The digital development within the healthcare sector is progressing rapidly, and innovative healthcare technology will become an essential part of the healthcare system of the future. But the new digital solutions require proper implementation and the right skills to be used effectively – and it is this challenge that the EU project DISH addresses.
DISH consist of 19 partners from eight different countries who collaborate to create a better interaction between health professionals and the many new technologies within the health sector.
EU consultant from the South Denmark EU Office, Henriette Hansen in collaboration with Trine Ungermann Fredskild from the Learning and Research Center at Sygehus Sønderjylland says: “The DISH project has a strategic focus on how we can work together in the region to ensure digital competences all the way out in the clinics as well. It is important that we take advantage of all the existing digital solutions to their full potential. Unfortunately, this is often not the case, and the healthcare system doesn’t improve.”
The cluster organization for health and welfare technology, Welfare Tech is one of the Danish partners in the project. Karen Lindegaard, senior consultant in Welfare Tech is pointing towards that the challenge does not lie in the technology itself, but rather in the readiness and the set-up surrounding making the technique work. It is in other words necessary to look further at how the right framework for the implementation of the technology is created.
“No one is in doubt about the demographic development Europe is faced with so the only way we can cater to this change is by introducing new technologies. On the other hand, the introduction of new technologies takes place slowly. A lot is offered, and big pilot projects are tested, but the actual roll-out doesn’t happen as often yet unfortunately.”
Collaboration sets focus on the need for training
The challenge with building a bridge between the digital wealth benefits and the staff making use of the technology is articulated by DISH in the concept “Learning Innovation Units” (LIU). LIU is a cross-disciplinary team whose task is to find out, how the digital solution should be implemented, what kind of training, is needed, and to facilitate the process from start to end. The interdisciplinary team can consist of both the management and employees from the health organization and potentially also from the company developing the new technology.
Karen Lindegaard has written a series of articles on Welfare Tech’s webpage in which she guides organizations through how they can grasp the LIU concept on a practical level. She says:
“We have a big group of members, that could be relevant for this project so I hope the articles can function as an easy and manageable tool for hospitals etc., who wish to know how they can implement the new technology. The articles offer a checklist, where they can see; What kind of things to consider when implementing new technology, whom to train, and how to evaluate the new skills, that the staff acquires?”
The pandemic creates challenges
Covid-19 has given the DISH-project challenges in the meantime and many of the health providers, who are participating in the project across Europe are busy with other tasks in the light of the pandemic. Fortunately, the Danish lead partner in Lærings- og Forskningshuset at Sygehus Sønderjylland has found a solution concerning continuing with taking the LIU concept into use and offering training for the health staff. The 8th of March 2021 an online training workshop was conducted for midwives with participants from both Denmark and Norway. Many of the principles from the DISH project were taken into use during the workshop.
The project has been extended for six months and is expected finished in the spring of 2022. Henriette Hansen hopes that the DISH project in the long term can lead to the extended use of new technologies.
“We hope that the project will improve the implementation of digital solutions and the development of competencies of the health professionals. DISH offers a cookbook on how to manage training and adjust it to the needs of the staff. In this way the staff who are to use the digital solutions knows, how to do it also when things are not working”, she says and continues:
“If we manage to use this in a correct way then we can benefit greatly from the new technology in the health sector and at the same time create better innovation collaboration between health providers and the companies”.
Further information:
Read the series of articles about the LIU concept by Karen Lindegaard on Welfare Tech’s website.
Read more about DISH on the project’s own website.
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