Mehr Einsatz Wagen Folge 74: Broadening our Health-Horizon with Maria Bäcklund-Hassel

What This Episode Covers

• DMEA 2025 Takeaways
  A sense of real momentum across startups, politics, and institutions. Not just buzz—but action.
• Digital Health Applications (DiGA)
  • Today’s DiGAs often replicate analog therapies.
  • The real potential? Smart, predictive, data-driven tools integrated into care.
• System Barriers & Bottlenecks
  • Projects funded by KHZG or the Innovation Fund often fail to scale.
  • Resistance from doctors, outdated incentives, and slow regulation hinder progress.
• Reimagining the Physician's Role
  • From gatekeeper to interpreter of AI and digital tools.
  • Like pilots using autopilot: trust tech, but stay in command.
• A Broader View on Health
  • Health is more than diagnosis and treatment—it's also mental well-being, connection, and joy.
  • Social prescribing and longevity-focused models gain traction.
  • “Health as investment” replaces “health as cost.”
• Data Ownership & Trust
  • Could pharmacies act as trusted data intermediaries?
  • Citizens as active participants in data sharing, with real benefits.

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Transcript

Welcome to the Mehr Einsatz Wagen podcast. Dare to do more, your go-to source for innovations in healthcare and the future of medicine. I'm your host, Arthur Ohles, journalist and digital health enthusiast. And today we are coming to you straight from Berlin, where Europe's leading digital health conference and trade fair, the MIA, is taking place from April 8th to 10th. It's an exciting hub full of ideas, technologies and solutions shaping the future of healthcare. And joining me today is a very special guest, Maria Beklund-Hassel, Serial Advisor and International Coordinator at Swedish eHealth Agency. We will be diving into Sweden's journey with digital health, exploring what's worked, what's still evolving and what other countries can learn from their approach. So stay with us. There is a lot of insight and inspiration ahead. Hello, Maria. Hello. How are you doing? 

I'm doing well, thank you. Thank you for inviting me. 

So it's the first day of the MIA. We are seeing all these great solutions, digital technologies. Of course, we are now in a kind of bubble. Everything is perfect. The software is perfect. But when we are out of the bubble, we see the healthcare system does not working so perfectly. So what is to be solved? What problems are to be solved? 

Oh, there are quite a few to be solved, I think. And I think also, it really depends on where you started. Because I always used to say that one of the benefits of the Swedish eHealth sector is that we were very early digitalized. But that's also the disadvantage, because there are so many structures in place that are quite difficult to change. So we are digitalized. There is EHR systems in all throughout healthcare. 

social care is also digitalized. But everyone has been digitalizing in their own specific little way. Because we're a regional country, a federal country like you. So all the regions, they provide their own infrastructure for their healthcare. Which is good. They've done it very well. But in 21 slightly different ways. And People are interested in digitalization. And sometimes I tend to think and try to remember where I heard the word interoperability the first time. I've been working with healthcare IT for over 25 years now. And I can't really remember. But obviously, not 25 years ago, that was not high on the So but on the other hand, the systems were created from a clinical clinical need. And I think that's where the success of digitalization comes from. It really solved the problem from the ground up. 

From the ground up. So how it started in Sweden, I mean the digitalization in health care. What was the starting point. 

I would say the starting point was from two different perspectives. Me as a pharmacist, I always talk about the e-prescriptions, which was, well, let's be honest, it was a way to not having to read doctors' I mean, so the pharmacy company, which was owned by the government, we had a monopoly situation at the time. They introduced e-prescriptions in the middle of the 80s, because there were computers in the pharmacies, but there were no computers in the healthcare sector by then. So it really didn't work. But by the late 90s, digitalization had taken, you know, taken place in the healthcare sector. So we introduced e-prescriptions and that was the first really success story because it was such a very basic thing to digitalize. It was very clear in the legislation what needs to be in a prescription for it to be valid and it's easy to validate the information in a prescription. And, yeah, so that was something for the for the regions to have a map for doing that. But for all the rest of the information, that was more of a need from the from the health care clinics individually who procured their own systems for the way they worked, what worked for them, which I think was good. But not with any idea in mind that the health data that we that we registry in the systems can be used for something else in the future. I don't think that was on top of their minds, which is also a situation where we have lots and lots of quality registries with health care information, which is basically what should be in the EHR systems that you should be able to extract from them instead we have separate registries for pretty much everything else. So that is something that if we could do it again, we would we would think two three steps ahead. 

