IfG.CC -
Institute for eGovernment

According to the WEF, Denmark's climb to the top can be traced back to its excellent regulatory environment, together with the government's leadership and vision in leveraging information and communication technologies (ICT) for growth, and promoting its penetration and usage.

Denmark, like most countries, faced a serious health-related quandary: how to deliver efficient, effective and affordable care at a time of escalating costs and increased demand for services.

But unlike many others, Denmark harnessed IT to create a national health portal to help drive improvements in its health care system. This portal, called Sundhed.dk (sundhed means “health”), has increased communication among doctors and between doctors and patients, increased collaboration among health care providers, boosted efficiencies and even improved the quality of care.

Schwerpunkt des Programms ist das Thema E-Health. In diesem Bereich hat Dänemark eine Spitzenposition. Rezepte, Entlassungsschreiben und Abrechnungen werden weitgehend elektronisch verschickt. Internetkonsultationen sind möglich. Außerdem können über das Internet umfassende Patienteninformationen über Medikamente, Krankheiten und ihre Behandlung abgerufen werden. Zusammengeführt werden die Angebote seit 2003 im Health-Portal „sundhed.dk“. Seit dem letzten Jahr wird auch ein Klinikvergleich angeboten. Das Webportal „sundhedkvalitet.dk“ bietet Informationen zur medizinischen Ausstattung, Versorgungsqualität, Sicherheit und Hygiene der Krankenhäuser. Bis 2009 sollen die Daten aller dänischen Krankenhäuser über das Webportal verfügbar sein.

The Danish have, according to several studies, the most efficient health information system in the world. All primary care physicians and almost half of the hospitals utilize electronic records, in comparison to just 10 percent of hospitals and 17 percent of physicians here. The Danish health system saves doctors about 50 minutes a day in administrative work, and a 2008 report from the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society estimates that the electronic records system saves Denmark $120 million annually.

Moving public services online and adopting an e-governance approach could help governments fight fraud and corruption, the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs has said.

In a report, launched on Monday, the Danish government highlighted that e-governance – moving public services online – can also increase productivity, services and transparency.

Too many not opening public sector mails

Although most Danes have been using their digital mailbox to receive mail from their municipality, the hospitals, Skat and other public entities, about 246,000 people are yet to open their digital mailboxes. Mostly young, non-Danish speaking and disadvantaged people have not responded to mail they have received.

A consulting firm, in cooperation with the state, municipalities and regions, published an analysis that shows how the objective of the Common Public Digitalisation Strategy can be achieved; their conclusion is that 80 % of all relevant communication between citizens and businesses and the public sector should be digital by the end of 2015.

Service Portal will also a web-based application for the 10 000 users who use the Agency's service desk, where users are able to log online IT problems and thereby gain access to support. The content of Service Portal can be targeted to individual customers or specific user groups.

Denmark’s latest e-government strategy, ‘Joint Public Digital Strategy: The Digital Road to Future Prosperity 2011-2015’ released in August 2011, challenged government agencies to use new technologies to step up from providing information and services, to creating genuine engagement with citizens. The municipality of Copenhagen, the largest in Denmark, has risen to this challenge by providing a more personalised and collaborative user experience.

Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark, has been named the safest city in the world. It has achieved this distinction by surpassing Tokyo, Singapore and Osaka which have topped the previous years. Canada’s Toronto is at number two and Singapore is at number three. The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) has released the list of 60 safest cities in the world under the Safe Cities Index-2021.

Delhi is ranked 48th and Mumbai 50th among the top 50 cities. In the last index, Delhi was ranked 52nd and Mumbai 45th. A comprehensive study of cities around the world was conducted for the index. The EIU had set out 76 parameters to provide a clear picture of global urban security. These included digital, health, infrastructure, personal and environmental safety. All the cities have been given different scores out of 100 in these five parameters. In view of Corona, the issue of environmental protection was included for the first time this year.

The Digital Cities Index 2022 report by Economist Impact found that involving citizens in the design of smart city schemes underpins meaningful inclusion.

Copenhagen has topped the Digital Cities Index 2022, followed by Amsterdam, Beijing, London and Seoul rounding out the top five.

The cities were adjudged to have performed the best, with successful open data projects and major strides in smart technology-powered sustainability projects like utility management.

This way, the public authorities say no to the costly parallel registers and yes to growth, innovation and employment. Once the public authorities have cleaned up and merged data, the parallel registers will end. This is expected to save from public sector spending the amount of DKK 260 million (approx. €34 million) annually by 2020. Welcoming this initiative, Bjarne Corydon, the Danish Minister for Finance said: “As the Minister for Finance, this is of course a great day. This project provides us with a more modern public sector and enables us to work more intelligently so that our money in municipalities or at the treasury can be spent as wisely as possible.”

NemID provides the means for secure digital communication. More than 3.2 million Danes now use it, with over 2.9 million using it for both banking and the public sector. In the future, NemID is expected to facilitate much greater use of self-service in citizens' contacts with the municipalities, regions and State authorities.

The Danish Platform digitaliser.dk reports that to make Development Guide of good self-service even better, they have in the first quarter of 2014 sought experiences and suggestions for improvement. In this context, they have amongst other things, looked at web statistics and actual usage patterns, created user and satisfaction surveys and organized a workshop.

The new strategy, which the Government developed in collaboration with Danish Regions and the municipalities, specifies a need to speed up the implementation of electronic patient records, and to deploy telemedicine sooner and for a broader range of patient groups than currently.

Through these networks, patients can gain knowledge about their condition, share experiences and get advice, support and insight into how to deal and live with it. Their interaction with others in the same situation gives them courage and support in difficult times and empowers them to avoid the isolation they would otherwise feel. The networks thereby enable patients to fulfil needs which are otherwise not covered by, for example, a patient association which lacked a forum for sustained dialogue.

After logging into their personal pages with their NemID, citizens can access the 'My Health Summary' service which allows them to have an overview of their health information that has been gathered from various health sources. This information includes: medical prescriptions, hospital stays, electronic health records, status of test results, organ donation and living wills.