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Healthcare

First stage of Sweden’s e-health scheme deployed

By Jianggan Li | 4 June 2009

More than 500 of clinicians and clinical staff in the Swedish region of Örebro now have authorised access to records of all patients’ in the area, with the successful implementation of the first phase of the country’s National Patient Overview (NPO) project.

NPO is Sweden’s national electronic health records scheme, which aims to improve patient security and the quality of care by delivering the solution nationwide in stages. Its core is the National Patient Summary (NPS), undertaken by the Swedish Healthcare Advisory Organisation (Sjukvårdsrådgivningen SVR AB).

Policy makers and implementers spent a year establishing the legal context, patient consent and the IT infrastructure for NPS. A company called Tieto was selected as the prime contractor, implementing and hosting the service using InterSystems Healthcare information exchange platform.

“We are delighted that the first stage of NPÖ is completed,” Ulrika Landström, NPÖ Project Manager at Örebro said. The NPÖ allows County Councils to exchange patient information and transform records from various local formats to the central standard, making it easy for any existing system to connect to the NPS.

The rest of the 20 county councils and 290 Municipalities in Sweden are expected to be connected to the NPS service. One is expected to be connected in 2009, while three others are preparing for the connection.

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