Developing a Regional Solution to Digital Transformation of Health Care Services: Collaboration, Leadership, and Technological Expertise

Abstract

This paper analyses a regional solution to digital transformation of health care services in Norway during the period 2014 to 2020. Facing the national health authorities' requirements for implementing welfare technology in public health care services, this rural region with its many small and medium-sized municipalities developed a unique framework for supporting this task across the small units. First, collaboration between organizations representing a wide set of competences, roles, and positions in the region and locally; second, a regional center responsible for developing health care services thatunlike other similar centers in Norway, took on a role to lead this work; and third, a regional emergency central originally developed for fire services taking on the role as the technical expert in the region. The analysis is based on documentation, project reports and interviews with participants from the project. While national guidelines for implementation of welfare technology have been important for motivating this work, many challenges were left for municipalities to solve, in particular the question pursued here: how should local and regional traditions be transformed to integrate technology in a sector and among professional groups that traditionally have not been associated with technology? The findings show that the regional model for collaboration supported the municipalities' health care services in this task by building on a regional model for cross-sectoral collaboration as well as regional trusted networks and channels of communication in unique ways in a national context.