Five years with Information-driven healthcare: The foundation is laid, now the journey continues

Professor of health innovation, Halmstad University

What value has Information-driven healthcare created for your organization?
It has enabled direct knowledge exchange with Sweden’s regions and deepened our understanding of the challenges associated with implementing information-driven care. Through concrete descriptions of needs and practice-based perspectives, we have been able to strengthen both the quality and relevance of our research. It has also allowed us to position our research in AI and implementation science on a national stage, beyond traditional academic networks.

And on the national level?
By bringing together actors from academia and the regions, the initiative has established a common language and understanding of key challenges – a prerequisite for development, implementation, and scalability. From our perspective, information-driven care has been particularly helped in highlighting the need for evidence-based approaches to implementation.

Anything else to add?
A key takeaway is the importance of long-term, multidisciplinary collaborations where co-creation between research, development, and practice is prioritized. We see a continued need for collaborative structures that support the early involvement of academia in development and transformation, especially around skills and talent supply, change management, and value realization. A concrete outcome of our participation is that we have integrated experiences from information-driven care into our educational programs and professional development initiatives.

Head of unit, Business Intelligence and Systems Integrations, Region Västmanland

What value do you see Information-driven healthcare having created for your organization?
The innovation initiative has helped put information-driven approaches on the agenda and has created the right conditions to focus on these issues through collaboration between various departments of the region.

And on the national level?
On a national level, Information-driven healthcare has raised awareness and acted as a catalyst. Without it, I don’t think that as many regions and government agencies would have collaborated, nor would they have progressed as far as they have today.

Anything to add?
A key success factor, I believe, has been the unifying role of AI Sweden, and the fact that the core team’s collaboration has been free from prestige, transparent, and inclusive.

Head of Diagnostics and Research IT, Karolinska University Hospital

What value has Information-driven healthcare created for your organization?
For example, by enabling us to meet with Unity Health Toronto. They are ahead of us in many ways, so it has been valuable to hear how they approach AI—how they have structured their AI organization, how they handle the legal aspects, and how they implement AI within their operations. This helps us progress more quickly.

And on the national level?
We have benefited greatly from the national network. The regions* face very similar challenges, and by working together, we can all move forward more efficiently. The innovation initiative has also been able to advance issues on a national level in order to influence government agencies and other key stakeholders.

Anything to add?
There is a significant need to maintain this collaboration and network moving forward, allowing different participants from the hospitals to step in and out of projects based on their specific needs.

Head of the Center of Excellence for AI at Sahlgrenska University Hospital

What value has Information-driven healthcare created for your organization?
It has helped us establish contacts and networks with other actors, especially hospitals and regions in Sweden, where we have been able to exchange experiences and collaborate in concrete ways. Information-driven healthcare has also helped us strengthen our capabilities to drive development and innovation projects, and build the foundation for long-term AI implementation in our organization.

And on the national level?
IDV has been the central hub for AI in Swedish healthcare, bringing together stakeholders from across the sector.

Anything to add?
Information-driven healthcare has helped us advance issues that we would not have been able to tackle on our own. These efforts have been crucial for building a strong foundation and the conditions for us to successfully continue our internal AI development. In practice, this includes areas like synthetic data, federated learning, and enabling secure data sharing with other regions.