The Danish National Health Informatics Strategy.

The central vision for the future information systems in the Danish health care sector is one of a generally accepted, common information model enabling comprehensive digital reuse of shared clinical data. A generic 'Basic-EHR-structure' has been developed for this purpose by the National Board of Health from a through analysis of the production of clinical information. The strategy contributes to the achievement of the national political goals for the health care sector and describes four important steps to be made by the health care IT systems in order to reach full interoperability and digital reusability of clinical information. Some important initiatives of the strategy are a national terminology server, coordinated implementation of EHRs, and the Public Health Information Portal.

[IT systems for clinical databases--status and perspectives]. / It-systemer til kliniske kvalitetsdatabaser--status og perspektiver.

Generally, the use of clinical databases for quality development in the hospital sector has not been satisfactory. A substantial problem attaches to the IT systems used hitherto. This article describes a number of requirements which the National Indicator Project has specified for a forthcoming second generation of clinical database system. Besides, the second generation system Clinical Performance Measurements which is used in the Copenhagen Hospital Corporation for several disease areas and for The Danish Vascular Registry is described. This experience emphasizes the need for central management of development initiatives within clinical quality databases. The management must allow for coordination, rational management and experience-based further development of IT systems for the clinical databases and integration with present and forthcoming systems including electronic patient record systems. The management should also allow for the decisive interaction between clinical quality development and medical informatics.