Table 4 Overview of challenges, how they were handled and leaders’ suggestions for improvement
Challenges | Measures/ Success factors | Suggestions |
|---|---|---|
|  | Creating a secure environment Taking care of employees’ basic needs Increased intermunicipal cooperation cooperation with the municipality chief medical officer and the nursing home physician Involvement of the occupational healthcare service |  |
Extreme working hours | Executed the work | Â |
task overload | Executed the work | Get leader support constitute a visit coordinator |
unprepared organization | Developing routines for patient visits Debriefing personnel of infection routines regularly Introducing longer shifts Splitting up personnel in teams Making cleaning routines Instructional videos “Risk, Vulnerability and Preparedness” analysis Made plans for: how to limit the infection outbreak, how to deal with staffing, how to arrange the wards in case of an outbreak | Be better prepared nationally Perform “Risk, Vulnerability and Preparedness” analysis A better national pandemic plan |
Lack of PPE | Got a hold of PPE eventually | Have a local storage |
Information overload | Information emails | Clearer information lines and an overview of where leaders can turn for information |
Developing short information sheets | ||
Making information binders | ||
physical appearance | ||
The need to plan for all scenarios | Close communication/collaboration with neighboring/larger municipalities | Continue communication/collaboration with neighboring municipalities/larger municipalities after the pandemic |
Understaffing under infection outbreaks | Reach out to other healthcare services within their municipality (other wards, nursing homes, the home care services and psychiatric services Long shifts (11,5 h), | Have staff on call for emergency situations |
Handle infection outbreaks in buildings not designed for this | Measures to deal with dirty laundry and other basics Remove all decorations and nick-knacks Split up or make, provisional wardrobes Split up or make, provisional lunchrooms Setting up a temporary visiting room for patients and next of kin, | Include thoughts of infection control when building nursing homes and healthcare institutions |
Lonely, iIsolated patients | Applied for funding | Introduce digital supervision for isolation rooms |