Can digitalization do more than just improve accessibility?

A discussion on how digitalization can transform collaboration in healthcare.

Digitalization in healthcare is often discussed in terms of accessibility, wait times, and efficiency. But just as important: what happens to the work environment, teamwork, and professional roles when digital work methods are introduced?

With the Swedish Association of Health Professionals participating in the discussion, the issue of digitalization was also clearly linked to the work environment and professional development. Both Fredrik from Region Örebro and Fredrik at Medpro Clinic in Åmål described how digital work methods can create better conditions for collaboration centered on the patient and lead to more focused, coordinated, and competence-driven consultations. They also agreed that the greatest impact lies not in the technology itself, but in how healthcare organizes collaboration around the patient.

“We didn’t just digitize our clinic—we reorganized our work.”

Sometimes digitalization is interpreted as simply moving what you already do to a screen. This is an approach Fredrik Lann warns against:

“If we just do the same thing digitally as we do in person, we might gain 10 percent in efficiency. If you redesign your work processes, you can gain far more. Don’t digitize on a 1-to-1 basis.”

At 1177 in Region Örebro, nurses, district physicians, and psychologists handle approximately 40,000 digital cases per year. These days, doctors are no longer booked for scheduled appointments in the same way as before. Instead, they assist with cases that truly require their expertise. The result is a different workflow and a transformed collaboration between different professions:

“In a typical health center setting, you might collaborate effectively with colleagues a couple of times a day. In the digital environment, we collaborate like this perhaps twelve times a day.”

From 3,000 to 7,000 patient interactions – with the same staff

Fredrik Skärlund in Åmål has figures that speak for themselves. In one year, the number of doctor-patient interactions doubled from 770 to 1,600 per month. The total number of contacts rose from 3,000 to 7,000—while maintaining the same physical capacity.

“It’s primarily about the use of technology and the way we work, and secondarily about the technology itself,” he says.

Interprofessional collaboration has fundamentally changed. For example, doctors, social service practitioners, and psychiatric unit physicians now hold joint digital rounds for individual patients. Patients who previously had to wait 3–4 months for a psychiatric appointment can now be seen within 3–4 weeks through these rounds.

“We simply become better at managing complex care needs when everyone’s expertise is utilized.”

Better care, not just faster care

An often-overlooked and perhaps somewhat unexpected effect of digitalization is quality. Fredrik Lann again:

“A digital workplace has far fewer distractions, allowing healthcare staff to focus much better. This improves the quality of care.”

For Medpro in Åmål, too, it’s not just about accessibility for patients. Complex cases where specialist psychiatry, social services, and primary care need to collaborate can now be managed in real time, without the patient having to navigate the system on their own. Here, the digital approach creates the conditions for better care.

Recruitment, flexibility, and the health center of the future

A key difference is the ability to recruit staff to a location that previously struggled to attract personnel, largely due to significant geographical distances.

“With digital tools, it’s much easier for us to recruit—staff can work part of the time in person in Åmål and part of the time where they live, in another municipality or region,” explains Fredrik Skärlund.

The next step is to automate care pathways for known chronic conditions, handle more complex cases centrally, and continue to foster a data-driven culture of improvement. As Fredrik Skärlund sums it up:

“We look at which processes can be managed per unit of time, and then we make improvements based on that.”

Perhaps that is precisely where the true potential of digitalization lies: not in healthcare gaining yet another tool, but in bringing the right expertise together around the patient—faster, more focused, and with better conditions for both patients and healthcare staff.