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Ulla Hellstrand Tang,1,2 Isabella Scandurra,3 Leif Sundberg,4 Magdalena Annersten Gershater,5 Roland Zügner2 1Department of Prosthetics and Orthotics, Sahlgrenska University Hospital, Gothenburg, Sweden; 2Department of Orthopaedics, Institute of Clinical Sciences, Sahlgrenska Academy,University of Gothenburg, Sahlgrenska University Hospital, Gothenburg, Sweden; 3Centre of Empirical Research in Information Systems, Örebro University, Örebro, Sweden; 4Gothenburg Diabetes Association, Gothenburg, Sweden; 5Department of Care Science, Faculty of Health and Society, Malmö University, Malmö, SwedenCorrespondence: Ulla Hellstrand Tang, Department of Prosthetics and Orthotics, Sahlgrenska University Hospital, Falkenbergsgatan 3, Gothenburg, SE-412 85, Sweden, Tel +46 70 6397913, Fax +46 31 40 81 62, Email ulla.tang@vgregion.sePurpose: Self-care of the feet is one of the cornerstones in the prevention of diabetic foot ulcers (DFU). Often, individuals with diabetes seek help at the pharmacy, but it is still unclear whether the service meets their expectations and needs. The aims were to explore patients’ expectations of support from the pharmacy regarding self-care of their feet and explore how patients with diabetes felt that they managed the self-care of their feet.Patients and Methods: The included participants (n = 17), aged 70 ± 9 years, answered surveys regarding their expectations of support from the pharmacy related to self-care of the feet and how they felt that they managed the self-care of their feet. By using software, MyFoot Diabetes, they assessed their risk of developing DFU (ranging from 1 = no risk to 4 = DFU). In addition, a healthcare professional assessed the risk grade.Results: Sixteen patients had not received any information from the pharmacy regarding how to take care of their feet. Several suggestions for ways the pharmacy could help patients with diabetes to take care of their feet were registered. They included having the necessary skills and competence, giving advice regarding self-care, giving information regarding the products they market and have for sale and giving advice on ointments/creams. The participants gave several examples of how they self-managed their feet: by wearing shoes indoors and outdoors, wearing socks and compression stockings as often as possible, being physically active, inspecting their feet, being aware of the fact that their feet have no problems, washing, moisturising their feet, cutting their nails and finally seeking help to prevent DFU.Conclusion: The participants thought that they should receive competent information from the personnel at the pharmacy to improve the self-care of their feet, eg, being given information about which ointments/creams to use.Clinical Trial: NCT05692778.Plain Language Summary: Persons living with diabetes have better opportunities to be physically active, keep on walking and participate in social activity if the feet are in good health. Besides getting support from healthcare, on how to promote good foot health, the pharmacies offer services and products aimed for self-care of the feet. Seventeen persons living with diabetes in the western region of Sweden answered a survey regarding their expectations of support from the pharmacy related to self-care of the feet and how they felt that they managed the self-care of their feet. The study found that persons living with diabetes self-managed their feet in different ways. The services being available from the pharmacies should be improved, promoting good foot health for persons living with diabetes, and in its prolongation prevent the development of diabetic foot ulcers.Keywords: diabetic foot, prevention, diabetes type 1, diabetes type 2, self-care, self-management, self-monitoring

The use of information and communication technology (ICT) to support integrated healthcare services in elderly homecare is becoming more established. In particular, ICT can enable information exchange, knowledge sharing and documentation at the point-of-care (POC). The aim of this study was to explore these effects using the Old@Home prototype. Old@Home was perceived to contribute in developing horizontal links for communication between individuals who work together, independent of geographical distance or organizational affiliation, and to contribute to increased work efficiency. The prototype was further seen to reduce professional isolation by providing a holistic overview of the care process. User centred design and implementation of Old@Home was considered key to facilitating acceptance of organizational changes. Participation of care professionals not only led to a better understanding of the needs of involved organizations, but also increased end-users' involvement and commitment, stimulating them to test and improve the prototype until the final version. Copyright © 2008 SAGE Publications [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: With the increasing implementation of patient online record access (ORA), various approaches to access to minors' electronic health records have been adopted globally. In Sweden, the current regulatory framework restricts ORA for minors and their guardians when the minor is aged between 13 and 15 years. Families of adolescents with complex health care needs often desire health information to manage their child's care and involve them in their care. However, the perspectives of adolescents with serious health issues and their parents have not been studied., Objective: This study aims to qualitatively and quantitatively investigate the perceived benefits and risks of ORA and the awareness of and views on ORA regulations among adolescents with serious health issues and their parents in Sweden., Methods: We used a convergent mixed methods (qualitative and quantitative) design, consisting of a survey and semistructured individual interviews with adolescents with serious health issues (aged 13-18 y) and their parents. Participants were recruited via social media and in clinics. Quantitative data were presented descriptively. Interviews were audio recorded, transcribed, and analyzed using inductive thematic content analysis., Results: The survey population included 88 individuals (adolescents: n=31, 35%; parents: n=57, 65%). Interviews were completed by 8 (26%) of the 31 adolescents and 17 (30%) of the 57 parents. The mean age of the surveyed adolescents was 16 (SD 1.458) years, and most of the parents (29/57, 51%) were aged 45 to 54 years. The surveys indicated that most of the parents (51/56, 91%) were critical of the access gap, and most of the adolescents (20/31, 65%) were unaware of the age at which they could gain access. In the interviews, adolescents and parents identified benefits related to ORA that were categorized into 6 themes (empowering adolescents, improved emotional state, enhanced documentation accuracy, improved partnership and communication, supported parental care management, and better prepared for appointments) and risks related to ORA that were categorized into 4 themes (emotional distress and confusion, threatened confidentiality, increased burden, and low usability). Adolescents' and parents' views on ORA regulations were categorized into 3 themes (challenges of the access gap, balancing respect for autonomy and support, and suggested regulatory change)., Conclusions: In Sweden, ORA regulations and a lack of available information cause significant inconvenience for adolescents with serious health issues and their parents. Views on access age limits differed, with adolescents expressing their perceived need for independent access, while parents exhibited concerns about adolescents having ORA. The findings indicated the importance of increased education, dialogue, and flexibility to uphold confidential and consistent delivery of adolescent health care. Further exploration is needed to understand the experiences of adolescents and parents in diverse clinical and geographic contexts, as well as the perspectives of pediatric health care professionals on restrictive ORA regulations., (©Josefin Hagström, Charlotte Blease, Arja Harila, Päivi Lähteenmäki, Isabella Scandurra, Maria Hägglund. Originally published in JMIR Pediatrics and Parenting (https://pediatrics.jmir.org), 27.01.2025.)

Background: Digital solutions in healthcare can facilitate and improve care. However, the experiences and the usefulness of using either digital foot examinations or traditional foot examinations need to be evaluated. The aims of the study were to evaluate: 1) The differences in patient experiences, having their foot examined supported by the Clinical Decision Support System as compared with having their foot examined in traditional practice, 2) How healthcare professionals, by using the digital tool, experienced the routine compared with performing the foot examination as in traditional practice., Methods: Of a total of 141 patients, 100 patients with diabetes were single-blind digitally randomised to one of two parallel arms: having their foot examined by a healthcare professional using a digital tool (n = 47) or having their foot examined as in traditional practice (n = 53) at the Department of Prosthetics and Orthotics at Sahlgrenska University Hospital, Gothenburg, Sweden. Patients filled in a modified version of the National Patient Survey and the Orthotics and Prosthetics Users' Survey at study end. Two healthcare professionals, working at a Department of Prosthetics and Orthotics, answered surveys regarding the interaction between the patient and the certified prosthetist and orthotist., Results: Patients, aged 66 ± 13 years, perceived a high level of satisfaction with the service at the department, regardless of the method used. No significant differences between groups were found when evaluated by 27 questions in the National Patient Survey or by the Orthotics and Prosthetics Users' Survey, with scores of 67.17 ± 12.18 vs. 66.35 ± 16.52 (p = 0.78) for the intervention and control group respectively. For the same patient that healthcare professionals foot examined, the risk class was fully obtained when the risk to develop foot ulcers was assessed by using the digital tool, whereas only 2% of the patients were classified when foot assessed in traditional practice., Conclusions: Regardless of the method used for the foot examination, patients perceived a high level of satisfaction with the services at the Department of Prosthetics and Orthotics. All the patients were risk classified in the intervention group. The healthcare professionals found that, by using the Clinical Decision Support System, the foot examination was structured and followed clinical guidelines. Furthermore, the documentation in the electronic health record was thorough, even though further improvements, such as integration with co-existing health record systems, were requested., Trial Registration: Clinical Trials NCT03088566 , Registered 23 March 2017., Competing Interests: Declarations Ethics approval and consent to participate The study was approved by the Regional Ethics Committee Review Board of Gothenburg, reference number 414-17 (2017-05-22). Signed consent was obtained from all the participants after they had received verbal and written information. Consent for publication Signed consent for publication was obtained from the participant after receiving written information. Competing interests The authors declare no competing interests, (© 2024. The Author(s).)

Purpose: Ensuring security of online health records and patients' perceptions of security are concerns in adolescent healthcare. Little is known about adolescents' perceptions about healthcare's ability to protect online health records. This article explores adolescents' perspectives on security and privacy of their online health records, potential differences based on gender and health, attitudes to sharing information, and perceptions of what constitutes sensitive information., Methods: This study included a subset of items from a national online patient survey conducted in Sweden (January-February 2022), focusing on respondents aged 15-19 years. Gender and health status differences were calculated using the Kruskal-Wallis test., Results: Of 218 adolescent respondents (77.1% female), a minority had security and privacy concerns. A notable proportion (41.3%) wished to control who could see their records, and those who reported better perceived health were more likely to want to manage access to their electronic health record (H = 13.569, p = .009). Most had not experienced unauthorized access to their records (75.2%) and had never shared health information on other online applications (85.8%). More than half (56.0%) perceived some information as sensitive, where mental health was the most common (76.0%). Most felt that reading their notes improved their trust for their healthcare professional (65.6%) and supported better communication with healthcare professionals (66.5%)., Discussion: In this national survey, adolescents generally reported few concerns about patient portals. Findings emphasize the need for security and privacy protection and to empower adolescents with greater control over access to their health information housed in electronic health record systems., (Copyright © 2024 Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Objective: The current understanding of the breadth of individual differences in how eHealth technologies are perceived as useful for different purposes is incomprehensive. The aim/purpose of the study is to improve the understanding of diverse perceptions of the usefulness of technologies by exploring older adults' use of their patient-accessible electronic health records (PAEHRs)., Methods: The study applies and extends Affordance Theory based on an empirical analysis of data from the NORDeHEALTH 2022 Patient Survey on attitudes toward PAEHR in Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Estonia. Responses from 3964 participants in Sweden, aged 65 + years were analysed. Data included demographics and agreement ratings to reasons for using PAEHR. To analyse variation in the reasons for using PAEHR, group comparisons were conducted based on gender (male/female), age group (65-74, 75-84 and 85+) and earlier encouragement to use PAEHR., Results: Overall, the findings suggest that PAEHRs have multiple parallel affordance trajectories and affordance potencies that actualise differently depending on needs. The top reasons, pointing to both orientational and goal-oriented affordances for using PAEHR, were improving understanding of health issues, getting an overview of medical history/treatment and ensuring understanding of what the doctor said. Men reported more often sharing information with relatives or friends as a reason to access PAEHR. Women were more inclined, albeit similarly to men less frequently, to read their PAEHR for detecting errors. Age had little influence on reasons for using PAEHR., Conclusions: The study applies and extends Affordance Theory in the context of older adults' PAEHR use based on findings from the largest national investigation of reasons for older users to access PAEHR in Sweden demonstrating the applicability of the theory in improving the understanding of the diversity of individual perceptions on eHealth technologies., Competing Interests: The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article., (© The Author(s) 2024.)

