The Norwegian Working Hour Registry for workers at Hospitals

The purpose of the working hour registry is to gain more knowledge about how working hours should be structured, with the intention of reducing any negative consequences of shift and rotation work.

A knowledge-based approach to shift work

Shift work is necessary to care for the patients in Norwegian hospitals around the clock. Many people enjoy and prefer this form of work but shift work can also be stressful and increase the risk of illness and injury. To protect both healthcare workers and patients, there is a need for more knowledge and studies with a longitudinal design in the field.

The Research Center for Sleep, Work and Health (FOSAH) at the University of Bergen (UiB) is for this reason establishing a working hour registry in collaboration with healthcare trusts in Norway. Collaborating healthcare trusts contribute de-identified information about their employees' working hours and sickness absence and in return get back applicable and research-based knowledge about how working hours should be structured/organized to protect both the healthcare workers and their patients. One of the center’s aims is to have a close collaboration with working life, and we are thus inviting our collaborating partners to influence the research focus of the studies.

UiB has made a short animated film (60 sec.) that explains how the registry works. Watch the animated film here.

The Research Center for Sleep, Work and Health currently collaborates with the healthcare trust Helse-Bergen, but the long term the goal is for the working hour registry to become a national working time registry with data from all healthcare trusts in Norway.

Secure processing of personal data

Information on working hours and sickness absence is obtained from the healthcare trusts' HR systems (payroll and sickness absence registry). In addition, the following information (background information) will be submitted to the registry: age, gender, employment percentage, seniority, occupational category, and department of work. The responsible team at the collaborating healthcare trust will quality-assure that data from the HR system is correct, and that people cannot be identified, before the data is transferred to a secure server at UiB to which only a few trusted researchers have access. All information transferred to the registry is de-identified, and it is therefore not possible to recognize individuals in the registry.

The personal information is stored in the registry for as long as necessary for the purpose for which the personal information was collected. Data from the registry may be linked to other health registrys via an appointed pseudonym administrator.

Collection of data for the registry is in line with the EU's Data Protection Regulation, article 14. The legal basis for establishing the registry has been prepared in collaboration with lawyers and data protection officers (DPO) at UiB and the respective healthcare trust provider. The establishment of the registry has also been discussed locally with all relevant trade unions.

Right of reservation

All employees in the healthcare trust who send data to The Norwegian Working hour Registry for workers at Hospitals have the right to object to information being transferred to the registry. If you do NOT want your information to be included in the registry, please contact your healthcare trust. For an overview of contact information see below:

For Helse-Bergen employees: NAS_Register@helse-Bergen.no