e-Referral in Denmark

The MedCom-Projects in Denmark

The first Danish project started in Vejle in Fyn County in 1995 and was based on EDIFACT-messages. Although Denmark started early, electronic referrals have had a slower uptake then most other health messages. 41% of the referrals were sent electronically in 2004, and 63% of the referrals were sent electronically in November 2008.

In June 2008, a solution called the referral hotel was introduced and rolled out in full scale over a period of three months. The general practitioners fill out the electronic referral in their electronic health record EHR system and send referrals as EDI-message to a repository.

The patient will then contact the specialist for appointment by phone or e-mail. The specialist retrieves the referral from the hotel by means of a standardized EDI-message. The patient can also ask the patient to send the referral directly to a named specialist. MedCom reports that all general practitioners and specialists in Denmark currently have the access to the system, and that it is widely used. Use of the hotel is compulsory for the general practitioners.

The development and management of the referral hotel is paid by the hospital regions.

For more than 25 years, Denmark has seen a significant roll-out of IT services within the whole healthcare sector with the hospitals, general practitioners and municipalities leading the way.

MedCom was established in 1994 as a publicly funded, non-profit organisation with the mission of facilitating the digital cooperation between authorities, public organisations, private entities, and companies who are all linked to the Danish healthcare sector. MedCom is financed and owned by the Ministry of Health, Danish Regions and Local Government Denmark (municipalities).

MedCom enables general practitioners, hospitals, municipalities, and other healthcare providers to exchange health information by developing and implementing digital solutions. These solutions enable data exchange across sectors in order to support a digitally coherent healthcare system, which ensures that patients and citizens receive the best possible care and that relevant health information is available across the whole care pathway. MedCom works in close cooperation with all parts of the healthcare sector, incl. the IT vendors, aiming to build solutions that support clinical needs and procedures and that are implementable across the healthcare ecosystem. 

Furthermore, MedCom also safeguards data to allow specialised IT systems to exchange health data in a secure and trusted way. For example, when a patient has multiple contacts with different parts of the healthcare system or when a video connection enables patients to have a consultation with their general practitioner from home.

Source: https://www.medcom.dk/medcom-in-english