So, 80s, e-prescription and when we are talking about different countries in Europe, so e-prescription is just rolling out in some of the countries. And the problem is of course that we are now heading to European health data space, it means that this differences between different European countries when it comes to the digital health, well, maturity is huge. So do you think maybe we are jumping from one topic to another topic. But let's talk a little bit about the European health data space because Sweden is already very advanced when it comes to secondary use of data. So do you think that within four years we will be able really to use the data in Europe for the secondary use? 

Is it in Sweden for sure? 

In Sweden for sure, yes. Yes, but to be able to exchange it, there is quite a lot of work to be done. We have been talking about the semantics for instance. There is a group under the e-health network for instance, semantic task, semantic interoperability group that's been discussing semantics for primary use. But is it the semantic for secondary use the same? I'm not really sure it is. It might be for clinical use, but for research use, because for secondary use of health data, it's not just clinical It's the research and the innovation for policy making and so forth. So I think we have just started to discuss this. I'm not sure in four years we have to start. But I should be optimistic and say sure, there will be places where you can get health data. 

We will get back to this topic later on. But let's go back to the beginning of digitalization of healthcare in Sweden. You mentioned already a prescription. But when I'm analyzing different countries in Europe, I have maybe a kind of impression that people in Sweden are very digital-opened. They are adapting to 星 to technology very quickly. Why is it so? 

Why is it so? That's a good question. One thing I think we did well in Sweden was in the, I would say middle of the 90s. We had a reform called Home PC. It was a sort of program, an agreement between the government and the unions, I think, where they subsidized PCs for people to use in their homes. And, of course, the thinking behind it was that if you do it in your spare time, learn how to compute work, that will benefit your work days, obviously. But I think that actually was a very successful reform and it coincided with the breakthrough of the internet. In every household there was a computer, so everyone was kind of computer savvy. And yeah, there was a foundation called .se, like the Swedish domain, that does a report, I think, every year, where they go through the attitudes of Swedes towards the internet. How we use services, not just for healthcare, but for everything. or to, you know, if you go see a movie, which people still do, not everyone watches at home. where you, you know, conduct your errands to the bank or you shop online, everything you do online, and we just expect it to work. The idea that you should go somewhere or call someone is just, any way higher up in ages, which I think is really, really impressive. That people, we, I think we measure from 85 and over, and I think the last numbers were like something like 50% or more uses the internet on a weekly basis, which I think is amazing. And, you know, 65% those people are retiring from a workplace where they are digital, so, yeah. 

So, there must be a huge motivation to use digital services. Is there a distance between different cities? For example, I don't live in Sweden, but I was already in Sweden many times. So, of course, the distances are huge, and sometimes, if you want to go shopping, you have to take a car, you have to spend 10, 15 minutes driving, and then you are in a shopping center, so, maybe it's better just to shop Yeah. Is it the same with, for example, telemedicine? Is it the same with a prescription? It's better just to, you know, go for an e-prescription than go to the doctor for a prescription, of course, if it's allowed, yeah. 

Yeah, well, the thing is, you can't go for a, you always get an e-prescription, you have to prescribe electronically, there's no paper prescriptions. But, I don't think it's just sort of the distances, because up north it's scarcely populated, it's so much easier to go to, you know, your online doctor. But I do that, I live next door to the biggest university hospital in Sweden, and I still, when I want to renew my prescriptions, I just go online, and I probably don't even talk to a doctor. I think I'm talking to a bot first couple of questions, and I get my prescriptions renewed. So, it's a bit of both, it's not just the distances, but obviously that helps people live in rural areas where they can go. So, there are places in Sweden where you can go to like a hospital room in a library, for instance, or in the city, a town hall, it's not a city, and just have an online consultation with your doctor instead of just driving maybe two hours, because the distances are very long. So, that is something that we really expect, and also home monitoring, if you have a kind of serious condition, you want to be in your own home, but you want to be in contact with the hospital. Even though you live next door to the hospital, you don't want to go into the hospital, so you can do that from home. So, that kind of care is very much built out. 

For some countries, like for example, Estonia, the biggest motivation to change healthcare system and to digitalize was, of course, the healthcare system was broken. Was it also a case in Sweden or the healthcare system was already working quite well? 

No, the healthcare system works very well. We have excellent healthcare and I think it's more of the fact that there aren't enough people working in healthcare and there will not be in the future. So, we really need to adapt to a more effective way of working when we don't need to visit. Can we do that in a secure and safe way under another model? 

That's working for us when it comes to digitalization just occurred to me when you said rural and the distances in parts of Sweden is that the broadband strategy we had a couple of years ago, where the aim of, I don't know, over 95% of the country should be covered by fast internet, and we are. So, there are actually people who have faster internet in their mountain cabins than they have in their flat back home in the city. But yeah, I think that was a good reform as well to make sure that you can stay in your remote village if you want to. Because you can have access to all the services you need anyway. 

So, maybe let's play a little bit of detectives of the success factors of digitalization in healthcare. So, distance was the first one, let's say, then people who are open to new technologies, who are of course digital literate. What else would be another success factor of digitalization in healthcare? 

I think one of the things that we've done well, it's actually a collaboration between the regions on a platform called 1177, which is a phone number we used to call when we need guidance from, you know, medical professionals. They used that same address for websites where we have very good medical advice, you can go and look up sort of what are these rashes and why do my throat issues and so forth. So, and after that you call 1177 or you will chat with 1177. I thought that was a very good way of using that brand. So, it's so integrated in people's mind that if I have a problem I will call it 1177. So, I think that was good work from the regions to introduce that. Sorry, I forgot what else is successful. So, digital literacy, digital open, yeah. What else? I'm not sure, I think it's a sort of society, I think. We use digitalization for everything, so why not healthcare? 

Yeah, yeah. But people are still struggling with using digital health services because they are afraid of data, because they are used to go to the doctor and see the doctor not just connecting using their computers and smartphones. Maybe of course it's changing, the generation Z is more open for new technologies, they are just raised with smartphones in their you know what they are. It's very important, but older people, they have the habits. They want to go to the doctor, they want to see the doctor, they want to have the doctor in front of them. So, of course this change, this digital change is also about changing habits. This is the biggest challenge to change the habits of citizens. 

But I think there's a difference, I think that it is a difference between Germany and Sweden is that you have your doctor, you know who your doctor is. We don't, we go to a healthcare center and sometimes I see the same doctor two, three times in a row, or two, three years in a row. Very often I don't, but it's the same health care center so I might meet the same nurse every time or I meet a physiotherapist, could be the same. Doctors can change and nurses can change as well obviously, but it's not so focused on the one person, it's the one healthcare center that's my sort of where I I think that's, that's, that is the difference. So, and also during the pandemic we had all those structures in place, so it was not so, we didn't have to start building things to cope with it. We just started to use what was already there a bit more effectively. 

Well, you know, sometimes we are also analyzing the entire digitalization, 

from the perspective of strategy, I have read an interesting study recently about different strategies in European countries, when it comes to health care and Sweden was on the top of the countries that develop good strategy. And it's also a determinant of digitalization in healthcare. So, and in Sweden there is also, you have agency that you represent. What was it grounded and what's the role of the eHealth Agency, Sweden's eHealth Agency? 

Yeah, it was actually grounded from an idea many years ago, as I mentioned, I have mentioned before, there are many, many, many, many agencies in Sweden doing lots of different and there was a report or suggestion that the agencies and the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs should sort of be divided a bit differently. So one agency for knowledge, one agency for inspectorates and one agency for digital infrastructure. So that was really interesting. And so that really didn't happen. We were created as a consequence of the deregulation of the pharmacy market. So we have private pharmacies again. So we took over the infrastructure for the e-prescriptions and all the other registries that are needed. But the idea was there from the beginning to become a digital health agency, infrastructure agency. Now I mentioned that the regions have provide their own infrastructure and they've done it very well. They have good infrastructure, but it's it's slightly uneven and it varies a bit where you live in Sweden, what kind of services you can have. The government wants to change that. They want to take a big responsibility because it's also very costly for the regions to keep up their own infrastructure. And so in effect, we have 21 markets in Sweden. If you want to sell your products on the markets in Sweden, there is not just one market, there is 21 regions. But the government wants to change that. So they have asked us to, you know, come up with an idea on what national digital infrastructure should look like. What kind of components and capabilities needs to be in place. And what do we already have that we can reuse for this purpose? And in which order do we need to create all these things to really achieve a truly national digital infrastructure? So we have reported to them and now we are starting to get a lot of assignments in building these fundamental building blocks really. So that's what we are very much involved with at the moment. There are many things that we need to build. But also to future-proof the healthcare sector, we can't really have it 21 different ways. And when it comes to social care, it's 290 slightly different ways. For us to keep being digital in the future, because there is not enough money to keep up with the very fragmented infrastructure system that we have today. So that's what we are doing. And we are still dealing with the e-prescriptions obviously. 

