“We’ve had the system for a couple of years now and I use it a lot on a daily basis,” says Anja Arentoft Jelle.
Anja has worked as a nurse in the A&E Department at OUH for about ten years – the last six months as a regular nurse – and she is often the most senior nurse on shift. For a period of two years, she was also responsible for rostering approximately 170 employees and also managed daily operations in collaboration with the head nurses in relation to among other things, sick leave, extra staffing for special events and managing holidays. During periods of her working life, she has also worked in other hospital departments, which means she has a good idea of what day-to-day work is like elsewhere too.
In other words, Anja has great practical insight into busyness, staffing and planning within the healthcare system. And this is where the Praemostro system enters the picture.
“Above all, the big Praemostro screen we have hanging in the hallway in the A&E Department provides a quick and easy overview of when we can expect the department to get busy. We hold our daily staff briefings in a semicircle around the screen meaning that from the start of the day or night shift we have an idea about the workload ahead,” says Anja.
“I’ve been really curious about the system and its capabilities from the start and I have to say it hasn’t disappointed me in any way. “Time and time again it surprises me with how it’s like looking into a crystal ball because how on earth can the system know what the intake is going to be like at the department on a completely normal Tuesday?” she muses.
But it really is up to scratch. The system calculates the busyness of the department with a 95% degree of certainty, which in practice means a small calculated margin of error of plus/minus one patient an hour.
“So it’s pretty certain,” Anja points out. “That’s why over time I’ve learnt that I can calculate quite accurately using graphs and it's a big help in everyday life to be able to trust those numbers,” she says.
Anja and her colleagues use this insight to a large extent in the planning and daily operations at the department.
“The system is useful on so many levels. First of all, it can help us see whether we have enough or too many employees working on a shift. If it’s looking like it will be extra busy then we can call in more people to work – and vice versa. If we have an extra busy day with a lot of patients, the graphs on the screen can help give us some peace of mind that we’ll have time later to take a break or grab a bite to eat – or maybe even catch up on some training. Sometimes, we can see that the rush is going to continue which gives us time to try and get someone to stay on or to call other staff in to work. In this way, the system helps us give the working day some structure – a practical landmark that really gives peace of mind in a very unpredictable everyday,” she explains.
As an experienced nurse, Anja is often being shadowed around the department by colleagues in training.
“They might be medical students, student nurses or newly qualified doctors or nurses,” she says. “In that situation, the Praemostro system is also a great help because it helps me determine when there is time for training and when I’m likely to have to attend a trauma or something else. It gives us a predictability in an otherwise unpredictable every day.”
Another very specific impact that the Praemostro system has had on the A&E Department at OUH is that over time, the historical data set has shown that the busyness is generally more pronounced from 3:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. than it is from 7:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. in the morning and early afternoon.
“That’s why we’ve reached the point at which the basic staffing at the department has been fundamentally changed, so that there are fewer nurses on duty in the morning and more in the afternoon and early evening,” says Anja. “It doubt we would have dared to change this if we didn’t have such good evidence that this is what happens in practice.”
“In short, I can highly recommend the Praemostro system for departments at which there are large – and otherwise unpredictable – fluctuations in levels of busyness. I am super impressed! I think it’s exciting and visionary – and even documentable! It’s a great use of the taxpayers’ money,” Anja concludes.
According to Anja, the Praemostro system can help you:
