With an ageing population and large sparsely populated areas throughout the Nordic region, digitalisation and remote solutions are important prerequisites for maintaining the quality of the Nordic welfare model. Similar, distance spanning solutions for healthcare and social care services are an effective tool for social service and healthcare provision to protect the most vulnerable citizens (people with chronicle diseases and elderly) from Covid 19.

We have the technology and the knowledge, and the required infrastructure is in place to conduct a full digital transformation of healthcare and social care services. The Nordic region has also a digitally aware population that wants to help develop the digital services offered within healthcare and social care. At the same time, forecasts indicate that there will be a shortage of staff within healthcare and social care. Yhe Nordic countries face a particular challenge when it comes to recruit staff in order for the healthcare and social care sectors to continue to function with the current service model. On the positive side, the staff are digitally ready. Skills development and further training will be required, but the countries in the Nordic region have all the conditions in place for a successful transition thanks to their high degree of digital maturity. Healthcare and care through distance-spanning solutions (also known by its Swedish abbreviation, VOPD) is a priority project for the Nordic Council of Ministers within the framework of the Swedish presidency programme in 2018. Centre for Rural Medicine within Region Västerbotten and the Nordic Welfare Centre are acting as project managers for the work, with the support of the Nordic research institute Nordregio. In this presentation you can learn about 24 practical examples of distance spanning services for healthcare and social care from the Nordic countries, and more. All 24 examples are implemented full scale services, and are accessible for citizens in various regions and municipalities. By implementing a suitable combination of the 24 practical examples of services, you can create the conditions to obtain good quality, local healthcare also in sparsely populated areas. In addition, a combination of these 24 practical examples are likely to be one of the best and most efficient ways to protect our most vulnerable citizens from Covid 19.

Now is the time, the solutions are here and they are ready to put into practice!