The NPÖ provides an electronic summary of patients' records including information on identity, attentions and alerts, diagnosis, care services and medications. It gives authorised care staff access to critical patient information, irrespective of the organisation they belong to, at any time and place. NPÖ will be fully implemented in ten county councils within 2010 and a further ten during 2011.
Speaking to 'E-Health Europe' at the World of Health IT (WHIT) Conference (15-18 March 2010) in Barcelona, the chief information officer at Sörmland county council (south east coast of Sweden), Ante Grubbström said: "If the plans hold out there will be around ten regions going live in 2010 and ten in 2011 and any that are left will go live early in 2012. "So sometime in the early spring of 2012, everyone in the 21 county councils will be up and running and also the majority of municipalities and private care providers."
Mr. Grubbström added that the majority of the private care providers have contracts with the county councils to supply their services to the population and many are mandated to share information across organisational borders using the NPÖ. "We have not written the name of the product that they have to do this with into the contract, but they will have to support the NPÖ and there is really no other way," he said.
Sweden signed a four year deal with two private IT software and services companies to provide and implement the system in 2008. Mr. Grubbström says the system is jointly financed, so each county council is paying for it according to the size of their population.
In June 2009, Eva Leach Elfgren, the project manager of the National Patient Summary project stated that the Örebro County Council had become the first to connect to the NPÖ and that there would be an additional three county councils joining by the end of 2009. However, according to Mr. Grubbström "This is not the case. We had around three county councils working to deploy but no more were using it by the end of 2009."
Britt Marie, who is involved in the operation of the NPÖ in Örebro (south-central Sweden), said: "The system is already improving patient safety, shortening lead times and preventing unnecessary transport."
The Örebro county council is now working with the Örebro University to evaluate the benefits of NPÖ, while rolling it out further in the 11 municipalities of the region and helping with the further roll-out in other areas.
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Quelle/Source: epractice, 13.04.2010
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