Sweden Patient portal

The 1177.se Health Portal was launched in Sweden in 1998. 1177.se (VÃ¥rdguiden) originated from the telephone number 117, used to call for health advice/services in Sweden. 1177.se web portal is a public service website where citizen scan access and search for information about illnesses, symptoms, and treatments, as well as finding out about healthcare in their particular region or County. The Portal provides citizens with vital health information in form of texts, movies, animations for children and an anonymous in quiring service, where Doctors and Nurses answer questions. The portal has four main sections:

1. Facts and advice
2. Find clinic
3. Rules and rights
4. login (sign-in)

1177.se Portal is being used in all the Counties or regions of Sweden and connects through the National Health Information Exchange Platform (NHIEP) to the Electronic Health Records (HERs) systems, which was introduced to reduce the number of phone calls that were received per day and to avail health-related information to citizens regardless of the time. The portal empowers patients to manage their own health through multiple services. Such as, Facts and advice, find care, e-Services (sign in).

However, this study did not focus on the login (sign-in) section since it involves confidentiality and required permission from the ethics committee. The study, therefore, focused only on Facts and advice, Rules and Rights as well as Find care, where information is not confidential.

there have been many local and regional e-health projects and programs implemented in Sweden.  Currently, a number of health portals are providing health services in different counties of Sweden. 1177.se portal health portal is one of the web portals in Sweden which provides different health care services to the citizens. Citizens can search on this portal for information about news on health care, maps and directions, county organization and activities, jobs, how to manage health, treatments and diseases, rights and obligations of the patient.

The portal is available in the Swedish language. However, it has provision for other languages. The cardinal role of developing the portal was to improve access to health information by the citizens of Sweden, though the portal seems to be experiencing usability challenges. including navigation issues, inconsistencies of information. The purpose of the study, was to investigate the usability of 1177.se portal in Sweden and how it has helped citizens’ access health services or information in an efficient and effective way.

Maryam Ghalandari