Yes, you have said what has been done already in Sweden when it comes to digital health. But what is still to be done in the future? 

We have to agree on standards and specifications. There is no one who has the right to regulate that. We can recommend. There are many recommendations, but they are not mandatory to follow. But the interesting thing is that when we visit the regions and ask them what is your need, what do you need from us, 

almost all of them say, someone has to decide. At least decide the way we do it, but someone has to decide. Because at least if you know that this is what you have to follow, it's so much easier to do that. But when you don't know, it makes it very difficult to foresee the future if you don't know the rules of the game. Well, it's not a game, but the rules of the sector. Yeah. So that needs to be done. Agree in the semantics. So we talk about the interoperability layers, right? So we have to have the legal possibilities to share health data. And the European health data space will give us that on a European level. But we also want to make sure, have to make sure that we don't have national laws and regulations that contradicts the regulation. Then we, if we can, if we are allowed to, we have to find the technical specifications for it so we can exchange data and also understand the data we share. So, yeah. That is a little bit more to be done there. We have done a lot, but not in an equal way throughout the country. 

So standard. The simple question: do doctors in Sweden love their computers? 

Do they love their computers? I think it's such a... 

I have read an article once. I don't know where exactly, but the big title was "Doctors hate their computers" because of course electronic health records are not like they're expected to be. So that's why I'm asking if doctors in Sweden love their 

I don't know where they love their computers. I think most of them see them as "Oh, it's just another way we have to deal with" for my work, as well as we do. I mean, I don't particularly love my computer, but I mean it's necessary, otherwise I can do my job. But it's interesting, the HR systems and the development of them. A colleague of mine who's been in the business far longer than I have, he, he made a little presentation of pretty much his career. Because he, he was one of those people that started traveling around the healthcare clinics with a floppy disk saying this is your HR system. And the history of it, so it's, I'm going to brush up on that. I might borrow it from him and, and use that as a presentation sometime. It's quite interesting. 

So you are, you are working in e-health agency, it means that, I guess that the agency is also dealing with just new, great technologies like, for example, artificial intelligence. Do you believe that artificial intelligence is something that will fix the broken electronic health record so the doctors can really focus on the doctor-patient relationship and on the patient, not on the computer? 

Oh, I wish, I wish, I wish, I wish, actually, that, I think that's the end goal, wouldn't it be? But the road there, it's not, I don't think it's simple, because there are so many layers of, I'm not going to say distrust, because it's not really that, it's like trying to understand the AI. And, you know, I don't understand the doctor's brain, I don't understand the AI, do I need to be? But if I, if I am, if I were a doctor, of course, I would want to know that I can trust the tools I'm using. But how do we do that? I don't know. And so there is, there was a conversation I had, some with someone else some time ago, on involving the clinicians in the development of AI. And there are sort of two layers of it. The one obvious one is, will this help my, help me in my job? Is it, this is good AI for my job? But then the other is, do I understand what it's actually doing? What is, does it base its decisions on? And so forth. And that is super hard to explain and understand. And I mean, you don't become a doctor because you love computers. I don't, I honestly hope not. I think you become a doctor because you really want to help people. So the end, the end goal. Yeah. Will this help me help people better? Yeah, absolutely. But it will take some time. But also AI needs good data to develop. Sometimes I hear people say, well, we just, we don't have to have structured data. We just throw in an AI and everything will sort itself. I don't, I don't believe that, but someone can, you know, convince me that that's, that was needed. But I don't, let's see. 

Is this hype around AI also present in Sweden? 

