Tjörn is an island located in the far west of Sweden, just south of Gothenburg. The tranquility and proximity to the sea mean that the population almost doubles every summer; from 16,000 to just over 30,000 inhabitants. This dynamic shift places great demands on the planning of elderly care, especially when the number of elderly people is also increasing rapidly.
Unit Manager Sara Johansson, who manages the operations at Lilldal and Ronnang care homes, describes how they have chosen a trust-based approach where decisions are made close to the residents.
"We have reversed the decision-making pyramid. Instead of me and other managers deciding all the details, we choose to listen mostly to what our residents want, and to the care teams. For example, the chefs sit down with our residents and ask them what they would like to eat for midsummer celebration. Herring, many answer, and that's what they get," says a smiling Sara Johansson.
Thinking outside the box in more areas
Sara Johansson and other managers in Tjorn local authority are thinking outside the box in more areas. They have realised that it is the combination of committed and competent care teams together with sensor-based care technology that is an important part of the solution to how Tjorn will cope with the increasing burden of care.
"With RoomMate and Sensio Insight, we don't just get more data, we get a whole new understanding of what our residents need," she says.
Tjorn's digital transformation is not just a technological leap. It also means a change in culture. By empowering care teams with the right tools, the local council has created an environment where new technology does not replace personnel, but empowers them. Sensor-based supervision and data-driven analysis create peace of mind and make it possible to focus on what really matters: relationships, safety and personalised care.
Ingela Vingard and Sara Johansson in the garden outside Lilldal Care Home.
Safer nights with digital supervision
The multi-sensor RoomMate has been in operation since December 2024 in Ronnang Care Home and in Lilldal Care Home since March 2025. The new technology has given the organisation a better overview, less unnecessary running, and the residents say that they fall asleep with greater peace.
"Several of our residents say that they fall asleep and sleep better at night, when they do not have to wait for someone to come in at a certain time. They feel safe knowing that we are watching over them through digital supervision," says Sara Johansson.
Ingela Vingard, Assistant Nurse and Digital Contact Person at Lilldal Care Home, works practically with the system and is responsible for senior safety, technology, alarm settings and personnel training in care technology at Tjorn.
"It has been a fairly smooth transition from the system that we used, to RoomMate and Sensio 365. The biggest difference today is that there is less running, less stress, and we get a better overview of how our residents are doing. It means a lot to them," she says.
RoomMate sensors (pictured) are placed in all rooms and alarms are triggered by incidents that the residents, care team and relatives have jointly deemed necessary. This could be someone getting out of bed, calling for help or spending an unusually long time in the bathroom.
The comprehensive solution with RoomMate and Sensio 365 is already established in around eighty Swedish local authorities and has been shown to reduce falls by between 40 and 60 per cent
From manual forms to real-time insights
Just a few weeks ago, Tjorn started to test Sensio Insight (pictured below), a solution that automatically collects and presents movement and sleep data. At Lilldal Care Home, Sara Johansson and Ingela Vingard are running the pilot in the initial phase.
"In the long run, I think we can use Sensio Insight instead of so-called 'OBS schedules', because with Insight we can automatically follow a resident's sleep patterns, anxiety, activity level or if the person often calls for help," says Sara Johansson.
An "OBS schedule" is a common tool in elderly care where care teams manually document a resident's behavior, sleep or other activities over time, often every half hour. With Sensio Insight, this is done automatically and with greater precision.
Sara Johansson also sees value in involving doctors and nurses in the future:
"At Lilldal Care Home, we have two nurses who make rounds together with doctors once or twice a week. If we continue to use Insight this fall, they should also use the data to more easily detect residents patterns, she says.
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New insights based on data
Sensio Insight has also enabled Sara Johansson and Ingela Vingard to see behaviors for which they previously lacked figures.
"I love statistics. For example, since we started using Insight, I've been amazed at how many hours some users spend in bed over the course of a day; sometimes 12 to 15 hours, even for people I consider mobile. It surprises me, even though I've worked in elderly care for a long time," says Sara Johansson.
Sensio Insight has also helped identify deviations, says Ingela Vingard:
"We can see in the overview that a person visits the toilet eight times one day, and eighteen the next. That says something about how things are not quite right," she says.
The transmission of information about residents has also becomemore accurate, according to Sara.
"Ingela and I can go in and confirm certain things with the support of data in Insight. If someone says that "Klara has been awake all night", then we can look at the data and see how the user has actually acted between the physical supervisions.
How Skedsmotun enhances elderly care with Sensio Insight
Going forward with humility
The system is still new, but the potential is great. Sara Johansson is looking forward to the fall when more employees are likely to start using the data to create even more person-centered elderly care.
"Sensio Insight is an extremely good system already today, and I can't wait to start using new features that are on the way, such as fall analysis and automatic room mapping," she says.
Three benefits of Sensio Insight
Sara and Ingela give advice and tips!
- Better basis for decisions.
– The data provides a better basis for our operational meetings, making it easier to make decisions. (Sara Johansson)
- Detects patterns and early signals.
– We see sleep and activity patterns. Frequent toilet visits and restless sleep can be signals that something is not quite right. (Ingela Vingård)
- Less manual work.
– Sensio Insight can potentially replace manual forms and free up time, which for example can be spent on care and activities. (Sara Johansson)
