Abstract

The North Norwegian Health Net is a comprehensive scheme to connect all health-care institutions in the area to a national computer network. Services available include telemedicine, e-mail and Web access. A general practitioner has responsibility for ensuring that the clinical information is correct. Medical departments are responsible for the content of their own Web pages. All institutions require authorization before connection to ensure data protection and security. Changes in communication between primary- and secondary-care sectors are being monitored. To date the implementation of the network programme has gone smoothly.