Background: The NORDeHEALTH project studies patient-accessible electronic health records (PAEHRs) in Estonia, Finland, Norway, and Sweden. Such country comparisons require an analysis of the sociotechnical context of these services. Although sociotechnical analyses of PAEHR services have been carried out in the past, a framework specifically tailored to in-depth cross-country analysis has not been developed., Objective: This study aims to develop and evaluate a method for a sociotechnical analysis of PAEHRs that advances a framework for sociotechnical analysis of eHealth solutions first presented by Sittig and Singh. This first article in a series presents the development of the method and a cross-country comparison of the contextual factors that enable PAEHR access and use., Methods: The dimensions of the framework for sociotechnical analysis were thoroughly discussed and extended in a series of workshops with international stakeholders, all being eHealth researchers focusing on PAEHRs. All countries were represented in the working group to make sure that important national perspectives were covered. A spreadsheet with relevant questions related to the studied services and the various dimensions of the sociotechnical framework was constructed and distributed to the 4 participating countries, and the project participants researched various national sources to provide the relevant data for the comparisons in the 10 sociotechnical dimensions., Results: In total, 3 dimensions were added to the methodology of Sittig and Singh to separate clinical content from features and functions of PAEHRs and demonstrate basic characteristics of the different countries regarding national and regional steering of health care and information and communications technology developments. The final framework contained the following dimensions: metadata; hardware and software computing infrastructure; features and functions; clinical content shared with patients; human-computer interface; people; workflow and communication; the health care organization's internal policies, procedures, and culture; national rules, regulations, and incentives; system measurement and monitoring; and health care system context. The dimensions added during the study mostly concerned background information needed for cross-country comparisons in particular. Several similarities were identified among the compared countries, especially regarding hardware and software computing infrastructure. All countries had, for example, one national access point, and patients are provided a PAEHR automatically. Most of the differences could be identified in the health care system context dimension. One important difference concerned the governing of information and communications technology development, where different levels (state, region, and municipality) were responsible in different countries., Conclusions: This is the first large-scale international sociotechnical analysis of services for patients to access their electronic health records; this study compared services in Estonia, Finland, Norway, and Sweden. A methodology for such an analysis was developed and is presented to enable comparison studies in other national contexts to enable future implementations and evaluations of PAEHRs., (©Jonas Moll, Isabella Scandurra, Annika Bärkås, Charlotte Blease, Maria Hägglund, Iiris Hörhammer, Bridget Kane, Eli Kristiansen, Peeter Ross, Rose-Mharie Åhlfeldt, Gunnar O Klein. Originally published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research (https://www.jmir.org), 26.08.2024.)

The Nordic countries are, together with the United States, forerunners in online record access (ORA), which has now become widespread. The importance of accessible and structured health data has also been highlighted by policy makers internationally. To ensure the full realization of ORA's potential in the short and long term, there is a pressing need to study ORA from a cross-disciplinary, clinical, humanistic, and social sciences perspective that looks beyond strictly technical aspects. In this viewpoint paper, we explore the policy changes in the European Health Data Space (EHDS) proposal to advance ORA across the European Union, informed by our research in a Nordic-led project that carries out the first of its kind, large-scale international investigation of patients' ORA-NORDeHEALTH (Nordic eHealth for Patients: Benchmarking and Developing for the Future). We argue that the EHDS proposal will pave the way for patients to access and control third-party access to their electronic health records. In our analysis of the proposal, we have identified five key principles for ORA: (1) the right to access, (2) proxy access, (3) patient input of their own data, (4) error and omission rectification, and (5) access control. ORA implementation today is fragmented throughout Europe, and the EHDS proposal aims to ensure all European citizens have equal online access to their health data. However, we argue that in order to implement the EHDS, we need more research evidence on the key ORA principles we have identified in our analysis. Results from the NORDeHEALTH project provide some of that evidence, but we have also identified important knowledge gaps that still need further exploration., (©Maria Hägglund, Anna Kharko, Annika Bärkås, Charlotte Blease, Åsa Cajander, Catherine DesRoches, Asbjørn Johansen Fagerlund, Josefin Hagström, Isto Huvila, Iiris Hörhammer, Bridget Kane, Gunnar O Klein, Eli Kristiansen, Jonas Moll, Irene Muli, Hanife Rexhepi, Sara Riggare, Peeter Ross, Isabella Scandurra, Saija Simola, Hedvig Soone, Bo Wang, Maedeh Ghorbanian Zolbin, Rose-Mharie Åhlfeldt, Sari Kujala, Monika Alise Johansen. Originally published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research (https://www.jmir.org), 27.06.2024.)

Background: Having online access to electronic health records (EHRs) may help patients become engaged in their care at an early age. However, little is known about adolescents using patient portals. A national survey conducted within the Nordic eHealth project NORDeHEALTH provided an important opportunity to advance our understanding of adolescent users of patient portals. The present study explored reasons for reading the EHRs, the perceived usefulness of information and functions in a patient portal and the association between frequency of use and encouragement to read the EHR., Methods: Data were collected in a survey using convenience sampling, available through the Swedish online health portal during 3 weeks in January and February 2022. This study included a subset of items and only respondents aged 15-19. Demographic factors and frequencies on Likert-style questions were reported with descriptive statistics, while Fisher's exact test was used to explore differences in use frequency based on having been encouraged to read by a healthcare professional (HCP)., Results: Of 13 008 users who completed the survey, 218 (1.7%) were unique users aged 15-19 (females: 77.1%). One-fifth (47/218, 21.6%) had been encouraged by HCPs to read their records, and having been encouraged by HCPs was related to higher use frequency (p=0.018). All types of information were rated high on usefulness, while some functions were rated low, such as blocking specific clinical notes from HCPs and managing services for family members. The main reason for reading their health records online was out of curiosity., Conclusions: Adolescents who read their records online perceive it to be useful. Encouragement by HCPs can lead to increased use of patient portals among adolescents. Findings should be considered in the future design of patient portals for adolescents., (© Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2024. Re-use permitted under CC BY. Published by BMJ.)

Patients' online record access is a worldwide phenomenon, where Sweden is one of the pioneers in actual countrywide implementation. Healthcare professionals (HCPs) have previously raised usability issues with e-health systems and proposed several solutions, yet no studies have explored PAEHRs from this perspective. The aim of this study was to describe primary HCPs' suggestions on how the Swedish online record could be improved. They (n=14) were asked what they would like to improve with the system to increase usability and usefulness for patients or for themselves. Suggestions covered expanding what patients could view, simplification of the service for both the patients and themselves, adding feedback functions, and limiting access to only signed records.

Patients feeling offended by reading records online is a concern among healthcare professionals, however previously published work has focused on adult patients. Here, a survey was used to explore and compare experiences of offense among adolescents (15-19 years old) and young adults (20-24 years old). Findings indicated that while the ratio of those offended did not differ between adolescents and young adults, reasons for feeling offended did.

