eHealth strategies and solutions in Sweden Jonas Ekström, MD Medical director of Västmanlands hospital Sala Object owner of EMR systems in the County of Västmanland
May 24, 2015
eHealth strategies and
solutions in Sweden
Jonas Ekström, MD Medical director of Västmanlands hospital Sala
Object owner of EMR systems in the County of Västmanland
• Healthcare system in Sweden
• eHealth in Sweden 2014
• The National eHealth strategy
• What have come out of the strategy?
-some examples of solutions
• eHealth in Sweden in the future
Healthcare in Sweden
• 9.6 million citizens
• 21 counties / regions responsible for
healthcare
• The counties range between 60,000
– 1.2 million citizens
• The county has taxation rights,
usually 10-11%
• Healthcare is either produced by the
county itself or purchased from
private providers
eHealth in Sweden 2014
• All hospitals and primary care centers use EMR
(electronic medical records)
• Six major EMR systems are currently used in Sweden
• Many counties have selected one EMR-suite, making
patient information sharing easy within the county
• Private providers typically use the EMR of the county
where they are active
A National eHealth strategy
• Cooperation between Ministry of Health and other
national authorities, county/regional org., and private
care provider org.
• #1 2005 focus on security solutions, frameworks, new
legislation, and standards.
• #2 2010 focus on deployment, use, and benefit of the
technology, rather than its development.
The eHealth strategy
What have come out of the
strategy?
• National Healthcare staff eID – registry services
• National ePrescription service
• 1177.se – The Care Guide
• ”My Care” – single point access for patient e-services
• ”National Patient Overview”
• ”My Chart online”
• Electronic referral service
1177.se The Care Guide
• A national phone number and website for questions and
guidance about symptoms, diseases, and healthcare.
• Decision support for nurses giving advice on the phone.
• Information available in different languages.
”My Care”
• Common web solution for patients to access all eHealth
services with secure login
• Providers specify eHealth services available (varies
between providers)
• Popular services are: schedule/reschedule an
appointment or send a question to your doctor
National Patient Overview
• All care providers publish patient information to the
National Patient Overview
• Healthcare staff can access the information if the patient
consent
• Each provider decides which information they want to
publish—not a complete picture
• Not so much used—shared EMR systems in the
counties/regions reduces the need
eHealth in Sweden in the future
• Further development of MyCare (example: forms that
feed into the providers’ EMR)
• Development of a national database for medication that
EMRs can sync their list of medication to
• Launch of ”personal health accounts”, a state service
where the citizen can store information about his/her
health from different sources and give access to this
information to third party providers
(e.g. ”apps”).
Links
• www.nationellehalsa.se
for more information on the eHealth strategy
• www.1177.se
”The Care guide”
• www.halsaformig.se
for more information about the development of personal
health accounts