Kastanjehaven - May 2021
Early Detection: We get started faster
The digital solution 'Early Detection' from Pallas is a crucial app for the staff at the Kastanjehaven care center - and that benefits the residents.
Lotte Nielsen has worked at the Kastanjehaven care center in Roskilde Municipality for the past four and a half years. Here she works as one of two department managers. Since she started in 2016, Pallas' digital solution 'Early Detection' (triage) and its Roskilde Wheel have been a permanent and crucial part of the daily work and planning at the care center. She has worked as a nurse since 2005 and therefore remembers the time when the Roskilde Wheel were just colored magnets on a whiteboard.
Lotte Nielsen is a trained nurse and has worked as a department manager at Kastanjehaven care center in Roskilde since 2016. For her, the integrated app from Pallas Informatik has meant that there is more time for caring for the residents because they save time on handovers between staff.
In the past, we could spend half an hour getting an overview of the day, but now we spend a maximum of 10 minutes because we can quickly get an overview of where we need to focus.
Lotte Nielsen
Today, the very first thing employees resort to on their shift is Pallas' Early Detection tool.
Here, the employees at Kastanjehaven form an overview based on the principles of the Roskilde Wheel and review the residents who have been 'triaged'.
Triage is what happens when a resident is assigned a yellow or red color. The yellow ones are to show the staff that they should be aware of changes in the resident. The red ones indicate that action must be taken on the resident's condition within 24 hours. They are therefore more urgent.
The app allows you to immediately note or register changes or observations for each citizen. This means you avoid having to double-register or write handwritten notes into the app because you do it on the spot.
"A quick overview"
The staff triages on the smartphone or tablet – and the information is immediately transferred to Early Detection overview board in the staff room. In the app, residents can also be assigned a green color – this is the 'usual' state, where everything is as usual.
“In the morning, we use the solution actively – one person sits in front of the large overview screen or with a device in front of them and browses through the residents who have been triaged,” says Lotte Nielsen.
“In the past, we could spend half an hour getting an overview of the day and which residents had challenges that needed to be handled,” remembers Lotte Nielsen, “but now we spend a maximum of 10 minutes because we can quickly get an overview of where we need to focus.”
We spend almost no time on handovers at shift changes because we have the app with the Roskilde Wheel.
Lotte Nielsen
It has made a big difference in the working day for the approximately 55 employees at Kastanjehaven in Roskilde that Pallas' Early Detection is a permanent part of the work. In the past, there was also a greater overlap between night shift and day shift and vice versa, but the employees no longer need that because they can quickly orient themselves in the app when changing shifts.
“It has made a difference to that extent, because the app is more nuanced, as we can divide the residents into several categories. That's why it's better to use, and that has an impact on the residents,” she emphasizes.
“And it's clear, if you look at it very objectively, that it saves time – but there's also some economics to it,” says Lotte Nielsen.
Faster out of the starting blocks
Lotte Nielsen gives a concrete example of how Early Detection helps nursing staff in their work:
“For example, if a resident gets a urinary tract infection. Here we see in older people that they can change their behavior over a few days before they actually have regular symptoms of an infection in their body. Now we can already have a feeling on the first day that there is a small personality change – that something is not as it usually is. That's why we take a urine sample, have it tested, and if there are symptoms of it, we are out of the starting blocks faster.”
With Early Detection, it is easy to prioritize citizens' care based on the overview board. Among other things, you can sort citizens according to triage, so it is easy for users to get a quick overview of which citizens have an acute need for care.
User-friendly solution
In the Early Detection Roskilde Wheel, there are a total of six categories, and they are designed based on the Danish Health Authority's recommendations: psychological and social, home, everyday activities, eating and drinking, physical complaints and medication.
Under each category in the Roskilde Wheel, a number of relevant observations are listed, which the user can click on from green to yellow to red and thereby easily triage the citizen. When the user saves the registration, it immediately appears in the other employees' apps and on the overview board.
Early Detection is part of Pallas' Smart Center solution, which can be adapted as needed and integrated into existing care systems. In this way, the registrations in Early Detection are automatically saved in the care system. Changes to, or observations about, a citizen can be immediately noted in the app, and therefore important knowledge is avoided from being lost because it is entered on the spot - to the benefit of all employees.
It has made a difference to a great extent, because the app is more nuanced, as we can divide the residents into several categories. Therefore, it is better to use, and has a meaning for the residents.
Lotte Nielsen
“It's a very simple, small program that you learn to use quite quickly, and that you also find out quite quickly is really good and gets something good out of it.”
Everyone in the house has embraced it and is actively using it – they are happy with it,” says Lotte Nielsen.
FACTS about the Roskilde Wheel
- Originally developed in collaboration between Roskilde Hospital and Roskilde Municipality, hence the name 'Roskilde Wheel'.
- Originally it was a cardboard disc with a wheel that could be turned.
- Since 2015, Pallas has introduced the Roskilde Wheel in their digital solution, as an app that has the same function.
- The Roskilde Wheel is part of Early Detection, a system developed to document information about the citizen's condition.
- Pallas has created data integration so that all observations and data are automatically transferred to the care system.
