The Swedish government and healthcare authorities have called upon the European Health Telematics Association to discuss their national e-health strategy.
The discussion took place in a two-day meeting in Stockholm last week and was the first time that e-health industry body EHTEL had been asked to advise a national government.
EHTEL president, Martin Denz, told E-Health Europe: “They asked us to review their strategy as we could provide a full staff of e-health specialists and any stakeholder they needed, from IT professionals to software architects.
“The whole process meant that they were not being scrutinised but instead receiving structured criticism.”
EHTEL received extensive information on Sweden’s e-health strategy before the meeting so that they could prepare for discussions on how it could be to improved.
The meeting consisted of 15 Swedish e-health government experts and ten experts provided by EHTEL, who held a series of general discussions and one to one sessions where the strategy’s strengths, weaknesses and next stages were addressed.
A presentation by the Swedish government to EHTEL detailing their e-health achievements opened the meeting.
EHTEL said the event was a relatively informal exchange with no formal assessment of the strategy and was more about providing feedback to the government based on their presentation.
The organisation said it believed it was chosen by the Swedish government because it is trusted and open about what is achievable. EHTEL says that one of its key strengths is that it can bring an independent choice of experts who are truly unique and credible.
The EHTEL president said the Swedish meeting was a great success and that he is ‘convinced’ more governments will ask for their help as a result.
Denz continued: “We need to be clear that we are not a commercial service and not becoming a consultancy company but this may be a real added value and service for other governments and groups, so we are looking to develop this model and extend our help to others.”
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European Health Telematics Association
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