This digital platform that we are establishing aims to share information about the patient but the key to its success is having it included and integrated in the existing electronic patient journals and organisations’ work processes, says Ansteinsson.
Read about Ansteinsson's research and innovation project
In Norway, the public dental healthcare service is organized differently and separately from other parts of the healthcare system.
– This significant disparity contributes to a gap between the public dental services and the rest of the healthcare services in Norway. Therefore, our key focus is to ensure necessary communication across the services to improve quality of care and to shift the focus from acute to preventive dentistry for this group, explains Vibeke Ansteinsson at the Department of Public Health Science, Institute of Health and Society (Helsam), the Faculty of Medicine, the University of Oslo and at the Oral Health Centre of Expertise in Eastern Norway (OHCE).
Lack of knowledge of legal rights and lack of bridging between systems
Older adults who receive home healthcare are entitled to get free public dental healthcare.
– Today, only about 20% of them are using their legal rights. How and when the information of these rights is communicated to the patients is not standardized and varies between municipalities. This leads to a possible lack of in communication across services and older patients missing out on free public dental healthcare, says Ansteinsson.
Ansteinsson emphasizes that the situation is made even more apparent with the current mode of communication between the public dental healthcare services and the home healthcare services. Virtually all communication is done through conventional communication channels namely, telephone, email, and letters. This results in several problems pertaining to patient identification and timely oral care and treatment.
– The public dental service is in the ”dark”. The dental service does not know which patients are in home healthcare, but before home healthcare can give this information to the public dental service the patients need to be informed and they need to consent. Therefore, we want to digitalize the process of identifying older adults, consent, inform and share information with the public dental service before the dental issues worsen.
– Poor oral healthcare can lead to pain, problems with food intake which can in turn result in reduction in essential nourishment and wanting to socialize and in worse cases serious diseases, hospitalization and early deaths. It is a matter of improving the quality of life of this patient group by ensuring good oral hygiene and oral health, says Ansteinsson.
The innovative approach streamlining digital information sharing
Ansteinsson and her team’s solution is to develop a digital platform to integrate this dental health data into the electronic patient journal system and digitalize the communication process between the public dental healthcare service and the health and care services for the elderly who are homebound.
– We have done extensive research and co-creation process of this issue and have identified the specific challenges to come up with this focused solution. We are working on refining the information that is to be included in this digital platform. This digital platform that we are establishing aims to share information about the patient but the key to its success is having it included and integrated in the existing electronic patient journals and organisations’ work processes, says Ansteinsson.
– This integration and digitalization of the entire process will streamline the communication around treatment and care of dental health.
Read about how Ansteinsson has collaborated with the UiO Growth House
In 2023 Ansteinsson and her team received the innovation grant from UiO that is managed by the UiO Growth House. This has helped kickstart the collaboration with technologists from Visma AS, Opus Systems and the health technology company Medicue AS to assist in the technological development of the platform.
– Funding from UiO has made it possible to take the project from the concept and theories towards the actual implementation into practice. The UiO Growth House has also helped in formulating the selling potential of the project, the application strategy process for more external funding in terms of sources and timing and help in the legal aspect of the implementation, says Ansteinsson.
According to Ansteinsson, this collaboration has also altered the mindset towards the innovation process of the idea.
– Conversing with the UiO Growth House has made me more in tune with the language of the innovators and learning the proper terminology. I have also used this project as a real-life case study to teach my students an innovative aspect in some of my lectures as I think it is important for them to see this opportunity at the university, says Ansteinsson.
Ansteinsson and her team are also researching the public dental healthcare service from a health and socioeconomic perspective to have a more comprehensive understanding of this complex issue and potential ways to solve it.
They plan to expand the project in the future to other vulnerable groups for example those who have experienced torture, abuse and odontophobia – fear of dental treatment – a group that is often in touch with several parts of the healthcare system and implement the digital communication platform within the whole of Norway and other countries in the Nordics.