Danish hospital culture

Danish work culture is characterised by an informal tone of voice where honesty, openness, initiative and flexibility are generally appreciated.

In the Capital Region of Denmark it is also appreciated that employees make an active effort to take up residence in Denmark, establish connections, practice the language and work for good professional and social relations at their workplace.

The patient and good patient pathways are to be at the centre of your work.

Nurses’ tasks
Nurses are expected to be responsible for

• Care, including all basic care (personal hygiene, mobilisation, nutrition, measuring basic values), all contact to the district nurse, the delegation of tasks to colleagues in the care team, communication with patients and their relatives, observation and monitoring of patients as well as contact to the doctor in case a patient’s condition deteriorates.
• Preparing and doing the rounds together with the doctor. This includes actively informing, inquiring into and involving the patient and the doctor.
• Entering into an interdisciplinary dialogue about care, treatment and discharge plans.
• Contact with relatives, excluding information about test and examination results.
• Planning the discharge process early in the hospital stay. This includes collecting information about conditions in the home and cooperation with relatives as well as assessing when the patient is ready for discharge in regard to care.
• The administering of medicine, which generally includes intravenous medicine and fluids.
• Care documentation.
• Drawing up care plans.
• Reporting unintended occurrences and participation in accreditation tasks in general.

Doctors’ tasks
Doctors are generally expected to be responsible for

• Treatment plans, including the prescription of tests and examinations.
• Assessing when the patient is ready for discharge in regard to treatment.
• Entering into dialogue with the care staff and relatives about care, treatment and discharge plans.
• Preparing and doing the rounds together with the nurse. This includes actively informing, inquiring into and involving the patient and the nurse.
• Communication with patients.
• Reporting unintended occurrences and participation in accreditation tasks in general.

Common expectations
The health care system rests on equality between professional groups in regard to their specific role in the patient pathways. This implies that it must be connected with respect and pride for all groups to carry out their tasks and responsibilities in the patient pathway. No tasks are more important or prestigious to carry out than others. Among other things, this implies that you must approach the people you work with as well as patients and relatives with kindness and that the informal form of address ”du” is generally used.

All professional groups are expected to be part of the educational community in the department. This means that all employees are to make their knowledge and experience available to each other as well as to students and trainees.

Moreover, all employees are expected to keep up to date on knowledge within their work and professional area. They may seek to obtain this knowledge within their department, from their colleagues, through competence development and through in-house as well as out-of-house training courses. It would also be natural to look for knowledge in the professional library at one’s workplace, in public libraries and in one’s professional journals and organisations.