Varde – July 2021
In Varde Municipality, they have had the pressure ulcer package from Safe Hands adapted to meet their needs.
Together with Pallas, district nurse Marianne Nielsen and her team in Varde Municipality have specially designed a web app that can do just what they need when working with citizens.
In Varde Municipality, they have set up a working group that, together with the IT company Pallas IT, is expanding the IT solution Smart Center with a digitalized version of In Safe Hands and including the pressure sore board - and they cannot do without it.
Engaging in a dialogue about developing a product together, so that you can put your healthcare imprint on it, has really been a positive experience.
Marianne Nielsen
This is emphasized by Marianne Nielsen, who is one of eight district nurses in Varde Municipality. She has worked here since August 2018.
Smart Center is Pallas' overall IT solution, which can be customized as needed and integrated into existing care systems, so that all data is collected in one place. Varde Municipality has been using Smart Center with Early Detection since 2017. The integration of data into the pressure ulcer package started in April this year.
The Early Detection dashboards and the pressure ulcer package make employees more aware of where to focus in terms of, among other things, preventing pressure ulcers and other unintended events. This means that staff have better interdisciplinary communication, a better overview of the documentation, data they can draw on, and that they save time. All to the benefit of the citizens in the municipality's elderly care.
Marianne Nielsen in front of the pressure sore board from Pallas. Photo: Marianne Nielsen
Staff better equipped for daily work
Marianne Nielsen's colleague, Tine Schultz Esbensen, is a risk manager in Varde Municipality and has 24 years of experience in the nursing profession. Her primary task is to contribute to development, among other things, based on accidental incidents, so that citizens associated with Varde Municipality's elderly care experience good care. She notices a big difference after the collaboration with Pallas on the specially designed web app began in April this year.
"When you are a risk manager, you want to work preventively and develop to ensure the quality of care, so that as few citizens as possible become ill, lose function or are hospitalized unnecessarily," says Tine Schultz Esbensen.
That is why she helps train the staff in Varde Municipality to be able to report accidental incidents:
The systems help create an overview so that employees can more easily bring their expertise to bear. This results in greater job satisfaction and greater professional satisfaction among the staff.
Tine Schultz Esbensen
"At least that's what I notice the most and what I care about the most," says Tine Schultz Esbensen.
The employees welcome the new web app.
Marianne Nielsen has worked closely with Pallas to help, advise, etc., to design an app that helps them with what they need in Varde Municipality.
“The staff has received it very well, and it is a great support for them because everything is gathered in one place,” says Marianne Nielsen.
The overview board communicates with the app, making it easy to meet and collaborate in front of it. Photo: Pallas
The workday starts in front of the overview board
The team in Varde Municipality is introduced to the app when meeting in the individual shifts. Here, the staff gathers at the overview board from Pallas to review the citizens regarding Early Detection and the In Safe Hands Pressure Sore Package.
“That's why it's also nice that it's in the same system as our Early Detection,” explains Marianne Nielsen.
She says that it has long been a wish of the staff that the pressure ulcer package was also part of the electronic board display: “Pallas has made it possible for the different elements to ‘talk’ together. For example, when we take a weight measurement and write it in our journal, it jumps over to the Smart Center, and we are really happy about that. So there are clearly some solutions that make it make sense for it to be tied together, logistically it is an easier solution. And it has been positively received,” says Marianne Nielsen.
Reduces pressure sores and other adverse events
Part of Tine Schultz Esbensen's workday focuses on unintended events. An unintended event includes if something happens to or with the citizen that should not happen. A fall, a pressure ulcer, the wrong medication, a medication list that is not updated, an incorrect diet, the citizen being dropped off at the wrong place and the like. These events, when or if they happen, are registered in the system and sent to the Danish Patient Safety Database. In this way, all information is collected and can be used to prevent a similar unintended event from happening.
The web app has a person figure where the user can tap on the place on the body where there is a pressure ulcer and give the wound a Braden score. The report appears immediately in the rest of the system, i.e. on overview boards and in other users' web apps, as well as other care systems. Photo: Pallas
Before the systems were adapted to Varde Municipality's needs, the staff – like many others – had information about citizens in several different places. But now they no longer have to reach for the red folder or the green folder, explains Marianne Nielsen: “That's the smart thing about this – that you have to go to one place and can get it done, and it's one place you look when you have the board and the app in front of you when you arrive.”
This means that staff continue to learn more about and from the data they have available in the app, because the systems talk to each other and therefore also collect data in one place. The data, combined with Pallas' overview boards and Early Detection, gives staff a greater overview so that they can react more quickly if, for example, they have observed symptoms in a citizen that could later lead to an unintended incident.
Positive cooperation between Varde Municipality and Pallas
According to Marianne Nielsen, it has been a positive experience to collaborate with Pallas:
I think it has been challenging in many ways - in a good way. It has generally been positive that you play the technical solutions together with the healthcare - and especially that you think about the end user, and it has to be usable. It has given me so much meaning to be a part of it
Marianne Nielsen
By adapting Pallas' IT solutions to suit the needs of nurses and SOSU assistants when working with citizens, Varde Municipality has not only succeeded in obtaining a solution that is easy to use, but also an IT system that saves time: "It has made our documentation, overview and reporting more flexible in terms of the fact that it talks to our medical record system, and it is located in the Smart Center. That is really what we have won," concludes Marianne Nielsen.
Facts
What does "In safe hands" mean?
- Is an improvement program with the aim of creating a method to systematize the workflows of elderly care.
- It is developed to prevent loss of function and hospitalizations among residents in elderly care. These may include pressure ulcers, medication errors or falls that could have been avoided.
- It is not certain that a citizen is at risk of getting a pressure ulcer now and then, but may be at risk of getting it in the long term. And this classifies them to be offered various aids, special nutrition (diet with proteins), a different type of diaper (if there is moisture on their skin), special mattresses, pillows or other pressure relief.
- The program started in 2013 and is now in its third wave, supported by the Danish Society for Patient Safety, the Ministry of Health and the Danish Health Authority.
What is a pressure ulcer?
- A pressure ulcer is a hole in the skin.
- It is caused by constant pressure, which leads to the blood disappearing and thus the skin dying – and then a hole breaks.
- Older citizens are at risk of developing pressure ulcers if they sit or lie very still, perhaps because they do not feel the pressure or do not have the opportunity to move.
