How to Enhance Digital Support for Cross-Organisational Health Care Teams? A User-Based Explorative Study.

Health care service provision of individualised treatment to an ageing population prone to chronic conditions and multimorbidities is threatened. There is a need for digitally supported care, that is, (1) person-centred, (2) integrated, and (3) proactive. The research project 3P, Patients and Professionals in Productive Teams, aimed to validate and verify the prerequisites for health care systems run with patient-centred service models. This paper presents an explorative study of the digital support of a cross-organisational health care team in Norway, providing services to elderly frail people with multimorbidities in hospital discharge transition. Qualitative research methods were employed, with interviews and observations to map and evaluate the information flow and the digital support of collaborative work across organisations. The evaluation showed a lacking interoperability between the digital systems and a limited support for cross-organisational teamwork, causing raised manual efforts to maintain the information flow. Tools for coordination and planning across organisations were lacking. To enhance the situation, principles for a cloud-based health portal are proposed with a shared workspace, teamwork functionality for cross-organisational health care teams, and automatic back-end synchronisation of stored information. The main implications of this paper lie in the proposed principles which are transferable to a multitude of clinical contexts, where ad-hoc based access to shared medical information is of importance for decision-making and life-saving treatment.

An Evaluation of Telemedicine Systems in Patient-Centred Care Teams.

The research project 3P- Patients and Professionals in Productive Teams has studied different patient-centred teamwork models for patients with chronic conditions and multi-morbidities. This paper presents outcomes from a qualitative study on the information flow and technology use in patient-centred care teams utilizing telemedicine, located in three health regions of Norway and Denmark. The aim was to identity barriers for collaborative work and propose models for the e-solutions of the future. The study showed fragmentation in information storage with limited interoperability causing that several systems had to be used for telemedicine follow-up and there was limited teamwork support functionality.

Patient Experiences and Digital Involvement in Patient-Centred Care Models.

The provision of individualised treatment and care from health care services to patients with chronic conditions and multi-morbidities is under pressure because of an increasing elderly population. There is a need for services that are: 1) person-centred, 2) integrated and 3) proactive, and supported by digital technology. The research project 3P-Patients and Professionals in Productive Teams aims to study different patient-centred teamwork models in Norway and Denmark. This paper presents a study on patients' experiences and digital involvement in patient-centred care teams. Qualitative research methods were applied with interviews and demonstrations of technology use made at patient's homes. The results showed that the patients were satisfied with the patient-centred service models and had an increased feeling of safety. A constraint was information sharing between the patient-centred health care team and the patients. Most of them did not have access to read own medical information and mainly verbal information was shared between the patients and the health providers.

Evaluation of Technology Use in an Inter-Disciplinary Patient-Centered Health Care Team.

Health care services are facing challenges with carrying out individualised treatment to an ageing population prone to chronic conditions and multi-morbidities. The research project Patients and Professionals in Productive Teams aims to study different patient-centered teamwork service models. This paper presents an evaluation on the technology support in a patient-centered health care team providing services to elderly people with chronic conditions and multi-morbidities in the transition from hospital to a home setting. The team had employees both from a university hospital and municipal health services. Qualitative research methods were applied in the evaluation of the technology use and information flow. The results showed that two information systems were used, that were not integrated and caused double manual work and registrations by the health care professionals. A benefit was that information sharing was improved between the hospital and municipal health care services, but the constraint was added workload.