Oh gosh, yes. Yeah. Everywhere. Everywhere. And you call AI things that aren't really AI, but it's so much, sounds so much cooler. And then we have all the, which I do not know anything about really, the quantum, the quantum computer. Oh yeah, yeah. That's a new thing to learn. But it's also quite, I love my work in that. I love my job in that sense that it's always something new to learn. Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes I would love to have a job that, first of all, it's easier to explain to someone you meet in a party. Yeah. What do you do for a living? Well, I'm a teacher. I would like to say that, but I'm not because it's something people understand. I can never explain what I do for a living. But also, oh no, I lost my thing. Yeah. And that's always a new thing. You never, you never fully learned, but that's also a privilege to be in such a business that it's always something exciting. But this quantum computing. Yeah. We'll see. Yeah. 

So you are also fascinated with all the technologies and my question is, how did it start? Because, you know, you started your career as a pharmacist, right? Yeah. So how it happened that from a pharmacist, there is an enthusiast of a new technologist? 

Yeah. I think it comes from

my dad was a bit of a

he was a teacher, but he was a bit of a inventor, a hobby inventor. Yeah. So we had a computer quite early on. He built a computer. Okay. It was the size of our dining room. It was not streamlined and he did a lot of inventions, but he was never really into the usability experience of things. So everything was a bit

didn't really work smoothly. But we had a computer very early on. I sometimes joke and say my mom was the first person addicted to Tetris because that was the game we had. And I just, I don't know. I always liked, you know, chemistry and technology, all those things. Yeah. So when I started to work at the pharmacy, there were computers late, no middle of the 90s. And yeah, it was, I thought it was so fascinating how it, how it changed, how it affected how we worked. And then I had easily understand it. So, and there's also, when I started to work in the pharmacy, there was a generation gap. Sort of, like us, like in our 20s, and then the other pharmacists, they were like in their 50s and 60s. So there was a generation gap. So it was easy coming at a 20-something and understanding sort of at least a little bit about computers and sort of instruct the older pharmacists, which I thought was fascinating. They started their careers with actually making physical pills and ointments and, you know, and switching from that to computers. That happened in a lot of professions. But sometimes it's not the same person as they used to be, you know, a handyman to the computer man. But if a pharmacist, it was. 

You are traveling a lot and you are also watching how different healthcare systems are struggling with different problems. And my question is, from your experience and from all that, what happened already in Sweden and all the journey and digital transformation, what would we recommend the countries at the beginning of this digital transformation? What is to be made first to make this journey successful at the end? 

Well, make sure that it's just not one solution for something. Make sure that you have a sort of additional, all the additional information you need to sort of validate the information. Like take the e-prescriptions, we have other registries where we have the registry of everyone who is allowed to prescribe information on what they can prescribe. And if they have any, if they're not allowed to prescribe certain things, we can validate which pharmacy it is. Do they have the right permits from the medical product agency and so forth. But also, the outcome of a feeling of a prescription, that is health data. That's statistics. What can you use that for? Can you use it for secondary use? We found, for instance, during the pandemic that sales for specific kinds of antibiotics went through the roof. And they were not really rightfully prescribed. So very quickly we could go out to the regions where recommendations say, look, see what you're prescribing. Is it really following the recommendations? 

For instance, to be able to use the information for other things. You can do a lot of things with statistics I've learned from our statistics department. And I think that is something that you should keep in mind that it's just not solved with one problem. You can have the benefit in many steps afterwards. And also, make sure that the information that you receive, you can validate it when you use it. And make sure you have sort of the basic components. We talked about what works in Sweden for digitalization. And one of the things that we have going for us is our personal identification number. Which we aren't afraid to use because that's also a difference between many countries. Some people do not want to be registered and that's fine. We have a long tradition of trust. So we use our personal identification number for everything. Even if I want to join a, you know, clothes talk, customer club. It's like, what's your personal identification number. They change the bid from that to, what's your phone number? Because that's also a very personal number. Yeah. So, that as a connector of information makes it also easier for us to follow a person through the healthcare. I know that if I go to another region, my information will be registered and sometimes, and between some regions, they can compare information and share information. They are allowed to, but they don't. 

Yeah, yeah. So we have this technical aspects of digital transformation, but also the soft aspects of transformation, like for example, you mentioned trust. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, of course, it's easy to say, yeah, we need trust, but can we, yeah, how to do that? Can we design trust? Can we co-design trust or how it works? 

