Ibestad municipality provides better patient care with welfare technology

The project was started in April 2019 and has been a collaborative project between Ibestad municipality, Harstad IKT, Harstad Elektro and Sensio. The delivery includes 18 rooms in building A with extension B/C which is under construction for Ibestad Hospital.

This is a project that has been carried out with flexible project management, especially between Sensio, Harstad Elektro and Harstad IKT.

Sensio has delivered Sensio Pocket, positioning, door control, patient signal and environmental control set up according to the needs of Ibestad nursing home.

Need for good patient follow-up

The municipality needed a better working day for the health personnel at Ibestad nursing home, and wanted to ensure good follow-up for each patient. There was also a desire for heat management to individually adjust the temperature of residents for better comfort.

The service has been in operation since September 2020 and works well for the employees. Internal training along the way has been important to be able to utilize the potential of the system, and the municipality runs several rounds of internal training to ensure full benefit from the service.

Better utilization of resources for healthcare personnel

The nursing home works continuously to adapt the technology to existing routines, thereby strengthening the service. In terms of profit, the most important thing for the employees is to have an overview, and to be able to provide faster health care for the patients.

- Everyone at work sees the alarms, and whether they have been handled or not. This ensures better utilization of resources through efficient use of staff and handling of patients. It also provides security that carers can easily ask for assistance with a patient, so that an alarm goes to all carers in the ward, directly on mobile phones. This simply enables the health personnel to provide better care, says Hilde Danielsen unit manager and Erika Ribeaux Veranes assistant. ward nurse/head of department at Ibestad nursing home.

  Health personnel at Ibestad nursing home show off Sensio Pocket and Sensio Patient Signal

The staff avoids several nurses running to a patient who has triggered an alarm, they see and receive a notification that other nurses have taken the alarm on their mobile and are on their way to the patient. Indoor positioning with jewelery and bracelets provides security if someone is outside the specified area so that they can easily notify via their mobile phone.

The patients, for their part, experience greater comfort in their room and they can individually change the heat, light and take down the blinds themselves.

  All alarms from the resident's room are displayed on the Sensio Touch, here mounted at the entrance to the room

Open dialogue

Ibestad Nursing Home has been a complex project with many parties involved, which has created both challenges and opportunities. For the municipality, it has been important to have an open dialogue with all contributors and ensure good communication.

In such a broad field as welfare technology, it is often easy to blame each other when something does not work, but Ibestad municipality believes that Sensio has made a solid effort to help, also outside its area of responsibility, to ensure the best experience for the customer.

- In projects like this, you can clearly see the importance of a good network and a well-functioning IT department that can take on additional responsibility for good project implementation, says Stian Antonsen.

Martin Bentzen Schive, Senior Project Manager at Sensio, says that the project at Ibestad municipality has been exciting, but also demanding at times.

Sensio – an important contributor

- Sensio has been involved in the project since its inception and has experienced Ibestad Hospital as a project where many different subjects and systems must interact well to create the best experience for the customer. As in all our projects, we have done our best to provide a high level of service to ensure a good implementation of the products and services we deliver, says Martin.

The municipality is very satisfied with Sensio's handling of the project and the benefits experienced so far.

- We experience Sensio as a very service-friendly and highly competent supplier, knowledge is shared and this makes running the nursing home at Ibestad flexible and efficient. Sensio has provided a high level of service, and we are impressed by how Martin has contributed to the whole, not just Sensio's commitments. This has meant that we have had an optimal start to the wellness technology initiative in the municipality, says Stian Antonsen, head of ICT User Support in Harstad municipality, who follows up the nursing home on a daily basis.