A few months ago, the Danish eHealth Portal sundhed.dk celebrated its 20th anniversary. Morten Elbæk Petersen has been at the helm from the very beginning and has helped expand the awareness of the health portal, which has been a pioneer worldwide in compiling access to digital health information for citizens.
All of it is possible because Denmark has a long-standing tradition of safely registering and collecting health data on all citizens throughout their lives from cradle to grave. Combined with a strong focus on public digitization, this makes Denmark a trailblazer in terms of digitizing the healthcare system.
The effort means that sundhed.dk can now safely collect and present information from more than 170 data sources for citizens and healthcare professionals. All 6 million Danes can access their test results, hospital records, referrals, prescriptions and more on the sundhed.dk portal and in the MinSundhed application.
Creating Clarity of the Danes Health
Over the years sundhed.dk has achieved the status of being the digital gateway to the Danish healthcare system, by offering solutions and tools to both citizens and professionals that enables easement of their everyday life and workflows, while also encouraging patients to be more self-reliant and empowering them to take further charge of their own health and treatment.
Citizens can log onto The Danish Health Record and get direct access to their healthcare data, for instance hospital records, laboratory results, prescriptions and referrals to specialists. Citizens can also grant relatives access to the information, so, for example, adult children or spouses can assist with monitoring an overview and with communication with the healthcare system.
Healthcare professionals can also use sundhed.dk to look up relevant information on patients that they might be treating regardless of regions, hospitals, medical practices and municipalities and across the different IT systems used in the Danish healthcare system.
Sundhed.dk also compilates important self-registered information from an individual citizen to healthcare professionals, in case of urgent treatment due to accidents or sudden severe illness. For instance, the individual’s desires regarding organ donor at their demise or whether the individual has specified wishes regarding treatment if they happen to be in a terminal or irrevocable condition.
A Digital Gateway to the Healthcare System
In addition to providing an overview of health data, sundhed.dk also enables more physical navigation throughout the healthcare system. If a citizen needs to find a dermatologist or gynecologist, they can find the nearest one through sundhed.dk based on their vicinity. Through the same solution, citizens can find contact information and estimates on waiting times for all approved practitioners in Denmark.
In turn, practitioners who need to find a supportive healthcare service for a patient can find an overview of all regional and municipal healthcare services.
The medical encyclopedia “The doctors and patient handbook” offers a vast, continuously updated and expanding trove of knowledge regarding diseases, conditions, symptoms and treatments. In 2023 there were nearly 30 million requests to the encyclopedia – equivalent to every single Dane looking up information in the handbook more than five times a year.
Publicly Funded and Governed
As a publicly owned service, sundhed.dk is free from commercial interest and all digital development and solutions for the portal are commissioned and funded by the different public authorities backing sundhed.dk.
To ensure a democratic anchorage of the joint national gateway, sundhed.dk is governed by a politically appointed board, consisting of representatives from both the state, the regions and the municipalities.
95% of All Adult Danes are Aware of sundhed.dk
The population of Denmark numbers almost 6 million people and 95% of Danes over the age of 15 are familiar with sundhed.dk. In 2023, there were 31 million visits to the solutions that offers access to health data through sundhed.dk. The mobile app version Minsundhed has been downloaded more than 6 million times.
The frequent use of sundhed.dk is also contributed to the fact that solutions are developed with strict end-user involvement. For example, new solutions under development are continuously tested throughout development by a fixed user panel to ensure the solutions are logically and intuitively designed. In 2023, 19 different user surveys were conducted with a total of 3.455 individual participants.
An Example of Inspiration to Other Countries
Through time, but especially in recent years, there has been an increasing international attention to sundhed.dk’s pivotal role in the Danish healthcare system. Austrian TV recently did a feature about the value of an easily accessible health-overview for both citizens and healthcare professionals. Sundhed.dk was also mentioned in liaison to Denmarks first place ranking in the OECD Indicators – Health at a Glance 2023.
Furthermore, Morten Elbæk Petersen is continuously used as a consultant and speaker in various contexts internationally to provide input on how digital health data can strengthen both the entirety of the healthcare system and empower the individual citizen and practitioner. Over the years, Morten Elbæk Petersen has served on advisory boards and councils in several European countries as well as in Washington DC in the USA.
About Morten Elbæk Petersen
Director of the Danish eHealth Portal, sundhed.dk, since its founding in 2002.
Morten Elbæk holds a master’s degree in economics and social science from the University of Odense. He serves as an external examiner at the Public Health IT Masters programs at various Danish universities.
In 2015, Morten received the HIMSS Europe eHealth Leadership Award.
Morten has throughout the years been a member of several international advisory boards, most recently the independent International Scientific Advisory Board of the German MII (Medical Informatics Initiative), founded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research. Morten has also been invited by the Italian National Agency for Regional Health Services (AGENAS) to join the High-level Advisory Committee (HSAC) to support the development of the Italian National Portal for the Transparency of Health Services.
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