CheckWare's digital solution for specialist health services is now being used by all health trusts in Norway within mental health and addiction. For the vast majority of health trusts, it has taken four to eight months to get CheckWare implemented. - The solution is very welcome, says Sykehuset Innlandet. - There have been few errors in general, Helse Midt-Norge. At Sykehuspartner, a service forum has been established where the health trusts in collaboration ensure that the use of CheckWare's solutions is developed in the same direction.
More and more healthcare providers are demanding tools that increase patient participation. Healthcare professionals all over Norway report that the quality of treatment improves when patients themselves participate in the process: The administrative tasks require less time, and patients receive more attention and gets help with their challenges faster.
CheckWare's clinical assessments provide healthcare professionals with answers to how patients feel. To date, 380,000 CheckWare respondents have responded to more than 5.3 million clinical assessments. The health trusts that have signed agreements within mental health and substance abuse have introduced the solution at record speed - the last ones started using CheckWare in June. A strong increase in use is therefore expected also in the future.
- It is impressive that we have implemented the solution with the health trusts in such a short amount of time. We experienced that all included parties made thorough preparations, that the customers have shown a significant commitment related to the introduction of CheckWare, and that many players in Norwegian health care in general are becoming comfortable with digital services. There is continuous feedback about good experiences both with healthcare professionals and among patients, says CEO of CheckWare, Heidi Blengsli Aabel.
- I also want to give credit to the CheckWare team, who has worked hard to get all the health trusts into production in the first half of 2021. It was an ambitious plan, and we implemented it together with the customers.
- A very welcome solution
Sykehuset Innlandet has lacked digital solutions for assessments.
- What may be the best with the CheckWare solution, is how it incorporates clinical tools in one solution, and for us to use this systematization of patient reported outcomes. This enables real life user patient participation and shared decision making. It will be an immediate benefit for both clinicians and patients. The clinicians' feedback is generally very positive, CheckWare works as it is intended to, says psychologist Erlend Høen Laukvik, who is CheckWare's customer contact at Sykehuset Innlandet.
- There have been some implementation challenges, but this is pretty common with all new, digital solutions that are implemented. I experience that we cooperate well when it comes to these challenges, this is very important to me as a customer contact. We are being taken seriously, says Laukvik.
The hospital has decided to introduce the system step by step and therefore spends much time for the best possible orientation and necessary information in each ward. They started with adult psychiatry, and are now also implementing CheckWare within child and adolescent psychiatry (BUP).
- I experience that it is a user-friendly solution that even those with a great fear of technology are able to use. It provides incredibly good opportunities for the clinicians. The solution makes it possible to systematize feedback from patients, and in this way strengthen the user participation. It also allows us to capture ailments and issues that the patient is experiencing, which we would not otherwise capture in a clinical interview, he says.
- This is not a one-time occurance on our part. For us, CheckWare has digital tools and solutions that will work for a long time. We have to think long-term and want more assessments in the solution.
Important with digital anchoring in the management
Director of delivery and customer follow-up at CheckWare, Frode Næss, believes that the digital maturation within Norwegian specialist health services has gone very fast.
- The key to success is limiting the projects from the start, but at the same time understanding and meeting the customer's needs. In this way we can deliver what we promise, and we can expand on the use and functionality later. Our customer dialogue is constantly improving. This also increases the speed of implementing the solutions, he says.
A challenge to growing rapidly, as CheckWare has definitely done in recent years, is to be able to serve all customers.
Ina Andersen is service manager at Sykehuspartner, and is responsible for their implementation of CheckWare.
- It has been hectic, at times chaotic, but we have come ashore, she says and continues:
- CheckWare has expanded greatly as we have done our implementation. Behind the project manager at CheckWare, it is the same people who are doing everything, there have been mix ups sometimes, she says and thinks it is because of the project’s time pressure:
- It has led to some extra bumps in the road, that's how it is when you grow fast. It may have been a somewhat ambitious plan to start all the health trusts in such short time, she says, but she is at the same time very pleased that they have been able to duplicate the solution for all the trusts.
- We have appreciated the integration across the health trusts. We are talking about seven local health trusts that will switch to regional agreements. The last one will be up and running in September, she states. In connection with the coordination, Sykehuspartner has also set up a service forum with representatives of all the health trusts. Various issues are addressed here, so that all change requests can be coordinated and sent together to CheckWare.
- It has been fruitful for them to talk to each other about challenges and solutions. This means that they can develop the use of CheckWare in the same direction, Andersen believes.
Frode Næss in CheckWare believes that a common understanding of the timeline in the projects is essential.
- Customers choose to listen to our advice and recommendations. I think it is absolutely crucial that the decisions are rooted at management level, it makes it much easier for all parties in understanding the necessity of digital solutions in an organization, says Næss.
Many of the employees know what they get
Several customers describe a strong pressure internally to introduce the digital solutions. In Helse Midt-Norge, there have been several different clinics that have been using CheckWare for a long time.
- Many of the empployees know CheckWare, and what they get. An important task has been to bring together the various agreements between Helse Midt-Norge and CheckWare in a joint regional agreement prior to the introduction, says service developer Ingunn Flægstad Pettersen in Helse Midt-Norge IT (Hemit).
She says that the implementation was originally supposed to have been completed already in February, but that they reached the finish line in June this year.
- The most important thing has been to get a good, secure and stable solution. There has generally been few errors after the implementation. The tool is relatively intuitive for the users, and we have great faith that this will be an important tool for the users, she believes.
Hemit has also noticed that the pressure on CheckWare has been great.
- Everyone has had to use it at the same time. It is pretty clear that that it is demanding for a supplier. At the same time, we experience that CheckWare has been forward-looking and service-minded, she says.
Pettersen says that they want to build CheckWare competence in Hemit in order to be better able to assist the health trusts in Helse Midt-Norge.
- We need to find out a little more about the distribution of roles and who does what. We are responsible for delivering the CheckWare solution to a large health region. Then it must be clarified what the companies can expect from us, and where we must obtain assistance from CheckWare. If we can reuse something that works for other regions, that's great. At the same time, the communication must be clear enough, with clarifications of expectations, so that the users of CheckWare in Helse Midt-Norge get the information, help and the tools they need, she says.
- The fact that we have a good relationship with customers is of course paramount. They need to know what to expect from us. CheckWare is tailored for digital patient participation in both mental health and substance abuse, and somatic treatment pathways. In the future, the health services both in Norway and in other countries will have to deal with an ever-increasing number of patients. Then it is necessary to introduce digital solutions to be able to handle all the patients. I do not imagine that there will be any less work for us in the near future, says CEO, Heidi Blengsli Aabel.