While research on the effects of patient access to health records is increasing, a basic understanding of the spread of patient-accessible electronic health records worldwide is lacking. In this survey of healthcare experts with professional and personal experience from 29 countries, we explored the state of patient online record access (ORA). We asked participants whether ORA exists in their country and which information is available through it. Experts in all polled countries reported having some national access to health records, with 6 (21%) countries providing exclusively paper-based records and 23 (79%) countries having ORA. Overview of test/lab results and prescription/medication lists were the most commonly available information. Free-text clinical notes were accessible in less than half of the surveyed countries (12, 41%). We will continue to map the state of patient ORA, focusing on traditionally underrepresented countries.

Background: Although many surveys have been conducted on patients accessing their own health records in recent years, there is a limited amount of nationwide cross-country data available on patients' views and preferences. To address this gap, an international survey of patient users was conducted in the Nordic eHealth project, NORDeHEALTH., Objective: We aimed to investigate the sociodemographic characteristics and experiences of patients who accessed their electronic health records (EHRs) through national patient portals in Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Estonia., Methods: A cross-sectional web-based survey was distributed using the national online health portals. The target participants were patients who accessed the national patient portals at the start of 2022 and who were aged ≥15 years. The survey included a mixture of close-ended and free-text questions about participant sociodemographics, usability experience, experiences with health care and the EHR, reasons for reading health records online, experience with errors, omissions and offense, opinions about security and privacy, and the usefulness of portal functions. In this paper, we summarized the data on participant demographics, past experience with health care, and the patient portal through descriptive statistics., Results: In total, 29,334 users completed the survey, of which 9503 (32.40%) were from Norway, 13,008 (44.35%) from Sweden, 4713 (16.07%) from Finland, and 2104 (7.17%) from Estonia. National samples were comparable according to reported gender, with about two-thirds identifying as women (19,904/29,302, 67.93%). Age distributions were similar across the countries, but Finland had older users while Estonia had younger users. The highest attained education and presence of health care education varied among the national samples. In all 4 countries, patients most commonly rated their health as "fair" (11,279/29,302, 38.48%). In Estonia, participants were more often inclined to rate their health positively, whereas Norway and Sweden had the highest proportion of negative health ratings. Across the whole sample, most patients received some care in the last 2 years (25,318/29,254, 86.55%). Mental health care was more common (6214/29,254, 21.24%) than oncological care (3664/29,254, 12.52%). Overall, most patients had accessed their health record "2 to 9 times" (11,546/29,306, 39.4%), with the most frequent users residing in Sweden, where about one-third of patients accessed it "more than 20 times" (4571/13,008, 35.14%)., Conclusions: This is the first large-scale international survey to compare patient users' sociodemographics and experiences with accessing their EHRs. Although the countries are in close geographic proximity and demonstrate similar advancements in giving their residents online records access, patient users in this survey differed. We will continue to investigate patients' experiences and opinions about national patient-accessible EHRs through focused analyses of the national and combined data sets from the NORDeHEALTH 2022 Patient Survey., (©Maria Hägglund, Anna Kharko, Josefin Hagström, Annika Bärkås, Charlotte Blease, Åsa Cajander, Catherine DesRoches, Asbjørn Johansen Fagerlund, Barbara Haage, Isto Huvila, Iiris Hörhammer, Bridget Kane, Gunnar O Klein, Eli Kristiansen, Kerli Luks, Jonas Moll, Irene Muli, Eline Hovstad Raphaug, Hanife Rexhepi, Sara Riggare, Peeter Ross, Isabella Scandurra, Saija Simola, Hedvig Soone, Bo Wang, Maedeh Ghorbanian Zolbin, Rose-Mharie Åhlfeldt, Sari Kujala, Monika Alise Johansen. Originally published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research (https://www.jmir.org), 13.11.2023.)

Background: Previous research reports that patients with mental health conditions experience benefits, for example, increased empowerment and validation, from reading their patient-accessible electronic health records (PAEHRs). In mental health care (MHC), PAEHRs remain controversial, as health care professionals are concerned that patients may feel worried or offended by the content of the notes. Moreover, existing research has focused on specific mental health diagnoses, excluding the larger PAEHR userbase with experience in MHC., Objective: The objective of this study is to establish if and how the experiences of patients with and those without MHC differ in using their PAEHRs by (1) comparing patient characteristics and differences in using the national patient portal between the 2 groups and (2) establishing group differences in the prevalence of negative experiences, for example, rates of errors, omissions, and offenses between the 2 groups., Methods: Our analysis was performed on data from an online patient survey distributed through the Swedish national patient portal as part of our international research project, NORDeHEALTH. The respondents were patient users of the national patient portal 1177, aged 15 years or older, and categorized either as those with MHC experience or with any other health care experience (nonmental health care [non-MHC]). Patient characteristics such as gender, age, education, employment, and health status were gathered. Portal use characteristics included frequency of access, encouragement to read the record, and instances of positive and negative experiences. Negative experiences were further explored through rates of error, omission, and offense. The data were summarized through descriptive statistics. Group differences were analyzed through Pearson chi-square., Results: Of the total sample (N=12,334), MHC respondents (n=3131) experienced errors (1586/3131, 50.65%, and non-MHC 3311/9203, 35.98%), omissions (1089/3131, 34.78%, and non-MHC 2427/9203, 26.37%) and offenses (1183/3131, 37.78%, and non-MHC 1616/9203, 17.56%) in the electronic health record at a higher rate than non-MHC respondents (n=9203). Respondents reported that the identified error (MHC 795/3131, 50.13%, and non-MHC 1366/9203, 41.26%) and omission (MHC 622/3131, 57.12%, and non-MHC 1329/9203, 54.76%) were "very important," but most did nothing to correct them (MHC 792/3131, 41.29%, and non-MHC 1838/9203, 42.17%). Most of the respondents identified as women in both groups., Conclusions: About 1 in 2 MHC patients identified an error in the record, and about 1 in 3 identified an omission, both at a much higher rate than in the non-MHC group. Patients with MHC also felt offended by the content of the notes more commonly (1 in 3 vs 1 in 6). These findings validate some of the worries expressed by health care professionals about providing patients with MHC with PAEHRs and highlight challenges with the documentation quality in the records., (©Annika Bärkås, Anna Kharko, Charlotte Blease, Åsa Cajander, Asbjørn Johansen Fagerlund, Isto Huvila, Monika Alise Johansen, Bridget Kane, Sari Kujala, Jonas Moll, Hanife Rexhepi, Isabella Scandurra, Bo Wang, Maria Hägglund. Originally published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research (https://www.jmir.org), 03.11.2023.)

