Minister visit to advance world-class healthcare

The visit to Sahlgrenska University Hospital focused on acute stroke care. Sahlgrenska provides world-class stroke care, and its treatment times are among the fastest in both the country and Europe. The hospital is one of the few healthcare providers in Sweden that use AI as a tool for radiologists and stroke specialists to make faster, more accurate diagnoses—a critical advantage when every minute counts for an acute stroke patient.

Moving from pilots to implemented AI solutions
In Sweden today, there are approximately 198 different AI initiatives underway in healthcare, according to the latest figures from AI Sweden’s mapping project, the Healthcare Map (Vårdkartan). Bridging the gap between successful technical pilots and routinely implemented AI solutions in daily clinical practice remains one of Swedish healthcare's greatest challenges. Just over 10% of these initiatives successfully progress to clinical implementation.

According to Lorna Bartram, AI Transformation Strategist for Healthcare at AI Sweden, a major contributing factor is uncertainty and a lack of knowledge regarding regulatory frameworks, which currently slow down adoption.

Moa Tivell, Senior Public Policy Manager at AI Sweden, emphasizes that while Sweden has a strong foundation to take a leading global position in healthcare AI, it requires a clearer sense of national responsibility.

Collaboration Paves the Way
During the visit to AI Sweden, the Minister for Social Services was shown numerous examples of how the public sector is working together to address regulatory challenges.

In the Responsible Use of AI project - a collaboration involving the National Board of Health and Welfare (Socialstyrelsen), Region Örebro County, and AI Sweden, among others - breast cancer screening is being used as a pilot case to map out how healthcare stakeholders can manage AI responsibly. The feasibility study has identified seven principles for responsible AI use in healthcare and developed proposed solutions, including a responsibility map, with the goal of applying these insights broadly across the entire healthcare system.

Another example of regional collaboration to scale up successful AI pilots involves healthcare incident reporting. Following a successful pilot project where Region Västmanland built an AI solution capable of classifying healthcare incidents with the same accuracy as domain experts, a new partnership is underway with the Västra Götaland Region, Region Skåne, Innovation Skåne, and the Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions (SKR) to scale up this work.

Waltersson Grönvall also reviewed the contents of the new report, From AI Strategy to clinical benefit. The report compiles insights from a partnership between three Swedish regions and the Canadian healthcare provider Unity Health Toronto, an international leader in the clinical application of AI.