New Director at SKDE:
Setting the course for increased visibility and collaboration.
"The healthcare service is under pressure, and this is where I hope our contributions can be useful," says the new director of SKDE, Eva Stensland.
Photo: Ørjan Marakatt Bertelsen
There is a lot happening in the Norwegian healthcare service at the moment, and 2024 is shaping up to be a very busy year for the Centre for Clinical Documentation and Evaluation (SKDE).
The new director, Eva Stensland, will be at the forefront as SKDE hosts the international WIC conference, marks SKDE's 20th anniversary, and, not least, leads the centre's two new national assignments. But anyone who knows Eva Stensland is aware that her work capacity is not in question. Moreover, these are tasks she is very much looking forward to tackling:
— What I find very exciting about where we are now are the two assignments we at SKDE received in 2023. For several years, we have had two national assignments from the Ministry of Health and Care Services: the National Service Environment for Medical Quality Registries and Health Atlas. Now we have received two additional national assignments: to assess which treatments the specialist healthcare service should do less of, and the online service metodebok.no, she explains.
Tackling Important Assignments
Assessing which treatments the specialist healthcare service should do less of is an assignment SKDE began in autumn 2023. The assignment has been renamed: What Should Hospitals Do Less Of?, to make it more intuitive regarding its content.
— Now we have skilled professionals in place, and we have engaged partners from all health regions. The goal is to reduce the activity of healthcare services with low health benefits, and for the regions to move in the same direction. So this is an exciting and incredibly important assignment, and it is crucial to get started properly with it now, Stensland explains.
The other assignment that SKDE received just before Christmas in 2023 is to take over responsibility for metodebok.no. This is an online portal for method books and guidelines used by healthcare personnel. The method book is a widely used reference work, with 11,000 entries every single day.
Metodebok.no er et oppdrag som er viktig for oss, og det henger egentlig fint sammen med andre oppdrag vi jobber med for å redusere geografisk variasjon i helsetjenester.
Enormous Development Over 20 Years
Eva Stensland took over the baton from Barthold Vonen, who was director of SKDE from 2016 until he retired on 1 December 2023. However, she is far from a newcomer from the sidelines. She came from the position of Head of Professional and Research Affairs at SKDE (2021—2023), and prior to that, she worked for ten years as the leader of the National Service Environment for Medical Quality Registries. In other words, SKDE is an organisation she has extensive knowledge of and is well acquainted with.
In 2024, it will also be 20 years since SKDE was established. When one reaches two decades, it is natural to reflect on what has been achieved and what lies ahead:
— There has been enormous development in SKDE since its inception. From being merely a regional analysis department to today being a centre with many assignments from other clients. This makes me think that we have a trust in our ability to deliver well and that we can have both a national and a regional perspective. To mark SKDE's 20th anniversary, we will, among other things, invite to a jubilee webinar in August.
Photo: Ørjan Marakatt Bertelsen
Will Help the Healthcare Service
When Eva Stensland gives lectures at hospitals or healthcare enterprises, she always concludes by saying, “we are happy to take on assignments, we want to help.” She experiences that they reach out afterwards and show great interest in examining the use of healthcare services, but also in quality.
— We must be careful to understand what they are looking for. We always check with those who give us the assignment, whether they are leaders or clinicians, to ensure “is this what you had in mind?”. It is also important to state that we can only analyse what has been registered.
She believes that the close contact SKDE has with professionals, both in atlas and analysis work and in quality registry work, helps ensure the relevance of the work at the centre. And that it builds trust.
Vi ønsker å være nær de kliniske beslutningene og nær det som faktisk skjer på sykehusene.
— The healthcare service is under pressure, and this is where I hope our contributions can be useful. For example, regarding what hospitals should do less of. This is central to the narrative surrounding the shortage of healthcare personnel and the difficult economy we see in all health regions. Therefore, focusing on who should actually receive treatment is incredibly important. One aspect is personnel and money, but this also concerns patient safety. It is about not exposing patients to things that may have no value. When the economy becomes difficult, I hope that we can also maintain our focus on quality. It can be challenging, but quality concerns both patient safety and economics. If we do the right things and have fewer complications, there is also an economic benefit to that, she says.
Must Stand Out More
— Our goal is to contribute to equitable healthcare services of good quality. I believe that the things we work on are very important, and that is why it is so crucial for us to be visible, Eva Stensland continues.
For the results from SKDE to be used more, the new director emphasises communication and visibility. She believes that more people need to recognise that SKDE provides relevant governance information to healthcare enterprises through analyses, research, and registry expertise.
— Why have we not managed to become more visible in the 20 years that SKDE has existed?
— I believe it is because we are fundamentally very dedicated number people, and we feel most secure in our task of presenting data well on our websites. We have been most focused on creating good products, and perhaps not as focused on exposing them. Also, there is perhaps the issue of standing out. Being in the spotlight. Getting used to it. That is something we have not done much of. So I believe we need to work more on communication in the years to come, says Eva Stensland.
This will include greater profiling and more outreach activities going forward. Additionally, work is underway to make the websites even more user-friendly and to establish a function for updated figures on already published health atlases.
Another aspect of standing out is that SKDE will, for the very first time, host an international conference: the Wennberg International Collaborative (WIC). The conference will address unjustified variation in healthcare and is an international collaboration between healthcare researchers and decision-makers. Participants from around the world are expected.
Nå har vi tatt på oss jobben med å arrangere dette i september i Oslo. Det er et ærefullt oppdrag og det blir spennende.
Photo: SKDEs arkiv
Open-Door Policy
Internally at SKDE, she also has some goals as a leader, which involve creating ample room for openness, involvement, and engagement. Additionally, she wants an open-door policy and enough space in her calendar for staff to contact her when they have something on their minds. One of the most important things for her is that people feel good at work and that they thrive. She believes this can be a source of inspiration and new ideas.
Is the director's job at SKDE a dream job? Eva Stensland thinks for two seconds before nodding:
— Yes, it is a lovely job to be the director of SKDE. I feel lucky to have it. I believe this is the dream job.