Every Second Counts

Samsung & Imprivata for the Municipality of Hedensted

October 30, 2024

Digital Workplace
Security
Samsung
Imprivata
Case story

One of the hot topics in Danish politics for many years has been the conditions and resources imposed and available to the home healthcare staff and elder care employees. The employees are forced to stand by while the time available to them to perform their job is decreasing. The Municipality of Hedensted has created an IT solution which brings about true change.

Let us set the scene: The key players are a part of the Danish workforce that performs some of the most important tasks because they are helping those who cannot help themselves. Despite that, this industry is administratively heavy and the working conditions are difficult. “Legally speaking, they are in one of the groups with the most requirements. The analogy is to challenge somebody running a marathon by adding stairs and bars along the way,” says Thomas Lehmann, Head of Digital Health and adds: “One forgets that these talented employees are professionally educated to perform patient care. They are not educated in managing IT systems. This is where Kim Bengtsson and the Municipality of Hedensted stands out by providing a solution which has made a big difference for both the IT users’ and the patients’ everyday lives.”

Strong Business Case

The raw data consists of 1,200 regular users of which 33% are replaced annually. To that, you add 700 temporary employees who pass through the organization each year. The concept of Shared Devices is not the first thought to pop into an IT administrator’s mind here.

"Our starting point was to implement NSIS. After that, we needed new mobile devices, but finding the right ones proved to be a challenge because we insisted on shared devices. It is easy to forget that the IT department is a service provider. We need to make life easier for our users and ensure their workflow. We have so many systems and applications that it takes up quite a bit of time for the employees. Therefore, we were determined to find an ideal single sign-on solution. We were successful and we have a strong business case,” Kim Bengtsson, Server Administrator, IT and Digitalization in the Municipality of Hedensted.

IT Removes the Focus from the Patient

Before we introduced the solution, we started where the need arises: with the end user.

”The staff is under a lot of pressure and they are already busy as it is. If they need to spend 5 minutes to log into the systems, they have already spent 20% of the time available to the patient,” Thomas says, and continues: ”Mobile devices are already incorporated into the elder and health care system today. This is where you find access to patient data and applications. It is handy, but when you have username, passwords, and multi-factor authentication, things get complicated. This removed the focus from the patient. It is ever so important to have closeness and eye contact and you cannot maintain that. Because we are talking shared devices, it is cumbersome to log in and even more so to log out and it is that piece right there we have automated in conjunction with the Municipality of Hedensted. Now, everyone is secure and efficient.”

The Right Device

Samsung Xcover Pro

The Right Device, Right System, Right Solution

”The goal was one login for all data and apps. In order to make that a reality, we needed the right device and this is where Samsung’s Xcover Pro became a topic of conversation. This was not only because they are durable, but also because they have an NFC chip,” Kim Bengtsson and adds: “This made our idea possible: all our users have an ID badge which also functions as a keycard. By combining Imprivata and Samsung, the user can open up the unit by placing the card on the phone. This is a feature we know from many other usages. Suddenly, the barrier between technology and the user has been removed”.

Thomas adds to this: ”These days, having temporary employees poses a great problem for the municipalities. They are brought in with a few hours’ notice and need complete access immediately. Nobody else can provide the Imprivata tap&go solution we are providing here: You are given your AD, your ID badge, your device, and then you are on your way.”

A Very Big Step

”By having a single sign-on, we were well on our way. The last piece to complete our business case was Samsung’s DeX solution which made it possible to eliminate the cost of all thin clients and computers. Physically speaking, that is a very big step and it is also an enormous change in the everyday life of the users,” Kim explains.

Jesper Madsen, Key Account Manager, Samsung Electronics Nordic, explains: “DeX is used when the user is walking from the patient to the terminal to make a log entry, check a prescription, or something else for which a PC is normally used. At that point, you have to log in again. With DeX, you are docking your mobile device after which a PC environment opens on the monitor and the employee’s data is available in an environment they are familiar with,” Jesper Madsen says. “By doing it this way, the Municipality of Hedensted can save the cost of an enormous amount of equipment. Right now, they are operating a test case nursing home in which only DeX stations are used and not a singular PC. Using DeX works well with the working conditions of the user. If they are interrupted while in the PC environment and need to tend to a patient, they simply disconnect their device. The next time they connect, it opens up where they left off”.

Kim Bengtsson elaborates and explains that on a system level, this is also a winner: “DeX supports native apps such as Outlook and Cura. We are a Citrix municipality and with DeX, everyone can access their complete environment. It creates a great user experience which saves times and is financially sound.”

Great User Experience

Kim and the Municipality of Hedensted have done their homework properly and thoroughly: "We were not going to provide people with an untested system. We rolled out the system in one nursing home first to test it. They gave us with the best form of advertisement possible and it was spreading like wildfire through word of mouth. People were coming to us from all parts of the municipality to ask when they could have it too. Today, we have rolled out to several more locations and there are no users calling into the hotline”.

”We need to give them a great user experience! It has to be easy and we need to support the Florence Nightingale hearts in our caretakers. We have created one profile with 32 apps and one sign-on for all of them. You are signed in for the rest of the day,” Kim says with a smile.

No to IT-Related Stress

“These people do not come to work to do IT work,” Thomas says. “We are far more concerned with the user and the clinical staff than we are about the IT infrastructure. Our focus remains on the user’s journey, the person, and their workflow. Therefore, this voyage with the Municipality of Hedensted and Kim Bengtsson at the helm is unique. It is one of the finest examples of how IT can help people. We are reducing IT-related stress.”

Powerful Collaboration – Powerful Results

”For many years, Hedensted was the lighthouse in the development of the public nursing home with its new technology. Among other things, this is because Kim has been great at thinking creatively. We have worked together for more than 10 years now and we were a strong team when we started this project in 2023,” Thomas says. Kim is also happy. “We have a great collaboration with Samsung. If we need help, we get it. I am able to just give them a call and I feel like they drop everything to call their technicians in Korea immediately,” he says. “The same goes for Danoffice IT. Thomas has such extensive knowledge in IT Health Care and their technical know-how is top notch as well as the guidance provided by their consultants,” Kim Bengtsson, Server Administrator, IT and Digitalization, the Municipality of Hedensted, concludes.

The Rest of Denmark Wants In

Kim and the Municipality of Hedensted have caused a stir and sparked momentum. Samsung hosted a webinar about the solution and this was quite the event. “After Kim created this ingenious solution, the word spread through the network. Therefore, we hosted a webinar at which we presented the solution. We had the greatest number of participants sign up in the shortest amount of time and the large government organizations were very curious,” Jesper Madsen from Samsung says. Since then, Kim has been contacted ongoingly by government organizations from the smallest to the largest that want to know more about the solution combining Samsung DeX and Imprivata.