Yeah, that's a good question. Yeah. That's a good question. And it's, we have trust, but I'm so scared we're going to lose, because losing trust of something, it's, that's just done in a moment. Mm-hmm. But being able to share, I can always, I trust systems where I can see the same information as the ones that are adding or using the information. And also I can see who has access to the information and also that I, I'm being asked if I want to share my information. Mm-hmm. I think that builds trust, but then it's work every day, for every agency, every organization that keep your personal information to work on that. That's not, it's not something that you can take lightly, but really, really, really be open with how you deal with people's data. Mm-hmm. 

And when we talk about the digital transformation, it's like a never-ending journey, yeah? Because we had at the beginning the e-prescription you already mentioned, and there is an electronic health record, there is a standard, maybe there will be AI the big thing next. But is there a kind of end when we say, yeah, we achieved a lot, now we can benefit from what has been done, from the data that we are collecting. And now we need, you know, just a small improvement. So is there an end of a digital transformation? I guess that all doctors are waiting for that. Are we done yet? 

Yeah, are we there yet? No, I don't think so. Because there's always going to be new shiny things that we want to try. 

But we need the basics. 

The basics we need to have in place, because, yeah, the benefits of it, but also be reminded of what's the benefit of this, what's the benefit of what I'm actually doing now? Can I see? Because that's, I think, very interesting when new systems are being introduced anywhere but in healthcare as well. The old system is never as good as when it's, you know, being exchanged for a new system. Why do we need to change it? We have such a good working system. But, you know, like six months ago, it was the worst system you've ever experienced, but it's still better than the new one that's coming. And you have to have respect for that, because it takes, you learn to work with the

it might not be things that aren't working. It's just working in a way that you're not used to or that you would prefer not to. 

Maybe when these basic things are done, it's a high time to make this big shift from this system, healthcare system focus on curing diseases through this prevention basis. 

Yeah, that's something that we talk about a lot. We don't have a sick, we don't have a health system, we have a sick system, we treat sick people. We do not work enough or give enough resources to prevention and so forth. That's actually one of the assignments we had quite recently. You can prescribe physical activity. Yeah, oh cool. Yeah, and you've been able to do that for years on paper. We brought a report on how to do that digitally because you have it digitally, what you have been prescribed. You can also follow it up and see what works. You know, what works for you. Did it work for you to take these walks or start swimming or whatever. So, yeah. 

And how do you control it? Yeah, how you control it. 

And who gets to control it? It could be your doctor that prescribes your physical activity, or yourself. You should be. Because it's not that we don't have health data enough. That's something we also discussed. All the information that you collect about yourself. How do you share that with your doctor? 

Yeah. Yeah. And the question is also how much data do we need? Because, of course, we can collect with all the variables even more and more data. Yeah. But what data is relevant? Yeah. Do we need, for example, data from the variables? How many steps are we making every day or it's just not relevant? Yeah. No, no. Yeah. 

No, that's interesting. It's really very relevant for me because I can deduct, see if I haven't moved today. I can tell by the way I slept that I probably didn't get enough, you know, exercise or whatever. But that's important for me. Maybe not. Well, it could be. It should be interesting for my doctor. 

So, tell me, does the eHealth agency is working very closely with the Ministry of Health? Yeah. Yeah. 

That's where we get our assignments from. Every agency in Sweden and probably in every other country as well, we have the law that regulates why we exist. So, we have a specific law on the Swedish eHealth Agency. It's just what we're responsible for. And then we get, and every year we get a letter from the government towards sort of New Year's, between Christmas and New Year, where they tell us what they expect from us in the coming year. And then we kind of get assignments all throughout the year. So, in three different ways we know what we're supposed to be doing. And sometimes they ask us to write reports on the specific subject they want to know more about, and we do that. And we come up with suggestions that maybe we should get an assignment to do this, or maybe that agency should get an assignment to do that. So, we will work closely with what they gave us work to do, and then we report back to them. 

So, now a simple question from your maybe kind of private life. "We know that you are in the morning, right? Wake up in the morning and what are the free digital services that you use every day and that make your life easier?" It's making my life easier. It's making my life easier.

