I have had the opportunity to attend the HND symposium and would like to share some interesting parts.

HND stands for heart-kidney and diabetes disease. Patients’ affected simultaneously by  these diseases are normally treated by different health care professionals, doctors and nurses for each disease, at different times and places, hospital and primary care. This leads to high physical and psychological burden for the patients affected, and hampers the abilities for health care to give patients a holistic care based on patients’ preferences. Based on this, Danderyds hospital have developed HND-clinic for patients’ with heart-kidney and diabetes diseases which was the main focus for this symposium.

During the first day Jonas Spaak, cardiologist from Danderyds hospital talked about the HND-clinic. Patients’ with HND disease make regular visits at the HND-clinic. The team which includes professionals from heart-kidney and diabetes, doctors and nurses discuss treatment goal with the patient and how to achieve from the patient perspective. The benefits with HND is continuity where the team getting knowing the patients’, patients’ don´t need to go for several visits per week, it is easier to increase dosages of medical treatment and to perform regular follow-ups. Patients’ are very grateful for this type of care and studies are ongoing to evaluate quality of care and clinical outcome.

Roger Gärtner, priest at Danderyds hospital held a speech about difficult conversations in health care and to console. People has various needs of conversations, it may be enough to be there, bedside, and it is not necessary to talk.

Rogers main tips was to -hold -hold on -hold out and shut up”

There was a lot of interesting topics, talks, posters and we had great discussions on how to improve care for patients’ with HND.

Some clinics use type of standard care plans, a checklist which help nurses and other professionals to assure that all patients’ gets right care and treatment.

Right medicine against health care contact phobia. Britt-Marie Ahrnell, held a speech about her experiences of being relative to a person with cancer and the journey throughout the health care system. It was clear that health care need to be more focused on patient centered care. She addressed the difficulties to visit different doctors and nurses. Who is responsible for the treatment? Does anyone know anything about the treatment and follow-up? When symptoms occur, how to communicate with health care? It is only the medical record that holds the picture of the patients’ treatment and care, there are no visible people.

Kerstin Ulin, RN, PhD Göteborgs University held a speech about person centered care. Person centered care means that care are based on a person with a disease, and the person’s experiences of the reality. Not a disease in a person. Humans are capable with self-esteem and are in relation with others. It’s a matter of to meet persons rather than patients. The benefits with person centered care is improved quality of life, improved pain treatment, less pressure ulcers and decreased length of stay at hospital.

Thank you Anna Strömberg and Tiny Jaarsma for giving me the opportunity to attend the symposium.

To everyone who is interested to hear more about the symposium, don’t hesitate to contact me christina.andreae@hotmail.com

Greetings Christina Andreae