The head of the Healthcare platform Torbjørg Vanvik has resigned after the message scandal in St. Olavs. Employees were briefed by chairman Helge Garåsen at a general meeting on Thursday.

Before Address newspaper who first reported this issue.

Vivi Bakkeheim’s company representative for superiors at the hospital, told VG that they had lost faith in project management.

– It is clear that the project management is too bad. We are pleased that new steps were taken and management is taking responsibility. It is now critical that someone with experience from demanding and complex IT projects is appointed, and that person can work well with system users, Bakkeheim told VG on Thursday.

Are you affected by an error on the Health platform? Our tip here.

– Tough race

Board chair Helge Garåsen of Platform Health told VG that there was an agreement between the board and managing director Torbjørg Vanvik that he should step down.

– He has been racing hard for 10 years. It’s been really hard in the last year, with error messages and delays. It’s burdensome. Now there is a need to bring in new staff, and make the Health Platform a system that works well for all patients, he said.

– How did employees react when they received the message?

– The people got very angry, and were extinguished. There is a lot of positive feedback that they really value Vanvik as their manager, answered Garåsen.

VG tried to contact Torbjørg Vanvik on Thursday. The information department at Platform Health notified Adresseavisen that Vanvik was unavailable for an interview.

VG said on Tuesday that a glitch in the Health Platform’s newly introduced electronic system in Central Norway had resulted in a total of 16,438 letters not reaching patients or GPs.

The letters may contain appointments, answers to tests or follow-up medications.

Worsen

The company’s union representative Vivi Bakkeheim described the situation as particularly stressful for employees at the St. Petersburg hospital. Olav.

– It eats away all of St. Petersburg. Olav so we have so much extra work connected to the Health Platform. This has a number of negative consequences for our hospitals and capacities.

He described it as a complicated and unintuitive solution.

– There were a lot of mistakes and problems, he said.

– We care about patient safety and consider the solution unsafe. We don’t have good enough control over information about patients, we don’t know if messages are getting to the right people or in the right way, he said.

– Are you aware of cases where this system came at the expense of patient safety?

– We have heard of pending referrals for serious conditions, but we have never heard of direct injury to patients, answered Bakkeheim.

Portions of the interview with Bakkeheim were conducted on Wednesday – before it became known that Vanvik was leaving.

– It’s a shame that they don’t believe in the project. It is important that we are now working to regain trust. We cannot do without those who use the system being satisfied, the chairman of Helseplattformen, Helge Garåsen told VG.

Blame user error

On Wednesday night, there was an extraordinary board meeting at Helseplattformen US where VG also had a digital presence.

Here, Helseplattformen director Torbjørg Vanvik believes that it was user error that led to the e-mails to and from St. Petersburg. Olav never arrived.

– He also said something more. The system is set up in such a way that it’s easy to end up in a situation where this is happening, without the doctor realizing that you’ve ended up in such a situation, chairman Helge Garåsen explains.

The error was discovered last week when supposed test answers did not arrive, he said during the meeting.

– More emphasis should be placed on training in terms of communication, says Vanvik.

Review mail

The team of 10 doctors will review more than 16,000 letters that have not reached patients or GPs from St. Olav in Trondheim. Trade union representatives in St. Olavs said they had lost faith in the project.

– Letters to patients are usually not the only channel of information when serious patient information has to be followed up, but of course it cannot be ruled out that this situation can have serious consequences for some patients, hospital director Grethe Aasved told VG.