COPENHAGEN, Denmark – It's no secret that Nordic countries are decades ahead of some of their European peers in healthcare IT infrastructure and development. Visitors to this year's World of Health IT show in Copenhagen were offered a look at Denmark's system, which relies on the Sundhed eHealth Portal to connect patients and providers.

An eye-catching fixture of the WoHIT exhibition floor was the Danish Village - a large, bright structure composed of several info stations mapping the flow of information through the Danish healthcare system. This flow largely depends on Sundhed, which 300,000 Danish patients use each month to manage their personal health records.

Sundhed, Denmark's first public personal ehealth portal, exists in three formats: An open, public internet room for discussion and general information; a closed portal for physicians to access patient records and consult privately; and a secure, personalized environment in which patients access their own health information and communicate with providers.

"We started the project in 2000 because we needed a platform where we could have secure dialogue between professionals, and a secure dialogue between professionals and the patients," said Finn Klamer, MD, founder of the Sundhed portal.

"The family doctor in Denmark is a gatekeeper - a coordinator," Klamer said. He launched the portal with the idea that the doctor would be able to follow a patient through every hospital, clinic, laboratory and pharmacy in Denmark, in order to manage care at every stop.

Klamer said it was difficult getting patients and stakeholders involved in the portal in its early stages, due to the presence of about 20 commercial, private health portals in Denmark. "It has been a difficult process because some of the commercial portals have been there for many years, and they are fairly good," said Klamer. But most Danes are using Sundhed now, he said.

Patients' ability to see their own data and monitor providers' access to that data ultimately set the Sundhed portal apart from the commercial models. "The possibility for the user to see his own data - his own medical profile, was a very good lift for the user end," said Klamer.

Via the "e-journal" feature, Sundhed users see a log of doctor's activity within their care records each time they log in, which Klamer said is "not often."

Using Digital Signature technology installed on their computers, doctors enter the terminal through the "professional account" mode. In order to access the portal via as a professional user, doctors must first be authorized by Denmark's board of health.

Providers must type their reason for viewing a patient's data into a text field on the user profile. Since its launch, there has been only one noteworthy instance of a doctor abusing his access to patient information, and he was reprimanded by the government as a result.

Patients using the portal can also schedule appointments and confirm them via SMS messages, designate which organs to donate and edit their living will.

When asked if other, less IT-ready nations could adopt the Sundhed model, Klamer said, "I think one of the reasons this works is it doesn't cost much for us to do it. It was cheap to develop the EPR. Our political system likes it because we are talking about a new dimension in the healthcare system where the patient himself knows more about his sickness, chronic diseases and lifestyle decisions. It's also popular because it can be used by the citizens as a service to be better active patients when they come into the healthcare system."

Klamer summarized the value of Sundhed in a personal credo. "I used to say we need the right information about the right patient in the right place at the right time. We can do that using the portal."