The new service comes into effect on November 4. Municipal manager for coping and health Frode Hestnes in Tønsberg emphasizes that it should not replace normal home care.
– There are still many patients who will need physical visits to get the help they need, but digital home nursing can be a good alternative for some or a supplement to ordinary home nursing, says Hestnes.
In this way, the municipality can serve many more patients at a time with an increasing number of elderly people.
– Many of the visits the nurses make during the course of a day are, for example, about making sure the patient takes the right medicine at the right time. Now the nurse can sit at the switchboard and see that the patient is actually taking his medicine without having to be physically present, says business manager Miriam Standal at Hjemmesykepleien East in Tønsberg.
But no one should be forced onto the new scheme and lose the current offer of physical visits, she says.
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