National Strategy for eHealth - Sweden

Information and communication technologies (ICT) offer numerous potential benefits in terms of improvements for patients, health and elderly care professionals and decision-makers. Citizens, patients and relatives must have quick, trouble-free access to quality-assured information on health care provision and health concerns, as well as personal data on their own care, treatment and health status. They must also be able to contact care services via the internet for assistance, advice or help with self-treatment. Health and elderly care professionals must have access to efficient, interoperable eHealth solutions that make it easier for them to perform their day-to-day work while guaranteeing patient safety. Authorities and other bodies responsible for care provision need ICT for effective follow-up of patient safety and quality concerns, and to support management functions and resource distribution. A range of issues relating to ICT use must be solved at national level, based on the collaboration of all actors in the health care sector. These concerns must be dealt with on the basis of a common approach and nationally established guidelines and solutions. A national eHealth strategy is needed to ensure efficient and effective use of ICT. Used as a strategic tool, ICT will promote safer, more accessible and efficient health and elderly care services. Most of the work of enhancing the efficiency and effectiveness of ICT use will naturally devolve on the county councils, municipal councils and private care providers concerned. In addition, a range of measures will be required from government at various levels and from other actors in the health and elderly care sector. Increased use of eHealth must be combined with effective security measures designed to ensure that highly sensitive confidential information relating to individual patients or users is securely handled by all involved in care or service delivery.

Download National Strategy for eHealth - Sweden (.pdf, 783 KB)

For further information, please visit:
http://www.sweden.gov.se/health

Survey: Do European Residents Use the Internet To Find Health Information?

From the "Norwegian Centre for Telemedicine"
Source: iHealthBeat 
Date: 2 Nov 2007 

The number of European residents who reported using the Internet to find health information increased from 44% in 2005 to 54% in 2007, according to a survey by the Norwegian Centre for Telemedicine. Overall Internet use in Europe increased from 71% in 2005 to 83% in 2007. The countries in Northern and Central Europe reported the highest percentage of Internet health users. In 2007, 72% of survey respondents in Denmark said they use the Internet to search for health information, while 67% of survey respondents in Norway and 57% of survey respondents in Germany said they use the Internet to search for health information.

In Eastern Europe, 47% of survey respondents in Latvia and 53% of survey respondents in Poland reported using the Internet in 2007 for health information research. Meanwhile, in Southern Europe, 32% of survey respondents in Greece and 38% of survey respondents in Portugal reported using the Internet in 2007 for health purposes.

Results are based on a 2005 telephone survey of 7,934 European residents and a 2007 telephone survey of 7,022 European residents.

Source: Norwegian Centre for Telemedicine

Stockholm e2008 Conference Call for Papers
Abstracts and Workshops

The goal of e-2008 is to stimulate rapid take-up of Research and Technology Development (RTD) results by industry and in particular SMEs, and help open up the European Research Area (ERA) to the rest of the world.

Extended abstracts are invited for e-2008. Papers are actively encouraged from private as well as national, regional, international and European Commission funded research programmes. The conference language is English and abstracts should be for case studies, technical, legal or policy papers or proposals to arrange workshops. Proposals related to international cooperation, interoperability issues, multi-disciplinary research, Grid applications, Smart and Virtual Organisations and papers showcasing commercialisation issues are particularly welcome.

Extended abstracts of 800 - 1,200 words should be submitted online by 29th February 2008. In the case of joint authors, the Conference Organisers will only communicate with the person who uploads the abstract, who is assumed to be the presenter unless we are informed otherwise. Potential authors can submit more than one abstract, but normally an author will not be invited to present more than one paper at the conference, with co-authors expected to register and present other successful submissions.

Extended abstracts should focus on a research topic on which either a case study, initial or final results can be published. All papers must highlight the level of innovation. General project descriptions are not appropriate.

VISIT the " CALL FOR PAPERS " pdf.file

MIE 2008 Congress: "eHealth beyond the horizon - Get IT There", and Call for submissions
25-28 May 2008
Göteborg
Sweden
Visit the Conference Site

Extreme market thrills – Kiwok starts up in India
(Press Release)

Date: 25 September 2007

The Swedish medtech company Kiwok – with its health care service BodyKom Series ECG for mobile distribution of patients ECG – will now start up in India. The Partner is SRS Globalsoft ; an Indian international consulting company engaged in ICT project management with a focus on global life sciences and telecommunication industries.

To service SAARC (The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation), countries like Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka; Kiwok AB and SRS Globalsoft will incorporate a joint venture company in India and raise international equity capital to partially fund the venture. To start this process, Kiwok has applied for financial support from ALMI and the Swedish Export Credits Guarantee Board. SRS Globalsoft has also acquired minority stakes in Kiwok AB. (Read more...)

BodyKom - Remote Care for heart patients improves quality of care and saves money! (Kiwok-SE)

Kiwok, a Swedish company founded in 2003, develops service products that are based on a need for real time information as part of the product. In order to make the service product readily accessible, the business model is to sell a complete service at a fixed monthly charge.

Kiwok has created a solution as a service – BodyKom Series TM to collect diagnosis data from individuals that then with the aid of modern technology, forwards the data to an existing database at a hospital, clinic or company care centre. This out of hospital care solution means patients can be offered a new form of care outside hospital but with the same security as an inpatient.

