Tuesday morning, January 17th, the Oslo ICT Network hosted a debate about welfare technology. The debate attracted about 50 people from business and public sector to Litteraturhuset.

”The municipalities spend 111 bn NOK on welfare. The hospitals spend 105 bn NOK. So far the hospitals have gotten the most attention from the business community. But the biggest potential ahead is in the municipalities, ” said Anne-Karin Østli from Ernst & Young.

She pointed to both demography and public demand when stating that now it is most important to make sure healthcare outside hospitals is taken care of. She presented a report from November 2011 with the eight municipalities the consultancy company thinks are doing the most noteworthy job in remote care.
The breakfast meeting was mostly about how to integrate the entire value chain of treatment, from getting ill, through hospital treatment, and back to recovery and wellness. Bjarte Frøyland made a speech over the possibilities in mobile solutions.

Power to the people

Then the patients got their say through Kristin Bang from The Norwegian Cancer Society (Kreftforeningen). She stressed the importance of open patient journals.
”New technology gives patients control, power and ownership of their own health,” she said. She wanted commitment to a plan for when the patients will gain ownership to their own data. She compared having cancer to a backpacker trip. ”Most people think that the route a head when you get cancer will be like an all inclusive trip, where everything is arranged for you. But it is really like a back packer trip where you need to make all the arrangements yourself,” she said.

She pointed out that the three ”C”s constitutes the A-team of cancer patients: Computer, cash and college. She got full support from ICT Norway and Fredrik Syversen.

”The key is to give patients more power, so that there is a pressure to integrat the systems,” Syversen said. Østli underlined his point by comparing to other countries, where the monetary situation of the public sector has forced more effeciency in to the value chain in health.

Big vs small

When the crowd got to speak after the panelists, their thoughts were many. Nard Schreurs from Computerworld led the debate, asking what is really a patient, what do we expect from the new parliamentary bill about eHealth, and how different interests in Norway’s health sector squeeze out any attempt to make big changes. The audience where engaged in how interchange between one core system and many small systems close to the users should be handled. How do we secure good input to the systems and interface with the users? And does Norway – and every municipality – need to make their own system? Or can big systems just be bought off the shelf from someone who has done it? Even Estonia and the Czeck Republic seem to have better systems than NemID  in Denmark, which many like. How do a more open system handle the big issues of privacy?

And finally a university scolar raised the importance of working with, not against, the politicians.

Photo: Tanya F. Heglund, Oslo Teknopol

Presentations

Please see attached files for presentations (in norwegian) at the bottom of this page and Oslo ICT Manager, Bjarte Frøylands slides here: BjarteFrolyand.pdf

The next meeting in the Oslo ICT Network is Thursday February 2nd at Dubliners pub at 3.30 p.m.