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