Four projects which all aim to contribute to a sustainable healthcare service have been awarded seed funding from HelseCampus Stavanger.
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Each project will receive 300,000 Norwegian kroner.
The projects are as follows:
- User-Centered Models in Health: bridging hospitals, municipalities, and user voices together. Project leader: Professor Tatiana Iakovleva in Entrepreneurship at the University of Stavanger (UiS)
- Nurse-CGA. Project leader: Associate Professor Kristina Sundt Eriksen in Health Sciences at UiS
- EXO - exoskeletons in operating room nursing. Project leader: Irene Sirevåg, PhD candidate in operating room nursing at UiS
- Virtual Reality - simulation for training in joint tapping and joint injections. Project leader: Svein Joar Auglend Johnsen, PhD, specialist in internal medicine and rheumatology. He is a postdoctoral research fellow and consultant at Stavanger University Hospital (SUS)
Read more about the projects below.
– A sustainable healthcare service requires us to utilize the opportunities provided by technology, make the best possible use of and further develop the skills of employees, and solve tasks efficiently, says Line Hurup Thomsen, who is the director of HelseCampus Stavanger.
HelseCampus Stavanger is a platform where various stakeholders come together to create future healthcare services. These stakeholders include healthcare providers, businesses, academia, patients, and caregivers.
– Interdisciplinary collaboration is key to solving the significant challenges ahead of us. The projects that have received funding specifically work across disciplines and organizations, with a focus on service development and digitization, she says.
Digital monitoring of patients in rehabiliation
To alleviate hospitals, patients will have shorter hospital stays in the future. Early discharge of patients requires close collaboration between specialists, primary healthcare professionals, patients, and their families. Digital tools can make follow-up more efficient for healthcare professionals while ensuring safety for patients. The project User-Centered Models in Health: bridging hospitals, municipalities, and user voices together aims to determine how a user-centered care model can be jointly developed by all involved parties.
– We will examine the barriers to digital monitoring and rehabilitation services for patients receiving community-based follow-up after hospitalization. This requires collaboration between municipal sectors, hospitals, innovators, businesses, and most importantly, patients, their families, and healthcare professionals, says project leader Tatiana Iakovleva, who is a professor in entrepreneurship at UiS.
Three questions are central to the work
- How do the motivations, objectives, and constraints with regard to digital monitoring differ among municipal sectors, hospitals, innovation contributors, and end recipients?
- What are the emerging enabling technologies for digital monitoring at home? How do end users, care workers, and medical experts feel about them?
- How does a digital twin model of the healthcare system contribute to assessing the impact of new technological solutions?
Partners in the project include Norwegian Smart Care Cluster (NSCC), VitalThings, Stavanger municipality, Strand municipality, USHT Rogaland, HelseCampus Stavanger, and DigiRogaland.
The research project builds upon the NFR-funded project Releasing the Power of Users.
Assessment of older cancer patients
The project, called NURSE-CGA, focuses on providing a comprehensive assessment for older cancer patients, led by nurses. This aims to ensure that each patient receives tailored treatment and follow-up when they transition home from the hospital.
– The ability of older individuals to tolerate cancer treatment is not solely determined by their age. They may have other health issues, be taking multiple medications, and have reduced reserve capacity. A systematic and research-based approach to assessing treatment tolerance in older cancer patients, known as comprehensive geriatric assessment (CGA), aims to uncover these factors, says project leader Kristina Sundt Eriksen. She is an associate professor in health sciences at UiS.
Selv om CGA har vist seg å være nyttig, er det vanskelig å bruke i praksis fordi det krever mye tid og spesialister, Although CGA has proven to be valuable, it is challenging to implement in practice due to the time and specialized expertise required, particularly from geriatricians. To address this problem, experienced nurses with knowledge of older patients and cancer will take charge of the assessment.
Partners in the project are Stavanger University Hospital and the University of Stavanger.
Exoskeletons for perioperative nurses
We are facing a global crisis regarding staffing and resources in healthcare. In response to these challenges, the pilot project EXO - exoskeletons in operating room nursing aims to explore possible new measures for retaining healthcare professionals. Operating room nurses are particularly prone to strain and injuries in their daily work.
– Experienced operating room nurses will test using wearable technology, known as an exoskeleton, which claims to reduce bodily strain and prevent injuries. The study will measure perceived health before and after the two months intervention period of using the exp-skeleton. After the completion of the intervention, qualitative interviews will explore the operating room nurses experiences of the intervention. If wearable technology can contribute to preventing early retirement, valuable expertise will remain in the operating room, and this will also benefit the patients, says project leader Irene Sirevåg, who is a PhD candidate in operating room nursing at UiS.
Although this pilot study only involves operating room nurses, the results may be transferable to other professions in healthcare.
EXO is a collaboration between the University of Stavanger (UiS), Stavanger University Hospital (SUS), and international exoskeleton suppliers.
Read more here: Eksoskjeletter kan redusere arbeidsbelastning for sykepleiere (Norwegian only)
The development of a VR simulator for the treatment of joint inflammation
The project focuses on creating a VR simulator (virtual reality) to train in a medical procedure called arthrocentesis and ultrasound guided injection into the joint cavity. This procedure involves using an ultrasound machine to visualize and diagnose synovitis. Then, by using ultrasound images a needle is used to aspirate inflammatory joint. Finally, the synovial inflammation can be treated by injecting anti-inflammatory medication into the joint.
– We plan to use three-dimensional VR images and haptic controls that allow users to feel resistance and touch during the procedure. This provides a realistic training experience. The initial goal is to create a VR model for the procedure itself, including preparation, positioning of the ultrasound probe and the standard projections used during the examination.” We will create a VR model for injecting medication into a specific joint, says project leader Svein Joar Auglend Johnsen, PhD, specialist in internal medicine and rheumatology.
The project partners are Stavanger University Hospital, Helse Vest IKT, Western Norway University of Applied Sciences and the University of Stavanger (UiS).
