OpenNotes joins digital health collaborative in Northern Europe
In January 2021, OpenNotes joined the NORDeHEALTH initiative, an effort to understand how patients use their health information in the Nordic countries of Estonia, Finland, Norway, and Sweden.
Led by Keane OpenNotes Scholar Maria Hägglund, PhD, NORDeHEALTH aims also to promote patient online access to electronic health records and increase self-management and transparency in healthcare within the four Nordic countries in Europe.
“Personal eHealth, patient empowerment, and self-management topics get a lot of attention. Large sums of money go toward designing, developing and implementing these services globally,” said Hägglund, who is also an associate professor in Health Informatics and Senior Lecturer in Implementation Science at Uppsala University. “However, we still have no clear picture of how factors like infrastructure, reimbursement models, and population characteristics affect the implementation of these services. How should we take these factors into account when designing future digital health programs for our citizens?”
Collaborating with seven site partners and OpenNotes, Hägglund and NORDeHEALTH project members are working to expand the digitization of the public health sector in Nordic countries, create guidelines, and design, implement, and evaluate frameworks that will prove meaningful and useful for people.
In addition to OpenNotes, NORDeHEALTH project partners include: Uppsala University, Örebro University, Skövde University, and Karlstad University in Sweden; University of Technology Tallinn in Estonia; Aalto University in Finland; and the Norwegian Centre for E-health Research in Norway.
Learn more about this project on OpenNotes project page for Nordic eHealth for Patients. This work is made possible with funding from NordForsk, the Swedish Research Council for Health, Working Life and Welfare (Forte), the Research Council of Norway, the Academy of Finland, and the Estonian Research Council.
About OpenNotes
OpenNotes, based at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, a major Harvard Medical School teaching hospital, studies the effects of open and transparent communication on patients, care partners and clinicians and disseminates its findings. OpenNotes works with collaborators around the country and overseas to foster and evaluate the spread and implementation of shared clinical notes (“open notes”). OpenNotes does not develop software and is not a technology company. It is funded entirely by federal and philanthropic grants and gifts. To learn more, visit www.opennotes.org.
