Click Heart for Healthcare

“My interest in computers goes back to the 386 PC era and Nokia phones” said Knarvik. “Many years ago, I created a Batman logo that I uploaded to the Nokia website, and it proved to be very popular; indirectly, that idea led to the solution for this project.”

Along with his colleagues Gullik Gjertsen and Pål André Ropstad at Rewired, Knarvik met with the municipality over Microsoft Teams to discuss the challenge. “Previously, students wanting help with health issues would walk to the school nurses’ office and knock on the door,” Knarvik said. “This approach involved a physical presence, so the children knew exactly where they could go to get help.”

In a pandemic-sheltering world, that situation changed; increasingly, the school health services had difficulties connecting with students who needed support. “We wanted to replicate that ease of contact while respecting each child’s privacy,” Knarvik said. “Like the Batman logo shining into the clouds, we required an effective way of getting the message out to the students so that they could access the right healthcare resources in a timely and efficient way.”

The winning idea was Hjerteknappen or “Heart Button,” a Microsoft Teams add-on that provides a digital open door to every student. Gjertsen explained how it works: “Clicking the Heart Button is simple. A confirmation dialog box then appears, which reduces the incidence of false activations and provides reassurance to students. My background in gaming and programming made this approach particularly appealing.”

Using Microsoft Power Platform and Microsoft 365, the development team quickly assembled an initial prototype of the user interface. Although Teams provided the foundation, the application needed business logic and rules to ensure each activation was correctly processed.

“A significant complexity was bridging the gap between requesting help and obtaining healthcare,” said Knarvik. “To provide treatment, the municipality needs to ensure that the student is registered.”

Gjertsen said, “Although every activation must be tracked, Hjerteknappen is not a medical application. Because of privacy and data-sharing concerns, particularly with GDPR, there must be deliberate partitioning between our environment and creating a ticket on the healthcare system to obtain treatment. We’d have liked more automation in our solution, but that approach wasn’t legally feasible.

The municipality has nearly 10,000 students, all of whom receive Apple iPads pre-installed with an educational licence for Microsoft 365, with Teams an integral component of this cloud-based suite. The multimedia features and portability of the iPads makes integration with Teams particularly effective, ensuring students can press the Heart Button anywhere.

“The reaction from students has been extremely positive – they have been thrilled at the idea of having simple access to health resources. Particularly in our Norwegian winters, it beats trudging through the snow to knock on the nurses’ door, ” said Gjertsen. “The student is very much in control. If they click the button to see what happens, there are no negative consequences and that action doesn’t go any further.”

The relationship between SoftwareOne and Nodre Follo was central to the success of this project. “We couldn’t have done it without our SoftwareOne partnership, as they provided our initial contact with the municipality” said Knarvik. “Now that we’re part of the SoftwareOne family, our integration into the core business gives us far greater opportunities to market this solution not just throughout Norway but internationally. The aim is to work with the customer to create a true open-source implementation, with SoftwareOne licensing the Heart Button name,” Gjertsen said.