OptiCare-AI

How can we solve the shortage of healthcare personnel in Norway? Norway has one of the world's highest proportions of healthcare personnel, yet many hospitals and municipalities struggle with staffing challenges. This may be because we are not utilizing the available expertise well enough.

Project logo

For example, 43% of nurses and a full 72% of healthcare professionals work part-time. The OptiCare-AI project aims to optimize staffing in home-based care through four sub-projects:

1. Mapping task distribution and competence utilization: The project analyzes the research literature to identify which tasks are best solved by different professional groups, such as nurses, social workers, healthcare professionals and assistants.
2. Comparing Norway and Finland: By studying the organization and task distribution in home care services in Norway and Finland, the project explores what we can learn from each other. For example, Finland has a full-time share of 90% in health and care services, which is significantly higher than in Norway.
3. Developing a national consensus on a full-time culture: Although there is broad agreement on the importance of establishing a full-time culture, there is less agreement on what the concept actually entails and how it can best be realized. The project aims to gather information from a wide range of experts to develop a common understanding of what full-time culture entails, and to develop common strategies that can promote full-time work in health services.
4. Testing AI-based shift planning systems: Artificial intelligence (AI) can be a useful tool for improving shift planning. The project tests AI-based solutions in three municipalities to investigate how this can contribute to better and more efficient organization. To meet the challenges of the shortage of health personnel, we need to rethink how work is organized. The OptiCare-AI project explores concrete solutions that can contribute to better resource utilization, full-time culture and effective use of technology in health and care services.