What healthcare services can be better provided online? What are the pitfalls to avoid when transferring health and care services to the internet? The Norwegian Board on Technology’s new project - Patient 2.0 – calls attention to opportunities and dilemmas following an increased use of the internet in the health sector.
In Norway most people are online – also when they are concerned with medical matters. However, the public health sector is only to a small extent taking advantage of the numerous opportunities to provide information and services on the internet.
From healthcare information to online medical records
- Thus far, we only see the outlines of the potential for online healthcare information and treatment of patients, claims Åse Kari Haugeto, project manager for “Patient 2.0”.
The internet gives us a broad specter of possibilities for healthcare information and services:
- People are already using the internet searching for health related information. This could be medical articles, public information and user-generated sites making information easily accessible for users, like wikis and various social forums for patient groups.
- Many patients, especially those with long-term and chronic diseases, benefit from finding others in similar situations on the internet to share useful information and experiences with.
- One could also provide practical services, such as online reservation, renewal of prescriptions, choice of hospital, online treatment monitoring, as well as information on patient rights, complaints appealst. Communicating with your personal doctor online instead of showing up at the office would be of great help to many patients.
- Getting access to your private medical record online would be of great interest for patients. This will allow patients to monitor what is written and registered, test results, final reports and information about medication. In addition, this will provide information to patients concerning who reads the medical record or who writes in it. This might, as well, give us the opportunity to update the medical record our selves, or to choose whether we would like to share private information with family, friends or other medical personnel.
Electronic communication hits the health sector
Electronic communication should from now on be a customary way of communication between patient and doctor, according to the newly launched reform scheme to the Norwegian Parliament, (Report nr. 47 to the Storting (2008-2009)). This indicates that you should be able to book appointments, find information about your health, getting health education, online consultation, telemedicine and access to your own medical records through the internet.
It is yet to decide when, how and which alternatives or limitations we will have, and this is not scheduled in the White Paper.
-This is what we explore in our project - Patient 2.0, says Åse Kari Haugeto.
The Norwegian Board of Technology has engaged the following expert group to contribute to this project:
- Sissel Jor, Oslo University Hospital, Rikshospitalet
- Lillian Røstad, Department of Computer and Information Science, NTNU
- Petter Holm, Patient Ombudsman, Oslo
- Deede Gammon, Norwegian Centre for Telemedicine
- Tom Christensen, Norwegian Centre for Informatics in Health and Social Care
- Ola Dale, NTNU/Norwegian Board of Technology
The expert group will, according to schedule, deliver their recommendations for the Norwegian Parliament and Government in early 2010.