Background: Diabetes is a growing threat to public health, and secondary diseases like foot complications are common. Foot ulcers affect the individual's quality of life and are a great cost to society. Regular foot examinations prevent foot ulcers and are a recommended approach both in Sweden and worldwide. Despite existing guidelines, there are differences in the execution of the foot examination, which results in care inequality. A structured foot examination form based on current guidelines was developed in this study as the first step toward digitalized support in the daily routine, and was validated by diabetes health care professionals., Objective: The study aimed to validate a structured foot examination form by assessing health care professionals' experiences of working with it "foot side" when examining patients with diabetes., Methods: Semistructured interviews were held in a focus group and individually with 8 informants from different diabetes professions, who were interviewed regarding their experiences of working with the form in clinical practice. The users' data were analyzed inductively using qualitative content analysis. The study is part of a larger project entitled "Optimised care of persons with diabetes and foot complications," with Västra Götaland Region as the responsible health care authority, where the results will be further developed., Results: Experiences of working with the form were that it simplified the foot examination by giving it an overview and a clear structure. Using the form made differences in work routines between individuals apparent. It was believed that implementing the form routinely would contribute to a more uniform execution. When patients had foot ulcers, the risk categories (established in guidelines) were perceived as contradictory. For example, there was uncertainty about the definition of chronic ulcers and callosities. The expectations were that the future digital format would simplify documentation and elucidate the foot examination, as well as contribute to the accessibility of updated and relevant data for all individuals concerned., Conclusions: The foot examination form works well as a support tool during preventive foot examination, creates a basis for decision-making, and could contribute to a uniform and safer foot examination with more care equality in agreement with current guidelines., Trial Registration: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT05692778; https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT05692778., (©Susanne Andersson, Isabella Scandurra, Ulrika Nyström, Marika Varemo, Ulla Hellstrand Tang. Originally published in JMIR Nursing (https://nursing.jmir.org), 18.07.2023.)

Background: Patient portals not only provide patients with access to electronic health records (EHRs) and other digital health services, such as prescription renewals, but they can also improve patients' self-management, engagement with health care professionals (HCPs), and care processes. However, these benefits depend on patients' willingness to use patient portals and, ultimately, their experiences with the usefulness and ease of use of the portals., Objective: This study aimed to investigate the perceived usability of a national patient portal and the relationship of patients' very positive and very negative experiences with perceived usability. The study was aimed to be the first step in developing an approach for benchmarking the usability of patient portals in different countries., Methods: Data were collected through a web-based survey of the My Kanta patient portal's logged-in patient users in Finland from January 24, 2022, to February 14, 2022. Respondents were asked to rate the usability of the patient portal, and the ratings were used to calculate approximations of the System Usability Scale (SUS) score. Open-ended questions asked the patients about their positive and negative experiences with the patient portal. The statistical analysis included multivariate regression, and the experience narratives were analyzed using inductive content analysis., Results: Of the 1,262,708 logged-in patient users, 4719 responded to the survey, giving a response rate of 0.37%. The patient portal's usability was rated as good, with a mean SUS score of 74.3 (SD 14.0). Reporting a very positive experience with the portal was positively associated with perceived usability (β=.51; P<.001), whereas reporting a very negative experience was negatively associated with perceived usability (β=-1.28; P<.001). These variables explained 23% of the variation in perceived usability. The information provided and a lack of information were the most common positive and negative experiences. Furthermore, specific functionalities, such as prescription renewal and the ease of using the patient portal, were often mentioned as very positive experiences. The patients also mentioned negative emotions, such as anger and frustration, as part of their very negative experiences., Conclusions: The study offers empirical evidence about the significant role of individual experiences when patients are evaluating the usability of patient portals. The results suggest that positive and negative experiences provide relevant information that can be used for improving the patient portal's usability. Usability should be improved so that patients receive information efficiently, easily, and quickly. Respondents would also appreciate interactive features in the patient portal., (©Saija Simola, Iiris Hörhammer, Yuhui Xu, Annika Bärkås, Asbjørn Johansen Fagerlund, Josefin Hagström, Mari Holmroos, Maria Hägglund, Monika Alise Johansen, Bridget Kane, Anna Kharko, Isabella Scandurra, Sari Kujala. Originally published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research (https://www.jmir.org), 30.06.2023.)

Patient accessible electronic health records (PAEHRs) have been proposed as a means to improve patient safety and documentation quality, as patients become an additional source to detect mistakes in the records. In pediatric care, healthcare professionals (HCP) have noted a benefit of parent proxy users correcting errors in their child's records. However, the potential of adolescents has so far been overlooked, despite reports of reading records to ensure accuracy. The present study examines errors and omissions identified by adolescents, and whether patients reported following up with HCPs. Survey data was collected during three weeks in January and February 2022 via the Swedish national PAEHR. Of 218 adolescent respondents, 60 reported having found an error (27.5%) and 44 (20.2%) had found missing information. Most adolescents did not take any action upon identifying an error or an omission (64.0%). Omissions were more often perceived as serious than errors. These findings call for development of policy and PAEHR design that facilitates reports of errors and omissions for adolescents, which could both improve trust and support the individual's transition into an involved and engaged adult patient.

