This is what the Health Reform Committee's report for NITO means
NITO's BFI leader, Kaja Marienborg, is positive about the direction, but believes there is still a long way to go.
On Monday, the Health Reform Committee presented its report "One health service", which will lay the foundation for the government's upcoming health reform.
Kaja Marienborg, chair of the board of NITO Institute of Biomedical Laboratory Sciences, has been NITO's representative in the reference group of the Health Reform Committee.
"NITO will now spend time reading the almost 500 pages of the report and preparing the organisation's view of the report and an upcoming health reform for the government," says Marienborg.
It is a complex and comprehensive report with many topics. Marienborg is particularly pleased that the committee has improved collaboration on health data, a so-called digital foundation.
"We must ensure the right expertise, to ensure safe and correct diagnostics where the patient is. Then we can reduce the overconsumption of laboratory resources. We need concrete proposals for how we can put in place a digital foundation," says Marienborg.
"The shortage of biomedical laboratory technicians is underestimated"
Marienborg reacts to the fact that the committee points to a shortage of labour as one of the main challenges, but lacks focus on the shortage of biomedical laboratory scientists.
"Without biomedical laboratory scientists, diagnostics stop, and then patient treatment also stops. Laboratories are already employing personnel without authorisation because they cannot get hold of biomedical laboratory scientists," she emphasises.
NITO is concerned about a similar development in other occupational groups as well, including the use of medical-technical personnel without the necessary certification. Marienborg believes this is a serious development that may have a direct impact on patient safety.
Long way to go for digital collaboration
The BFI chair thinks it is positive that the committee is raising the issue of collaboration on health data, but is concerned about how the challenges will be solved.
"When hospitals that were built in 2025 still buy fax equipment, it says something about how far away we are from seamless interaction," says Marienborg and adds:
"Test results must follow the patient between municipalities and hospitals, because that is often where the course stops.
The laboratory becomes the bottleneck
The committee wants to turn today's health communities into strategic health committees. Here, the BFI leader believes that the laboratory service should be mentioned explicitly:
"Two out of three medical decisions are made on the basis of a test result, regardless of whether the sample was taken in the specialist health service or the municipality. Today, the laboratory often becomes the bottleneck in the health service due to a lack of the right expertise. If municipalities and hospitals are to plan patient pathways together, diagnostics must be around the table from the start," she says.
She adds that NITO is pleased that the committee proposes a knowledge review on rehabilitation as a basis for a later reform.