Every day I don't... I have a... I count my steps. And also, I had an assignment where I got very extremely high blood pressure for an unknown reason, but it was very, very, very dangerously high. So, I'm very keen on knowing that my blood pressure does not rise again to that level. So, I use that and then I have my own app for that, which I have shown to my doctor. And he was fine with that, but this is just an anecdote. I also once put in the pulse, but just once, which means that when I see my doctor, I have sort of an average. My pulse average is 1, because it's just one measuring point. So, yeah, I was a bit surprised by that. Anyway, yeah. Do I use anything else? Yeah, I think that's not. Do you use AI or... No. I don't know. ChgpT, for example? Sorry. ChgpT, or Petlexity. Yeah, I've tried that a few times and that was interesting. Really, really interesting, but I'm sort of waiting for the recommendations from the AI group at my agency to recommend what kind of programs or what kind of solutions to use. 

Yeah. I read about one solutions for taking a Word document and turning it into a PowerPoint. Let's try that. That's interesting. I would need it also. Yeah. I thought that would be good. But we just didn't have it in our setup, the things that we can do in our copilot. So, yeah. No, but I'm looking forward to learning more about that because I think that can make parts of my life easier. But also, yeah, we'll see. 

You are travelling a lot. So, what was a solution or maybe an idea or a project that inspired you recently? 

Oh, that's a good question. 

We are at one of the biggest first digital health first in Europe, maybe. Well, it's the first day and probably you haven't seen anything yet because we are starting our interview early in the morning. 

Okay. I have to say on a different night, I walked through some of the halls here and it's amazing how many companies there are in Germany, but you are a so much bigger country than we are. But solutions that I really liked. 

I think it's the one that it is. So, maybe some kind of wearable, or an app or an AI solution with this transforming voice into the electronic health record note. Oh gosh. 

It really put me on the spot. No, I thought that was a year ago. I saw a sort of a hologram of a brain where you can sort of, a patient bringing a hologram of it was a hard work, they were preparing surgery just to see where the blockage was or whatever it was. But what's important to remember when I see these things at a conference or a fair like this, when I go home and talk to my friends who are doctors and they say, "Yeah, right, but our fax is still not working properly." So, it's such a far, it's a long way from where I can see an affair like this to what's actually in clinical use for most people. But there are obviously very advanced hospitals and wards and hospitals where they do amazing things. But for a doctor in a healthcare clinic it's a bit science fiction. 

Yeah. I can imagine. I had also a short walk around here in the morning so I see that there is basically AI, a lot of AI. I was surprised because it's a very high topic right now so I can understand it. that also these basic electronic health record systems, but some kind of improved ones with all the features that you don't have to type in all the data but maybe you can dictate or maybe there is some kind of AI that helps to create the node. So, well, it's changing very quickly. Last question, Maria. 

What do you think, how will be the healthcare system in Sweden in five years look like? So, what will change, or what digital health orders create digital health solutions, how they will impact healthcare in Sweden in five years? 

Well, it has to impact in health in five years because there is a lack of nurses and doctors. And we really need to use the possibilities digitalization will give us there is no, there is no, there is no alternative and how I would like for clinicians to be more involved with what is being used to make sure that it really, really support the way they are working and maybe take an opportunity to make sure that the processes are, the process in which they work is the most beneficial and then add the digitalization to that, sort of support that. or, but also be open to change the process that they work if they're, the possibility with a digital digital solution will sort of affect the outcome or make it something a bit more streamlined I don't know. I don't know. Yeah. 

So what's your plan at the event at DEMIA today? 

I'm going to write, go around and look at solutions and then I'm going to, which I, I said, I, I like that the, the, the, the agencies and the ministries are active here. So I'm going to listen to them and yeah. And then I'm going to start thinking about how I'm going to report this back. I've seen and where we can, where we can sort of go deeper into learning about specific stuff. So, yeah, you never know beforehand what you're going to learn. That's, that's, that's, that's always interesting with, with conferences. 

And if somebody wants to ask you a question or ask about advice, where you can be found? 

A little bit everywhere, but I can find a link found on LinkedIn. Yeah. And I can find a link found on LinkedIn, which is really interesting. Okay, great. 

Thank you very much, Maria. It was a great conversation with you. It's always a pleasure to meet you every time. I did with you already a few interviews, so every time I learn something new and I explore new insights. So thank you very much for being today with us. And thank you for listening to us. And yeah, stay tuned. Bis nächste Mal. Tschüss. Bye.