Background: Ongoing efforts worldwide to provide patients with patient-accessible electronic health records (PAEHRs) have led to variability in adolescent and parental access across providers, regions, and countries. There is no compilation of evidence to guide policy decisions in matters such as access age and the extent of parent proxy access. In this paper, we outline our scoping review of different stakeholders' (including but not limited to end users) views, use, and experiences pertaining to web-based access to electronic health records (EHRs) by children, adolescents, and parents., Objective: The aim of this study was to identify, categorize, and summarize knowledge about different stakeholders' (eg, children and adolescents, parents, health care professionals [HCPs], policy makers, and designers of patient portals or PAEHRs) views, use, and experiences of EHR access for children, adolescents, and parents., Methods: A scoping review was conducted according to the Arksey and O'Malley framework. A literature search identified eligible papers that focused on EHR access for children, adolescents, and parents that were published between 2007 and 2021. A number of databases were used to search for literature (PubMed, CINAHL, and PsycINFO)., Results: The approach resulted in 4817 identified articles and 74 (1.54%) included articles. The papers were predominantly viewpoints based in the United States, and the number of studies on parents was larger than that on adolescents and HCPs combined. First, adolescents and parents without access anticipated low literacy and confidentiality issues; however, adolescents and parents who had accessed their records did not report such concerns. Second, the main issue for HCPs was maintaining adolescent confidentiality. This remained an issue after using PAEHRs for parents, HCPs, and other stakeholders but was not an experienced issue for adolescents. Third, the viewpoints of other stakeholders provided a number of suggestions to mitigate issues. Finally, education is needed for adolescents, parents, and HCPs., Conclusions: There is limited research on pediatric PAEHRs, particularly outside the United States, and on adolescents' experiences with web-based access to their records. These findings could inform the design and implementation of future regulations regarding access to PAEHRs. Further examination is warranted on the experiences of adolescents, parents, and HCPs to improve usability and utility, inform universal principles reducing the current arbitrariness in the child's age for own and parental access to EHRs among providers worldwide, and ensure that portals are equipped to safely and appropriately manage a wide variety of patient circumstances., International Registered Report Identifier (irrid): RR2-10.2196/36158., (©Josefin Hagström, Charlotte Blease, Barbara Haage, Isabella Scandurra, Scharlett Hansson, Maria Hägglund. Originally published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research (https://www.jmir.org), 22.11.2022.)

Objectives: The introduction of information and communication technology influences the work environment of large groups of employees in healthcare. In Sweden, a national healthcare service providing patient accessible electronic health records (PAEHR) has been deployed, and this paper investigates nurses' expected effects of this implementation., Setting: Nurses associated with the Swedish Association of Health Professionals working in healthcare such as primary care, hospitals and midwives in Sweden. Before a full-scale national implementation of PAEHR, a web survey study was distributed nationally. The respondents represented all 21 Swedish regions. Questions included five-point Likert scale questions and open questions., Participants: A survey link was distributed via email to 8460 registered nurses, midwives and union representatives in Sweden. The response rate was 35.4% (2867 respondents: registered nurses 84%; midwives 6%; chief position 5%; in projects 2% and other 3%). Three reminders were sent out, all of them increasing the response rate. A majority of the respondents were female (89.9%), 8.4% male, whereas 1.7% did not indicate their gender. 31.4% were under 40 years old, 53.8% 40-59 and 13.7% over 60., Results: Data were analysed using exploratory factor analysis with principal component analysis as the extraction method. The analysis revealed three distinct factors related to nurses' expectations of PAEHR: (1) PAEHR improves the quality of care, (2) PAEHR improves the quality of the work environment and (3) risk and fears concerning patients' well-being. Some interesting results include that more experienced nurses are more favourable to PAEHR. Our analysis also shows that the view of the nurse-patient relationship is an essential underlying factor related to positive or negative expectations., Conclusions: Results show that the expectations and perceptions of PAEHR vary depending on the nurse's view of who the electronic record belongs to. Younger nurses are somewhat more negative towards PAEHR than older nurses., Competing Interests: Competing interests: None declared., (© Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2022. Re-use permitted under CC BY-NC. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ.)

Background: Patient portals are increasingly being implemented worldwide to ensure that patients have timely access to their health data, including patients' access to their electronic health records. In Sweden, the e-service Journalen is a national patient-accessible electronic health record (PAEHR), accessible on the web through the national patient portal. User characteristics and perceived benefits of using a PAEHR will influence behavioral intentions to use and adoption; however, poor usability, which increases effort expectancy, may have a negative impact. Therefore, it is of interest to further explore how users of the PAEHR Journalen perceive its usability and usefulness., Objective: On the basis of the analysis of the survey respondents' experiences of the usability of the Swedish PAEHR, this study aimed to identify specific usability problems that may need to be addressed in the future., Methods: A survey study was conducted to elicit opinions and experiences of patients using Journalen. Data were collected from June to October 2016. The questionnaire included a free-text question regarding the usability of the system, and the responses were analyzed using content analysis with a sociotechnical framework as guidance when grouping identified usability issues., Results: During the survey period, 423,141 users logged into Journalen, of whom 2587 (0.61%) completed the survey (unique users who logged in; response rate 0.61%). Of the 2587 respondents, 186 (7.19%) provided free-text comments on the usability questions. The analysis resulted in 19 categories, which could be grouped under 7 of the 8 dimensions in the sociotechnical framework of Sittig and Singh. The most frequently mentioned problems were related to regional access limitations, structure and navigation of the patient portal, and language and understanding., Conclusions: Although the survey respondents, who were also end users of the PAEHR Journalen, were overall satisfied with its usability, they also experienced important challenges when accessing their records. For all patients to be able to reap the benefits of record access, it is essential to understand both the usability challenges they encounter and, more broadly, how policies, regulations, and technical implementation decisions affect the usefulness of record access. The results presented here are specific to the Swedish PAEHR Journalen but also provide important insights into how design and implementation of record access can be improved in any context., (©Maria Hägglund, Isabella Scandurra. Originally published in JMIR Human Factors (https://humanfactors.jmir.org), 23.06.2022.)

Background: As patient online access to electronic health records becomes the standard, implementation of access for adolescents and parents varies across providers, regions, and countries. There is currently no international compilation of evidence to guide policy decisions in matters such as age limit for access and the extent of parent proxy access., Objective: This paper presents the protocol for a scoping review of different stakeholders' (including but not limited to end users) perspectives on use, opinions, and experiences pertaining to online access to electronic health records by parents, children, and adolescents., Methods: This scoping review will be conducted according to the Arksey and O'Malley framework. Several databases will be used to conduct a literature search (PubMed, CINAHL, and PsycInfo), in addition to literature found outside of these databases. All authors will participate in screening identified papers, following the research question: How do different stakeholders experience parents', children's, and adolescents' online access to the electronic health records of children and adolescents? Data abstraction will include but will not be limited to publication type, publication year, country, sample characteristics, setting, study aim, research question, and conclusions. The data to be analyzed are from publicly available secondary sources, so this study does not require an ethics review., Results: The results from this scoping review will be presented in a narrative form, and additional data on study characteristics will be presented in diagrams or tabular format. This scoping review protocol was first initiated by Uppsala University in June 2021 as part of the NordForsk-funded research project NORDeHEALTH. The results are expected to be presented in a scoping review in June 2022. The results will be disseminated through stakeholder meetings, scientific conference presentations, oral presentations to the public, and publication in a peer-reviewed journal., Conclusions: This is, to our knowledge, the first study to map the literature on the use and experiences of parents' and adolescents' online access to the electronic health records of children and adolescents. The findings will describe what benefits and risks have been experienced by different stakeholders so far in different countries. A mapping of studies could inform the design and implementation of future regulations around access to patient-accessible electronic health records., International Registered Report Identifier (irrid): DERR1-10.2196/36158., (©Josefin Hagström, Charlotte Blease, Barbara Haage, Isabella Scandurra, Scharlett Hansson, Maria Hägglund. Originally published in JMIR Research Protocols (https://www.researchprotocols.org), 15.06.2022.)

