Digital Health Care and Social Care - Regional development impacts in the Nordic countries

Healthcare professionals’ digital health competence and its core factors; development and psychometric testing of two instruments

“…According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), digital health is defined as "the field of knowledge and practice associated with the development and use of digital technologies to improve health" and includes a variety of digital solutions such as the Internet of Things, big data analytics, advanced computing and artificial intelligence used in the context of healthcare [7]. Digital solutions in healthcare enable personalised care, enhance information flow and facilitate accessibility of services [7,8] but also need careful and constant evaluation to ensure equal and cost-effective service provision for all and prevent digital exclusion of patients and professionals [9,10]. For example, the Electronic Health Records (EHRs) are effective in improving patient safety, in providing integrated decision-making tools and a more complete patients' documentation, and in decreasing organizational costs.…”

Welfare institutes in sparsely populated areas

“…Over recent decades, the development of eHealth solutions has increased as a response to these delivery challenges in remote areas (Roberts et al, 2010). While all the Nordic countries have national eHealth strategies with ambitious goals, the digitalisation of health and social care services proceeded relatively slowly until the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic (Lundgren et al, 2020a; see also Lundgren et al, 2020b).…”

“…The EU Cohesion Policy sees increasing digitalisation as a lucrative and cost-effective solution to provide public services in 'sparselizing' Europe while making rural populations less disadvantaged (Dubois and Sielker, 2022). In addition, the use of distance-spanning solutions in health and social care is expected to increase the quality of care, access to care services and the cost efficiency of service provision (Lehtonen et al, 2019;Lundgren et al, 2020a). Nonetheless, it is important to acknowledge the still existing urban-rural digital divide (Hirko et al, 2020;Salemink et al, 2017).…”

“…It is, however, important to bear in mind that the Nordic Region's rural areas are very diverse, and therefore drawing a simple distinction between urban and rural living conditions is not so clear cut (Lundgren et al, 2020b). The use of distance-spanning technologies in health care and social care has tremendous potential to increase rural citizens' access to welfare services, despite a clear urban/rural divide in digital infrastructure and the use of digital services (Lundgren et al, 2020a;Lundgren et al, 2020b).…”

Recruitment and retention in the welfare sector: Nordic good practice

“…As digitalisation becomes intertwined with every element of our lives, the promotion of distancespanning solutions for healthcare and social care in rural areas has been high on the agenda for all Nordic countries in recent years. Among the benefits of digitally-based health and social care are improved quality, efficiency, inclusion in health and social care provision, and improved access to specialised competencies -especially in rural areas (Lundgren et al, 2020). Digital solutions also have the potential to tackle recruitment challenges.…”