NORNA Styremøte i Stavanger, 26. – 27. Mars 2015

Representatives:
Catarina Augustson Sweden
Anne-Marie Nilsson Sweden
Jette Isberg Denmark
Merete Kjeldsgaard Denmark
Marja Sirkeinen Finland
Marianne Lundsten Finland
Thorunn Agnes Einarsdóttir Iceland
Aina Hauge Norway
Anne Lind Jølstad Norway

Report from the NORNA meeting held in Stavanger, 26th and 27th of March.

1. Aina welcomed everyone. Due to weather conditions, all flights from Oslo area were delayed. Anne therefor didn’t join us until lunch at the restaurant. Iceland was represented with one representative this time. A new representative will be appointed after Erla, who left NORNA after our last meeting in Reykjavik. NORNA thanks Erla for her contribution.

2. A short report around the table.
Iceland: Reported there has just been 10 new OR-nurses graduated in Iceland, and there will be 6 more this autumn. ISORNA also hope for many applicants for the following year starting in autumn.

Denmark: In Denmark the OR-nurses are working in 4 positions, OR, ER, Outpatients’ Department and Sterilization Departments. FS SASMO is celebrating 40th anniversary this year. The association is still very eager to have a formal education for the OR nurses, like the other Nordic countries, but still there are no such plans. There has since the last meeting took place been a nationwide survey of all surgery patients in Denmark to identify their experiences and how they feel. This has not previously been done. There is also going to be an evaluation of the OR nurses.

Finland: In Finland, not all the hospitals have their own departments for day surgery, but they are very keen to shorten the hospital stay for the individual patient. F.ex. some hospital practices that the patient will have all their preoperative preparation done at the hospital, and then they sleep at home, and come back the next morning for the operation. Most of the OR’s are using a classification system to able them to identify the use of resources at the surgery for each patient. F.ex. Class 1 – cancer patients and so on. It happens a lot in the hospital sector in Finland at the moment, including centralization of the hospitals OR departments to the largest cities. Some hospitals use project as a means to bring down queues and waiting lists. All the OR nurses are willing to take part in such projects.

Sweden: The OR nurses in Sweden are very worried because several education institutions put down its study for educating OR-nurses. There is a lack of expertise and teachers at the moment. How shall we then get more OR nurses? Among the current staff, many quit the coming years because they are retiring. This will be a challenge in the near future. Basically Sweden has quite a lot of OR nurses, but they don’t want to work in Sweden because of the salary and working conditions there. The way the teamwork is organized, makes it very stressful for them. There is only one OR nurse in the operating room. The circulating role is for that reason performed by a nurse assistant. Planned measures: using the media, politicians and hospital management, write articles and making the patients aware of the importance of competence and quality two OR nurses in the team will mean to them. At the moment a lot of rehabilitation/rebuilding of the OR rooms are going on.

Norway: From 2014 there has been a survey to determine how many OR nurses, nurse anesthetists, intensive care nurses and pediatric nurses Norway actually have. The survey also included universities/university colleges and hospital managers. In Norway we have had none official known figures to this subject; many guesses without accurate figures. We also know, as in Sweden, there will be many OR-nurses leaving their positions because of retirement in the near future, and that we need to educate more OR nurses to fill their gap. The survey confirmed this. The universities were challenged on how many specialist nurses they are able to, and have the skills to educate in the next few years. The OR Managers were challenged on how many vacancies they have, if they have many applicants or have to use hiring of temporary employment agencies, ages of the employee, and so on. The initiative to the survey came from the Norwegian Nurses Organisation and the specialist groups for those involved specialist nurses. (NSFLOS, NSFLIS, ALNSF & BSF-NSF) The results will be presented by NNA later this year.

From time to time the education and OR nurses as a group also have been set under pressure, when complained of lack of OR nurses from hospital managers or authorities. This often happens when media talks about cancelled operations, due to lack of specialist nurses, which again means that waiting lists increases. This often involves trying new political solutions, which NSFLOS would call “easy solutions”, and resulting in an attempt to establish a new and less education, so-called technician/auxiliary personnel to the OR departments. Last autumn NSFLOS was summoned to parliament to meet Labor’s health faction leader to discuss the commencement of such education. So far, we think we have convinced them that the best thing to do is educating more OR nurses through the existing system, instead of educate technicians that only can do one part of an OR nurse role. We focused on quality and safety in surgery for the patients. We also told the faction leader that we are welcoming an education that will give the already existing auxiliary personnel in the OR and Sterilizations’ departments more competence and skills to do the work they are already doing. Now such education has started or is planned to start several places in the country.