An increasing number of countries are implementing patient access to electronic health records (EHR). However, EHR access for parents, children and adolescents presents ethical challenges of data integrity, and regulations vary across providers, regions, and countries. In the present study, we compare EHR access policy for parents, children and adolescents in four countries. Documentation from three areas: upper age limit of minors for which parents have access; age at which minors obtain access; and possibilities of access restriction and extension was collected from Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Estonia. Results showed that while all systems provided parents with automatic proxy access, age limits for its expiry differed. Furthermore, a lower minimum age than 18 for adolescent access was present in two of four countries. Differences between countries and potential implications for adolescents are discussed. We conclude that experiences of various approaches should be explored to promote the development of EHR regulations for parents, children and adolescents that increases safety, quality, and equality of care.

For healthcare personnel, the work environment is already challenging, and when eHealth systems are introduced they are often considered to further add to the complexity. This paper investigates the impact of patients' access to their electronic health records on healthcare professionals' work environment in a primary care setting in Sweden. A work environment theory-driven analysis, focusing on perceived demands, control and support, was conducted on 14 semi-structured interviews of different primary care professionals. The professionals expressed a slight increase in demands, loss of control and some increase and decrease of support. This study discusses insights on how patients' access to health records can have an impact on healthcare professionals' work environment.

Several Nordic and Baltic countries are forerunners in the digitalization of patient ehealth services and have since long implemented psychiatric records as parts of the ehealth services. There are country-specific differences in what clinical information is offered to patients concerning their online patient accessible psychiatric records. This study explores national differences in Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Estonia in patient access to their psychiatric records. Data was collected through a socio-technical data collection template developed during a workshop series and then analyzed in a cross-country comparison focusing on items related to psychiatry records online. The results show that psychiatric records online are offered to patients in all four countries, and provide the same functionality and similar psychiatry information. Overall, the conclusion is that experiences of various functionalities should be scrutinized to promote transparency of psychiatric records as part of the national eHealth services to increase equality of care and patient empowerment.

Patients' access to electronic health records (EHRs) is debated worldwide, and access to psychiatry records is even more criticized. There is a nationwide service in Sweden which offers all citizens the opportunity to read their EHR, including clinical notes. This study aims to explore Swedish national and local policy regulations regarding patients' access to their psychiatric notes and describe to what extent patients currently are offered access to them. The rationale behind the study is that current policies and current practices may differ between the 21 self-governing regions, although there is a national regulation. We gathered web-based information from policy documents and regulations from each region's website. We also conducted key stakeholder interviews with respondents from the regions and cross-regional private care providers, using a qualitative approach. The results show that 17 of 21 regions share psychiatric notes with patients, where forensic psychiatric care was the most excluded psychiatric care setting. All private care providers reported that they mainly follow the regions' guidelines. Our findings show that regional differences concerning sharing psychiatric notes persist, despite Swedish regulations and a national policy that stipulates equal care for everyone. The differences, however, appear to have decreased over time, and we report evidence that the regions are moving toward increased transparency for psychiatry patients.

Background: Transparency is increasingly called for in health care, especially, when it comes to patients' access to their electronic health records. In Sweden, the e-service Journalen is a national patient accessible electronic health record (PAEHR), accessible online via the national patient portal. User characteristics and perceived benefits of using a PAEHR influence behavioral intention for use and adoption, but poor usability that increases the effort expectancy can have a negative impact. It is, therefore, of interest to explore how users of the PAEHR Journalen perceive its usability and usefulness., Objective: The aim of this study was to explore how the users of the Swedish PAEHR experience the usability of the system and to identify differences in these experiences based on the level of transparency of the region., Methods: A survey study was conducted to elicit opinions and experiences of patients using Journalen. The data were collected from June to October 2016. The questionnaire included questions regarding the usability of the system from the System Usability Scale (SUS). The SUS analysis was the focus of this paper. Analysis was performed on different levels: nationally looking at the whole data set and breaking it down by focusing on 2 different regions to explore differences in experienced usability based on the level of transparency., Results: During the survey period, 423,141 users logged into Journalen, of which 2587 unique users completed the survey (response rate 0.61%). The total mean score for all respondents to the SUS items was 79.81 (SD 14.25), which corresponds to a system with good usability. To further explore whether the level of transparency in a region would affect the user's experience of the usability of the system, we analyzed the 2 regions with the most respondents: Region Uppsala (the first to launch, with a high level of transparency), and Region Skåne (an early implementer, with a low level of transparency at the time of the survey). Of the participants who responded to at least 1 SUS statement, 520 stated that they had received care in Region Skåne, whereas 331 participants had received care in Region Uppsala. Uppsala's mean SUS score was 80.71 (SD 13.41), compared with Skåne's mean of 79.37 (SD 13.78)., Conclusions: The Swedish national PAEHR Journalen has a reasonably good usability (mean SUS score 79.81, SD 14.25); however, further research into more specific usability areas are needed to ensure usefulness and ease of use in the future. A somewhat higher SUS score for the region with high transparency compared with the region with low transparency could indicate a relationship between the perceived usability of a PAEHR and the level of transparency offered, but further research on the relationship between transparency and usability is required., (©Maria Hägglund, Isabella Scandurra. Originally published in JMIR Human Factors (https://humanfactors.jmir.org), 27.07.2021.)

Patient portals are used as a means to facilitate communication, performing administrative tasks, or accessing one's health record. In a retrospective analysis of real-world data from the Swedish National Patient Portal 1177.se, we describe the rate of adoption over time, as well as how patterns of device usage have changed over time. In Jan 2013, 53% of all visits were made from a computer, and 38% from a mobile phone. By June 2020, 77% of all visits were made from a mobile phone and only 20% from a computer. These results underline the importance of designing responsive patient portals that allow patients to use any device without losing functionality or usability.