The BodyKom Series works anywhere in the world and there is a massive need for it – over 100 million users in the industrialised world. The solution is designed to gather diagnosis data for the most commonly occurring illnesses such as heart failure, diabetes and changes in blood pressure. The care procedures for all these are the same the world over – a global de facto standard. The solution is based on verified technology.

The focus of the care is partly related to the fact that one of the founders had suffered heart problems and saw the need for mobile monitoring but also to the know-how about care and care needs that the company has acquired during the product development process.
(read more…)

Digital pen points to healthcare

Source: California Healthcare Foundation
Date: 3 of May, 2007
Written by: Eric Wicklund, Contributing Editor

LUND, SWEDEN - It's been said that the pen is mightier than the sword. It may also be more powerful than the laptop.

Anoto Group AB, an 11-year-old company based in Lund, Sweden, is marketing a digital pen and paper technology that is designed to capture handwriting and graphic data and transmit it - real-time or in batch form - to a PC or other server.

According to Ebba Asly-Fahraeus, Anoto's vice president of global marketing, the technology has been used in banking and finance, shipping, logistics and inspections. Japan is now testing the product in schools and police departments (particularly in writing traffic tickets), while Hamburg, Germany is planning to use the technology in the voting booth.
For the past year, Anoto has been marketing digital pen and paper to the healthcare sector.

"It's quite a paper-intensive area," says Asly-Fahraeus, who notes that home healthcare providers and hospital emergency departments have shown the most interest so far. "All this does is take what you have written and create a digital copy." (read more…)

Sweden's largest Hospital targets improved patient care with Cisco technology

Cisco networking technology to advance Data Center Network Architecture, improve data storage, support a hospital merger and connect multiple locations around Stockholm

Gartner Data Center Summit, Amsterdam, and Stockholm, Sweden, November 30, 2005 - Cisco Systems today announced that Karolinska University Hospital - Sweden's largest - is deploying a Cisco Medical-Grade Network solution to help improve healthcare services delivered to patients and streamline IT management. Karolinska, in Stockholm, expects realise significant savings by using Cisco technology to help hospital doctors and home-based medical specialists share patient information quickly and with a high degree of security, making diagnosis and treatment faster and more efficient. (more....)

Project "SUSTAINS" - The Medical Record on the Internet

· Would the patients benefit from instant access to their own medical record?
· How would the doctors react to such a scenario?

Those were two of the questions asked when the County Council of Uppsala set off to explore the effects of giving the patients access to their own medical record via the Internet. Other questions asked were; what are the security and integrity implications? Is sufficient technology available?
One of the most important objectives was to encourage patient involvement. A basic condition for patient involvement is to have access to that same information as the providers.
The project, founded by the EC and the Swedish Knowledge Foundation, launched a system that deals with all the technical, security and integrity matters.(more)

The Evolution of Sjunet, the Swedish Health Care Network

Sjunet is the infrastructure for communication of health care data and services in Swedish health care, including various forms of telemedicine. Sjunet started as a regional project and today practically all Swedish hospitals and primary care centres are connected. Sjunet is as much a cooperative network as it is a technical communicative platform. Sjunet possess the capacity for better use of restrained resources in the Swedish health care system. However successful in connecting hospitals it may be, further research on the network's potential for more efficient use of resources and possible change of health care structures is needed. (more)

IPR at National Level

A resource of practical information on intellectual property and innovation in Sweden. (link)

6th International Conference on the Medical Aspects of Telemedicine

Uppsala, Sweden, June 18-21, 2001

This worldwide gathering of experts and newcomers within the field of telemedicine and e-health will mainly focus around two fields of interest. On the individual level the focus will be on creating value for and together with the patients. The use of Internet by patients and all caregivers is one of the key issues in this context.
On the social level the focus will be on telemedicine as a tool to support a more equal distribution of health care in the world. Apart from reports of new scientific break-through related to technical innovations and practical applications, emphasis will be given to projects that allow for practical, cost-effective telemedical solutions that are integrated into daily clinical routine and can be copied on large scales all over the world. For more information about the world conference see www.telemedicine2001.com.

For more information regarding:

Participation, please contact Tia Eriksson, conference manager, tia.eriksson@service.slu.se or +48 18 67 15 33

Scientific program, please contact Hans Kollberg, President of the local organising committee, hans.kollberg@ped.uas.lul.se or +46 18 611 28 96

Business contacts, please contact Rufus Lidman, Chairman of the marketing committee, rufus.lidman@fek.uu.se or +46 73 652 13 52

The Stockholm Challenge Award

Do you yourself or someone in your network, use IT in a way that benefits people and society? Does the world know about it?

If not, now it's the time to enter the world's most extensive IT-awards program - The Stockholm Challenge Award, www.challenge.stockholm.se

March 1 is the last day of entry to the Stockholm Challenge 2001. Participation is free of charge.

The projects are invited to compete in seven different categories:

• Public Services & Democracy
• Health & Quality of Life
• New Economy
• Education
• Culture & Entertainment
• Environment
• A Global Village.

If you have any questions, please contact the Challenge team at info@challenge.stockholm.se or fax +46-8-651 76 33.

Trends in Health Telematics in the European Union

• Trends in Sweden