Trusting digitized patient-related information: The need for a new approach

Trust is receiving increasing attention nowadays, particularly since new technology enables communication and collaboration like it has never been seen before. However, trust is a fuzzy concept that needs further examination and attention from multiple levels. For example, security is very important from a user’s point of view in trusting that technology will function in accordance with the user’s intended and requested function. This paper reviews the concept of patient safety, which thus far has been discussed and defined from a narrow technical perspective. We demonstrate that it is much more complex, and that it is not primarily the technical issues that are problematic, but rather the cultural, process-related and personnel issues. Our results point to a need for a new approach, which takes the patients’ view of healthcare and the patient-related digital information as its focus. The discussion is made from a Swedish perspective, but the issues are international. The needs for information and knowledge in healthcare are obvious. Without clear definitions of concepts and roles, a good information flow or process cannot be designed. Our discussion shows that trusted digital patient information gives an opportunity for a patient-focused healthcare. Multidimensional trust must be addressed on all levels; organization, person and technology. More empirical research into trust in digital patient-related information is necessary, to develop a model for patient safety from a trust perspective that encompasses all levels of trust.