Sidsel Villumsen

Nordic eHealth benchmarking

The report presents results of the Nordic eHealth Research Network, a subgroup of the eNordic Council of Ministers Health group. The network defined and collected data for altogether 49 common eHea ...

Monitoring Telemedicine Implementation in Denmark

According to the literature, Denmark has a leading position in the dissemination and use of health informatics. However, there is a lack of systematically collected and documented experience of telemedicine solutions in Denmark. This evidence is being established with a new project, which maps out all telemedicine initiatives in Denmark. Data on all the initiatives is collected in a single database and some of the data is analyzed in this paper. It is shown that there are a very large number of telemedicine initiatives in Denmark and that the elements from the national strategy for telemedicine are clearly visible in the telemedicine map. The very large number of projects could, however, also indicate a lack of national coordination of initiatives and a need for evaluation activities to systematically collect and communicate the learning outcomes from all the new projects.

How to Present Evidence-Based Usability Design Principles Dedicated to Medication-Related Alerting Systems to Designers and Evaluators? Results from a Workshop.

Medication alerting system use errors and lack of adoption are often attributed to usability issues. Previous work has used evidence from the literature to reveal usability principles specific to medication alerting systems and identify potential consequences of violating these principles. The current study sought to explore how best to convey these principles to designers and evaluators of these systems to facilitate their work. To this aim, a workshop with 19 participants was used to generate ideas and opinions on how to deliver these topic-specific design principles in a way that would be most helpful for them. Participants generated ideas for how (e.g., a collaborative, continuously updated forum) and what (e.g., illustrations, checklists, evidence sources and strength, consequences of violations) information is most useful to disseminate usability principles for medication alerting systems. Participants, especially designers, expressed desire to use these principles in practice and avoid previously documented mistakes and therefore make design and evaluation of these systems more effective and efficient. Those insights are discussed in terms of feasibility and logistical challenges to developing the proposed documentation). To move this work forward, a more collaborative approach of Human Factors specialists in medical informatics is necessary.

Monitoring the Amount of Practical Use of eHealth on National Level by Use of Log Data: Lessons Learned

This paper set out to define the lessons learned from the process of characterizing the amount of practical use of eHealth on national level by collecting and comparing log data harvested from national logs in the Nordic countries. The health systems of the Nordic countries are quite similar in structure and their eHealth strategies include similar elements, however when confronted with the specific context in the different systems it proved challenging to define a common set of indicators for monitoring the practical use of eHealth. A thorough analysis of context leading to the definitions of the indicators is the basis needed due to the complexity of the data in the national logs. A comprehensive knowledge of the structure that underlines these logs is of utmost importance when striving for collecting comparable data. Although challenging, the process of defining indicators for practical use of eHealth by data harvested trough national logs is not an impossible task, but a task that requires in depth discussions of definitions of indicators as well as a substantial insight into the architecture and content of the national databases. There is need for continuous work on these indicators to ensure their quality and thus make sure that the defined indicators can meaningfully inform eHealth policies.

National Monitoring and Evaluation of Health IT: Protocol for a Scoping Review

BACKGROUND Monitoring the pace of Health Information Technology (HIT) adoption across states is critical for providing data to formulate future national and regional HIT policies. However, repeated monitoring of the progress on implementation of the strategies is often scarce. The lack of systematic monitoring of progress in availability and use of HIT has led to a need for an overview of the key concepts and methodologies used in the scattered scientific literature. The scoping study aims at achieving both in-depth and broad results, identifying all relevant material, regardless of the design. This paper presents and discuss a protocol for a scoping review. OBJECTIVE We aim to provide a comprehensive overview of the existing body of knowledge and to assess the extent, range and nature of monitoring and evaluation of availability and use of HIT at a national or regional level. This scoping review includes peer reviewed and grey literature. METHODS The search strategy is iterative and developed in cooperation with information specialists and key researchers in the field. Inclusion, data extraction, and quality assessment will be done by two independent reviewers. Data will be collated, summarized and analyzed thematically. CURRENT STATUS 1760 references were included for screening. After screening for eligibility based on title and abstract 84 publications were included for full text review, which is currently being done. Final results are expected in March 2017. CONCLUSION This scoping review will map the existing body of literature and describe the current approaches to monitoring and evaluating HIT on a national or regional level. The review will provide evidence-based information in order advance national strategies for monitoring and evaluating availability and use of HIT.