Karolinska University Hospital and Tietoevry Care drive healthcare data integration

Sweden’s prestigious Karolinska University Hospital is using Tietoevry Care’s Lifecare Open Platform to integrate healthcare data from across different systems. This enables the hospital to work smarter, faster and more cost-effectively.  

Digital infrastructure in the healthcare sector is still highly fragmented, with hospitals often relying on independent solutions for different tasks. As each system has its own data structure, sharing information between them is challenging. This increases the administrative burden and raises the cost of care.  
 
Sweden’s Karolinska University Hospital is resolving these challenges by implementing Tietoevry Care’s Lifecare Open Platform. 
 
“A common framework for structuring and exchanging clinical data has been lacking. This has made interoperability and delivering value from scattered information a constant challenge. The emerging approach to address this is the openEHR standard, the foundation upon which the Lifecare Open Platform is built,” explains Anders Jönebratt, Head of Tietoevry Care Sweden. 
 
By structuring clinical data in a standardized format, openEHR enables different systems to use the same information. Clinicians can thus access a complete set of patient data without switching between applications. The Lifecare Open Platform uses the standard to create a vendor-neutral data foundation for healthcare providers like Karolinska University Hospital. 
 
“Everything we do in healthcare relies on having the correct data available to support informed decision-making. Now we’ve entered a new era of healthcare, with the Lifecare Open Platform playing a key role in unlocking data and making it accessible for clinical decisions. In the future, the platform will be a cornerstone of our entire IT environment,” says Patrik Georgii-Hemming, Chief Medical Information Officer at Karolinska University Hospital. 

Immediate impact, long-term transformation 

The Karolinska University Hospital implementation began in August 2024, with the hospital successfully migrating data for assessing chemotherapy readiness.   
 
Before undergoing chemotherapy, patients must be evaluated to ensure they are in sufficient health to proceed with the treatment. The application used to record this data has now been transferred to the Lifecare Open Platform, allowing the care professionals at Karolinska University Hospital to easily verify patient readiness before initiating the procedure. This is one good example of how the hospital is utilizing the platform. 
 
“Our teams are working very closely together throughout the implementation. With this first application now running on the platform, Karolinska University Hospital is setting a positive example for other hospitals to follow. I firmly believe we will see interest spread through Region Stockholm and beyond within the coming year,” says Jönebratt. 
 
The Lifecare Open Platform enables healthcare providers to efficiently build, adapt and manage their digital ecosystems. With low-code tools and support for third-party integrations, IT teams can cost-effectively build new applications or integrate existing ones. This flexibility solves bottlenecks in clinical workflows and speeds up the development of new care solutions. 
 
Beyond these immediate operational benefits, the platform paves the way for the secondary use of healthcare data in research initiatives and large-scale population health studies. By structuring data according to openEHR standards, it becomes significantly easier to support these efforts and advance healthcare innovation.   

“There is a lot of data in healthcare systems that is not being fully utilized because it is siloed,” explains Jönebratt. “With openEHR now standardizing information, patient data can more easily be used for research. It can also contribute to significant improvements in medical decision-making over the longer term.”

Improving care with holistic patient data  

The Lifecare Open Platform also provides a way to securely store patient data and enable rapid implementation of new clinical solutions.  
 
As hospitals modernize and transition to new Electronic Health Records (EHRs), they face the challenge of retaining access to historical patient data. Swedish regulations, for example, require patient data to be stored in an intermediate repository for 10 years before archiving. This means keeping old systems in read-only mode – an expensive and inefficient solution. 
 
“Instead of maintaining these old systems, hospitals can move their patient records into the clinical data repository supported by Lifecare Open Platform. This approach ensures that care providers have seamless access to patient information, as well as new possibilities to utilize the information for clinical decision and research,” Jönebratt says. 
 
One example is the diagnostics area, where having a complete overview of test results can help to ensure accuracy. By assimilating data from multiple sources – including past diagnoses and comorbidities – doctors can get the full picture. The platform also enables hospitals to more effectively track common ward care tasks, such as assessing fall-risk patients.  
 
“Karolinska University Hospital is redefining the way health data is utilized. This is important for the hospital to maintain its leading position in delivering world-class healthcare, research and education. We’re very inspired to help them achieve this ambition through our platform,” concludes Ari Järvelä, Managing Director of Tietoevry Care.  

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