Hurum Care Center is beautifully located in Asker local authority south of Oslo, Norway. The care home opened in autumn 2021 and provides an important service for the southern part of Asker local authority. Hurum Care Centre is home to 95 residents across four units with a daily activity schedule for those living with dementia.
Right from the early stages of planning, there was a strong agreement and commitment to integrating the home with the latest in modern care technology. Of this, digital supervision was a key component.
«We chose to invest in digital supervision to create a sense of security – for care teams, residents and their relatives,» says Vidar Grimsen (pictured), Care Technology Consultant for Asker local authority.
Following Grimsen’s involvement and recommendation, Hurum Care Center, became the first care home in Asker local authority to introduce digital supervision.
Grimsen explains that they wanted a solution with a single sensor to cover all needs for digital supervision, this quickly led them to Sensio’s RoomMate sensor.
«The advantage of RoomMate is that it combines many features in one sensor, and it has a simple interface for setting up alerts. It’s also a very good solution for anonymised digital supervision. You get a clear overview and can easily see what’s happening in the room when performing supervision,» he says.
«There were many strong providers in the tender process, but Sensio was by far superior. We’re very pleased to have chosen Sensio as our supplier of digital supervision for this impressive and modern care facility in Hurum,» says Toril Norgren Hakonsen, Head of Care 2 in Asker local authority and Manager of Hurum Care Center.
Success with digital supervision
Introducing new technology in a new care home is a major process, and at Hurum Care Center, digital supervision was fully rolled out in December 2024.
«It takes time to implement new technology and new ways of working in a new facility. We’ve been careful to take one step at a time to do things properly, and that’s been an important success factor,» says Vidar Grimsen.
There is no doubt that RoomMate (pictured) and digital supervision have been a success at Hurum Care Center. The RoomMate multi-sensor is installed in every resident’s room, with care teams using the Pocket app on their devices to undertake digital supervision. Everything is securely integrated in the cloud-based healthcare platform Sensio 365.
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Improved resident safety
Manager Toril Norgren Hakonsen explains that digital supervision provides many benefits for residents, care teams and relatives.
«With digital supervision, we can work in a completely different way. For residents, it means higher quality of care and better safety, as we can prevent and reduce falls, among other things. We can also tailor treatment in a more detailed way that benefits each resident,» she says.
Unit Manager Heidi Rudshaug (pictured on the right) and Healthcare Assistant Janne Knudsen at Hurum Care Center agree that RoomMate and digital supervision provide extra safety for residents.
«With RoomMate and digital supervision, we work in a more event-based way, detecting falls and other incidents earlier. If a resident falls, we get an alert and they receive help quickly,» explains Heidi Rudshaug.
Her colleague Janne Knudsen adds that digital supervision works particularly well at night.
«Using digital supervision at night instead of doing unnecessary physical rounds reduces disturbance and allows residents to sleep better. At the same time, we gain better oversight of the residents, which helps reduce stress,» she says.
Reduced care teams at night
Manager Toril Norgren Hakonsen (pictured) says they are very satisfied with the results of digital supervision at Hurum Care Center.
«Introducing new technology is the easy part; changing the way people work is what’s difficult. It’s exciting work and we’ve come a long way, but we’re not quite there yet,» she says.
Demographic changes, with more elderly people and people living with dementia, a shortage of qualified healthcare personnel, and tighter local budgets, mean the local authorities must think differently and embrace necessary transformation.
This autumn and winter, the focus is on reorganising care teams at Hurum Care Center, and digital supervision enables a more team-based approach. Instead of having one nurse on each unit at night, they now work together as one team, sharing tasks across the care home. This has already made it possible to reduce the number of care personnel working at night from six to four.
«Care technology and digital supervision are key tools in realising the benefits of our transformation work. Digital supervision provides tangible financial savings, while allowing us to direct resources where they are most needed – not least because recruiting qualified healthcare personnel is challenging. Working in teams is a new way of operating, and we strongly believe in it,» emphasises Toril Norgren Hakonsen.
She also highlights the many benefits for the care teams.
«Digital supervision has clearly given the care teams a better and more efficient working day. They no longer need to walk as much as before, and working in teams, especially at night, reduces working alone and contributes to greater safety and a better working environment.»
Open to sharing experiences
At Hurum Care Center, there is strong interest in exploring the latest developments in care technology, and Toril Norgren Hakonsen is now planning to implement the award-winning e-health solution Sensio Insight.
«We can see that we’ll benefit greatly from the insights and overview Sensio Insight provides, so this is a tool we’ll start testing this autumn,» she says.
The manager’s experience with digital supervision at Hurum Care Center and with Sensio as a partner has been so positive that she is happy to share their experiences with others.
«If there are people in local authorities across Norway who are curious about how digital supervision works, just get in touch. It’s valuable to learn from each other,» she concludes.
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