital record to refer to, whether they were in hospital, with a GP or in municipal healthcare. Helseregion Midt-Noreg signed up as an experimental area and established the Health Platform, with Helse Midt-Noreg and relevant municipalities as owners. After a round of tenders, American Epic systems was still the only bidder. This has resulted in three main contracts being entered into with Epic with a number of addendums that both show how the Health Platform should be, how the system should be maintained, how employees should be trained and how the relationship between the Norwegian owners and Epic should be. Patient safety, good adaptation to the Norwegian healthcare system, privacy, proper access, correct flow of information, quality, best practice and user-friendliness are sections that rank highly in the contracts entered into with Epic. Comprehensive criticism In other words: What the Health Platform was supposed to solve and improve is by far the same thing that the Health Platform has been criticized for being too bad at. In April this year, the Norwegian Health Authority determined that the Health Platform was an ongoing threat to patient safety. A couple of months later, the Norwegian Health Authority stated that the process around the Health Platform entailed increased risk for patients. In November, there were demonstrations against the Health Platform throughout central Norway. At the same time, the National Audit Office determined that the Health Platform was among the worst IT systems at Norwegian hospitals. Helse Midt-Noreg itself has also had to prepare a report containing strong criticism of the system.
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The administration of Helse Møre og Romsdal will appoint the Health platform – news Møre og Romsdal – Local news, TV and radio
