Abstract

Background: Ehealth is an innovative solution to provide prevention and health care services at a distance. It contributes to the effectiveness of the health systems in times of workforce shortages and scarcity of resources and helps the patients to self-manage their disease. The aim of this article was the analysis for policy in Denmark.
Methods: A literature review was conducted in PubMed, Cinahl and Google Scholar using the keywords between September and November 2017. We applied the policy triangle framework, to identifying the relevant actors, context, content and process, coupled with the stages heuristic and the Hall model to assess the levels of legitimacy, feasibility, support for the policy as well as and the Kingdon’s model to assess the three streams of policy process, problem, policy and politics that create a window of opportunity in agenda setting.
Results: Applying the policy triangle framework for policy, showed that context included the demographic changes, the welfare state and the public demands of the welfare state. Actors in this policy were mainly governmental at national-, regional- and local level, but also patient organizations and health professionals. Content concerned with the establishment of knowledge base, creation of standards for telehealth use, patient independence and health promotion. The process showed that ehealth reached the political agenda by having legitimacy, feasibility and support. Implementation in the 5 kick-offs areas consisted of several pilot tests, operations phases and ongoing evaluation.
Conclusion: Even though a policy window was present in the country leading to the establishment of innovative solutions in the health sector, the different players/actors with various levels of power contributed to the fragmentation of the telehealth system. Policy makers should redefine the system in favor of the patients, the health professionals and the economy.