As told in the last meeting the Master education for specialist nurses has started in several universities and university colleges, and they are increasing for every year. For a period of time there will be two ways to become an OR nurse, a 2 year master (120 ECTS) or the traditional 1,5 year of training (90 ECTS).
This spring NSFLOS in cooperation with NNA and Adalia film & media made a film about the profession OR nurse. Follow the link under. We are very proud.

https://www.nsf.no/vis-artikkel/2470301/17036/Film-om-aa-vaereoperasjonssykepleier-

The film was showed to the Board members before the meeting started on Friday morning.

3. No discussion was about last report as Thorunn had already made the necessary changes after email discussion shortly after last meeting.

4. Guidelines NORNA Congress – a brief review to ensure that we have agreed upon the updates from last meeting. All countries agree to the updated version. Be aware of the contents marked yellow, which have to be decided after the 4th congress in Denmark, spring meeting 2017.

5. Next, 4th conference – 2016 Denmark. Dates are 27th-28th of October. Question if it is ok that this is the 4th conference, since the cancelled also was named the 4th. NORNA meeting agreed that the next one is the 4th. The old announcement will be replaced by the new one. FS SASMO has made a toolbox for promoting the conference. From this they have made several postcards for NORNA to distribute in the different countries. Jette will receive our addresses and send us the number we have ordered.

The meeting had a discussion about Gala-dinner or a “get-together” reception. It was from several members pointed out the decisions made at our last meeting in Reykjavik, where it was more characterized by being a joint reception between FS SASMO and NORNA.

FS SASMO has appointed a Scientific Committee, SC. They are thinking about each NORNA country to participate with 10 abstracts. They also plan for one keynote speaker, 2 moderators from each country, and a Nordic opening ceremony. FS SASMO hopes for at least 50 participants from each country.

Jette reminds us again of the possibility to promote the conference at our associations’ Facebook sites and on NORNA official side. 1. Announcement is just around the corner.
There will be a NORNA Board-meeting on Wednesday, the day before the Congress.

6. NORNA Statutes (vedtekter) The Statutes is reviewed and edited. New logos from Finland and Sweden are added to the document. The Statutes will be translated into english language before autumn meeting 2015.

7. NORNA Address List The address list is updated, and new logos from Finland and Sweden are added to to the document. Discussion whether Finland could add a new name as a deputy for the Board members in Finland. We agreed not. to, as long as the other countries don’t have this. The Board members home address will also be added to the document.

8. NORNA action 2015-2016 (Handlingsplan) is reviewed and edited. New logos from Finland and Sweden are added to the document.
NORNA surveys and follows up:

• WHO-checklist: After a short report around the table it seems like ”check out” is the most challenging part in all the countries.
• Patient safety: A great priority in all the countries. In FI, DK, SE and NO this is also a national initiative.
• Documentation: IC have Orbit and SAGA, which don’t communicate together. DK have several system int the different regions. They have started a discussion about a common system for all regions SE have Orbit and a journal/record system which not communicate. They also have T-doc tracking system of instruments. FI have Opera as OR-nurse documentation. The whole country uses a common journal system called Uranus, which gives the possibilities to exchange information if the patients agree. The patients also have the possibilities to check their own journal. Both electronic and paper documentation is available. NO also have different systems for both patient journal and OR-nurse documentations. The most common patient journal system is DIPS. As OR nurse documentations there are Orplan, Orbit and DIPS. Most of the Hospitals also have T-DOC.In our next meeting we will look into what we document and why. What’s the purpose? Do we document to much or to little? Do we document the same things in the different countries?

9. AOB (eventuelt)
Anne-Marie: NORNA ”rollup” and ”folds”. As decided in last meeting, AnneMarie should find out about the costs for printing of leaflets and rollup. The costs depends on whether we should change both images and text. Around SEK 4000,- for 500 pieces. Around SEK 4000,- per rollup. The Board agree upon an electronic version of the leaflets instead. Anne-Marie will send us a pdf-file when the work is done. The rollup-sample will be sent us per email to watch and comment before we agree upon the final result and/or changes.
Norway, April the 6th 2015
Aina Hauge
Anne Lind Jølstad