Telemedicine and the Welfare State: The Swedish Experience

Health care in Sweden finds itself at a crossroads as regards digitalization. In this chapter, we will focus on one issue in particular that is causing consternation among primary care physicians: the rapid increase in popularity of telemedicine. Via smartphone apps, patients can at the press of a button make video calls directly with doctors, rather than having to wait days, or weeks, for a nonemergency meeting with a doctor at a physical care center. Apart from reducing waiting times, this development brings a host of other benefits for patients, such as removing the inconvenience of travel and lessening the risk of contagion at care centers (Mohr et al., 2018).