In September, SynPlan hosted a roundtable conference with unions, municipalities, and universities to discuss the full-time culture of municipal health and care services. The conference was held at NTNU’s office in Oslo and had participation from Norsk Sykepleierforbund, Fagforbundet, Norwegian Association of Local and Regional Authorities (KS), Trondheim municipality, Oslo municipality, NTNU and Nord University. The event was facilitated by Werner Christie, former Minister of Health and Camilla Roede Skevik & Hai Nguyen from NTNU
A high proportion of part-time employees is one of the biggest challenges to Norwegian municipalities. Combined with the shortage of GPs and nurses, that put tremendous pressure on the system to be more efficient while having a tighter budget. To solve the problem, municipalities have to rethink how services and working hours are organised and look for out-of-the-box innovations.
Kari Ingstad, Professor of Nord University, started the conference with a shocking graph showing that the healthcare sector got the lowest proportion of full-time employment. This part-time culture not only creates a stressful and unsustainable working environment for the workers but also makes the healthcare sector less attractive to young people. More than ever, making full-time culture is a must to cope with significant challenges in meeting the increased demand for care services given the available resources and expertise.
See more about full-time culture in Kari’s presentation.
Coming from the capital of knowledge and knowledge in Norway, Trondheim leaders understand that the world is changing and they have to adapt to it, becoming more proactive to cope with the challenges. In 2021, Trondheim had an experiment with SynPlan to predict sick leave absence and budget in 3 healthcare units. After the experiment, the units reported significant benefits in operations financially with stability in staffing.
From the presentation, Lars also emphasised that technology and culture must go hand in hand. Changing people’s mindset of doing something new and upskilling human resources are no less important than using new technology. To maximise the benefits of the new technology. Trondheim has decided to roll out the solution to 200 units in the region and started switching to a centralised planning approach.
Get more insights into what Trondheim has done through their presentation.
The Tørn project, an initiative from KS, was introduced by Berit Sund, Senior Advisor at KS. She shared the concerns from the government about the increasing challenges for the sector and asked municipalities to collaborate to find a solution to promote full-time culture in municipal health and care services. Patients must experience continuity, security and adaptation to their own needs. Then staffing with the right skills must be ensured 24/7, all year round. The goal is to have a mix of skills that is in proportion to the user's needs and the tasks to be solved. The Tørn project will give us more knowledge about how we can achieve this, for example about how welfare technology and volunteering can contribute to the work.
SynPlan took this as an opportunity to represent the new wave of AI/ML tech, which can contribute to building a full-time culture practice in the healthcare sector. Being able to predict the number of sick leaves and the patients' demand, SynPlan can help municipalities reduce their reliance on agency staff and overtime and be more efficient in planning. Therefore, working conditions for staff can be improved, resulting in an increase in full-time positions and better quality of services.
Interested in what SynPlan can do to improve full-time positions? Request a demo with us!