User centred Work Processes in the Norwegian Knowledge Centre for the Health Services. Status, Ideas, Challenges and Plans
Report
|Updated
Download
Summary
User centred services is both goal and a means within the health services. In health legislation, this is expressed through provisions on the right to information, requirements for informed consent for treatment and the right to patient and user interaction.
In the spring of 2014, the Norwegian Knowledge Centre for the Health Services conducted an in house inquiry on how the centre involves users in projects. This was partly done in order to prepare the future strategy. The management team found the response interesting, and would like to share it with you.
The examples are presented in the order of appearance in a project – either in the ordering phase, the planning phase, the execution phase or the delivery phase. This way, it becomes clearer to us where in the work process that the knowledge centre will gain from more user orientation.
- The knowledge centre has an open process for systematic review proposals. Anyone may submit a proposal, get it considered and follow the priority decisions via the website. This is the only work area where the centre has made possible direct input from the public.
- In the planning phase, there are relatively few projects that apply user involvement, directly or indirectly. The centre is preparing a web solution that allows a kind of public consultation for selected project plans for a limited time on our website kunnskapssenteret.no.
- In the implementation phase of projects, the practice varies greatly, At one end of the scale, we have user representatives participating in the work procedure of the National Council for Priority Setting in Health Care. At the other end, there is absence of direct patient involvement in the strict sense in testing and adaptation of proposed quality indicators for the specialist health services.
- In the final phase of a project, users are sometimes asked to read the draft report to check whether the text is relevant and understandable. The centre should include users earlier in the work process to test whether outcome measures are relevant to them.
- When a project is finished, the documentation is published as a report or a memo on www.nokc.no, and mentioned in the electronic newsletter. The report presents key findings in one page, avoiding difficult technical terms.
- The results from the national user experience surveys are published at the website frittsykehusvalg.no in a convenient format for users.
- The quality indicators − survival 30 days after hospitalisation; heart attack; stroke and hip fracture − are published at the Norwegian public health portal helsenorge.no.
- The knowledge centre will consider bringing users to the panel more often when launching seminars for new reports.
- The knowledge centre will update internal project manuals, guides and templates to ensure more user-centred work processes.
- The knowledge centre provides an annual weeklong course in knowledge management. Since 2013 the course has been adapted for user representatives. This is a way to educate future participants to be active knowledge managers.
- The knowledge centre has advocated nationally for patient involvement in research.
After this survey was conducted, the user perspective is selected as one of five priority areas in the Knowledge Centre’s strategic plan for 2015−17.
To what extent the ideas will be followed up in 2015, will be clarified during the work with this year's operating plan.