“Denmark’s strong information infrastructure enables national exchange of data. A national electronic medical record (EMR) system allows access to individual patient medical records for patients and health professionals at all levels. There are currently two EMR systems at the hospital level and a number of systems at the GP level, but a set of shared standards enables access to key data for patients and professionals at all levels. All GP practices use EMRs and all prescriptions and referrals are digital. The Danish government, Danish regions and local government bodies are collaborating on a Strategy for Digital Health to be implemented between 2018 and 2022. Among its key goals it includes creating better opportunities for patients to participate in their own care pathways by providing them with greater insight into their own medical information, and promoting more flexible contacts with the health care system, including through services provided in the patient’s own home (Ministry of Health, Local Government Denmark and Danish Regions, 2018). Some initiatives are also under way to promote more effective use of health data, through a national programme and local initiatives. This includes the development of Danish clinical registries to support the provision of data on activity and quality in real time for hospital staff and patients. Indicators of health care quality include not only clinical measures but also, increasingly, patient-reported experiences and outcomes (Box 4).”

Source: OECD/European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies (2019), Denmark: Country Health Profile 2019, State of Health in the EU, OECD Publishing, Paris/European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies, Brussels.
https://ec.europa.eu/health/state/country_profiles_en
https://ec.europa.eu/health/sites/health/files/state/docs/2019_chp_da_english.pdf

“Embedding patient-reported information in the care process is high on the policy agenda. In 2017, Denmark launched a comprehensive national programme to foster nationwide implementation of patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs). A national steering group was created to support the standardisation of PROMs across all sectors in the health care system and to support their use in daily clinical practice and for quality improvement. A secretariat was also set up to carry on the operational work of establishing and maintaining terminology, establishing a bank of questionnaires, developing guidelines for standardised use of PROMs, supporting adoption of international PROMs, and sharing knowledge about PROMs.

“In primary care, Danish GPs can use an electronic data platform (called Web-Patient) to access data uploaded by patients, including measurements taken at home and PROMs. This tool fosters ongoing monitoring and dialogue during consultations.

“In hospital care, PROMs have been embedded in a number of clinical registries, including those for rheumatology, urology, gynaecology, obstetrics, different types of cancer (prostate and lung) and palliative care. In 2019, a new initiative was launched to create a national set of PROMs for patients with mental illnesses (such as depression and schizophrenia) and epilepsy for national use.”

Source: OECD/European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies (2019), Denmark: Country Health Profile 2019, State of Health in the EU, OECD Publishing, Paris/European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies, Brussels.
https://ec.europa.eu/health/state/country_profiles_en
https://ec.europa.eu/health/sites/health/files/state/docs/2019_chp_da_english.pdf

“A number of public registers exist within the health care field concerning the population’s use of health care benefits, disease incidence and prevalence, causes of death, and so on (Thygesen & Ersbøll, 2011). The registers are mainly compiled for administrative purposes and the information regarding individuals is used for treatment and statistical research purposes. More specifically, the data can be used for the management of health expenses or the planning of activities within the health system. The registers and their data are furthermore very important for both epidemiological studies and health services research in Denmark (see also section 4.1.4).

“In the most commonly used registers, individuals are labelled according to a personal identification number (in the Central National Register (Centrale Person Register), the Danish Civil Registration System) and the Register contains information on the individuals, including their family relations, education and income status (Vallgårda & Krasnik, 2008). This provides researchers with the opportunity to collect and combine information at an individual level from different registers for the analysis of statistical associations (Knudsen & Hansen, 2008). Such coupling of registers is under strict regulation, because of data sensitivity.”

Source: Olejaz M, Juul Nielsen A, Rudkjøbing A, Okkels Birk H, Krasnik A, Hernández-Quevedo C. Denmark: Health system review. Health Systems in Transition, 2012, 14(2):1 – 192.

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Page last updated March 25, 2021 by Doug McVay, Editor.