Patient portals are used as a means to facilitate communication, performing administrative tasks, or accessing one's health record. A qualitative study was therefore performed to understand how people with hearing loss experience using the Swedish national patient portal 1177.se and the patient accessible electronic health record Journalen. Data was collected through focus groups and individual interviews. Ten persons with varying degree of hearing loss, age and years of using a hearing aid participated. The data was analyzed through thematic content analysis and three themes emerged; access to written information, patient-created information and personalized communication. Although the study is limited in size, we believe that important lessons can be learned regarding the needs for personalized communication, including access to written information.

"Journalen" is a patient accessible electronic health record (PAEHR) and the national eHealth service for Sweden's citizens to gain access to their EHR. The Swedish national eHealth organization Inera, responsible for Journalen, created an inbox to receive voluntary user feedback about Journalen in order to improve the service from the user perspective. Based on voluntary user feedback via email. This study explored patients' experiences of using the national eHealth service and identified pros and cons. A mixed method content analysis was performed. In total, 1084 emails from 2016-2017 have been analyzed. 9 categories were identified, the most frequent ones related to questions about why some information was not accessible (due to regional differencies), feedback (including only positive or negative comments as well as constructive improvement suggestions), and emails about errors that user found in their record. These data can be successfully used to continuously improve an already implemented eHealth service.

The number of patients with multimorbidity has been steadily increasing in the modern aging societies. The European C3-Cloud project provides a multidisciplinary and patient-centered "Collaborative Care and Cure-system" for the management of elderly with multimorbidity, enabling continuous coordination of care activities between multidisciplinary care teams (MDTs), patients and informal caregivers (ICG). In this study various components of the infrastructure were tested to fulfill the functional requirements and the entire system was subjected to an early application testing involving different groups of end-users. MDTs from participating European regions were involved in requirement elicitation and test formulation, resulting in 57 questions, distributed via an internet platform to 48 test participants (22 MDTs, 26 patients) from three pilot sites. The results indicate a high level of satisfaction with all components. Early testing also provided feedback for technical improvement of the entire system, and the paper points out useful evaluation methods.

Background: Internationally, there is a movement toward providing patients a Web-based access to their electronic health records (EHRs). In Sweden, Region Uppsala was the first to introduce patient-accessible EHRs (PAEHRs) in 2012. By the summer of 2016, 17 of 21 county councils had given citizens Web-based access to their medical information. Studies on the effect of PAEHRs on the work environment of health care professionals have been conducted, but up until now, few extensive studies have been conducted regarding patients' experiences of using PAEHRs in Sweden or Europe, more generally., Objective: The objective of our study was to investigate patients' experiences of accessing their EHRs through the Swedish national patient portal. In this study, we have focused on describing user characteristics, usage, and attitudes toward the system., Methods: A national patient survey was designed, based on previous interview and survey studies with patients and health care professionals. Data were collected during a 5-month period in 2016. The survey was made available through the PAEHR system, called Journalen, in Sweden. The total number of patients that logged in and could access the survey during the study period was 423,141. In addition to descriptive statistics reporting response frequencies on Likert scale questions, Mann-Whitney tests, Kruskal-Wallis tests, and chi-square tests were used to compare answers between different county councils as well as between respondents working in health care and all other respondents., Results: Overall, 2587 users completed the survey with a response rate of 0.61% (2587/423,141). Two participants were excluded from the analysis because they had only received care in a county council that did not yet show any information in Journalen. The results showed that 62.97% (1629/2587) of respondents were women and 39.81% (1030/2587) were working or had been working in health care. In addition, 72.08% (1794/2489) of respondents used Journalen about once a month, and the main reason for use was to gain an overview of one's health status. Furthermore, respondents reported that lab results were the most important information for them to access; 68.41% (1737/2539) of respondents wanted access to new information within a day, and 96.58% (2454/2541) of users reported that they are positive toward Journalen., Conclusions: In this study, respondents provided several important reasons for why they use Journalen and why it is important for them to be able to access information in this way-several related to patient empowerment, involvement, and security. Considering the overall positive attitude, PAEHRs seem to fill important needs for patients., (©Jonas Moll, Hanife Rexhepi, Åsa Cajander, Christiane Grünloh, Isto Huvila, Maria Hägglund, Gunilla Myreteg, Isabella Scandurra, Rose-Mharie Åhlfeldt. Originally published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research (http://www.jmir.org), 01.11.2018.)

In Sweden, and internationally, there is an ongoing debate about the effects of national implementations of Patient Accessible Electronic Health Records (PAEHRs). The purpose of this paper was to describe the current situation in Sweden and compare this with the expectations on reasonable waiting time for information access of users of the Swedish PAEHR. Data were collected from publicly available resources regarding current implementation in the 21 county councils, contrasted with patient experiences, gathered from a national online survey. The results indicate that patients have high expectations on immediate access to information, while this varies greatly in implementation across Sweden.

The number of eHealth services for patients is rapidly increasing worldwide. This paper describes the status of a very important eHealth service for patients in Sweden, the Patient Accessible Electronic Health Record (PAEHR). As many countries are facing an introduction of national eHealth services providing health information to the patients, lessons learned from Sweden may improve the deployment and use of PAEHRs and similar eHealth services. Challenges that remain in Sweden relate to local differences in the implementation that lead to fragmentation and unequal access to information. Initiatives have been taken to reconcile some of the problems, e.g. an updated national regulatory framework for PAEHR. To date, evaluations are often performed from a healthcare provider perspective, focusing on aspects that are considered important by healthcare professionals and decision makers. Based on experiences of this nation-wide implementation we argue for the need to also base evaluations of eHealth on the perspective of the patients.

In Sweden, all citizens can (in 2017) access their health data online from all county councils using one national eHealth service. However, depending on where the patient lives, different information is provided as care providers have assessed differently how to apply the National Regulatory Framework (NRF). The NRF recently was updated and this paper analyses version 2.0 should now serve as the guideline for all county councils. Potential improvements are analyzed in relation to patient experiences of using the service, and the rationale for each change in the NRF is discussed. Two real case quotations are used to illustrate potential implications for the patient when the new version is placed into operation. Results indicate that this NRF allows for opportunities to create a national eHealth service that better supports patient-centered care and improves health information outcome.