About the summary care record

The summary care record provides healthcare professionals with fast access to key information about your health. Your summary care record will be particularly useful if you become acutely ill.

  • What is a summary care record?
  • What the summary care record contains
  • Making your own entries
  • Who has access to your summary care record?
  • Which documents are available to healthcare professionals in your summary care record?

What is a summary care record?

The summary care record is a digital, national health system that shares health data across the health services. Healthcare professionals can view your health data regardless of whether they work at a hospital, GP surgery, out-of-hours medical service or in municipal nursing and care services.

For example, if you are admitted to a hospital you have never attended before, healthcare professionals will quickly be able to look up your summary care record and access key information about your health. This can help ensure that you receive the right treatment more quickly if you become acutely ill.

Please note that the solution is not yet used by all out-of-hours medical services and municipalities.

Norsk Helsenett is responsible for the summary care record.

Who has a summary care record?

All residents of Norway have a summary care record, with the exception of those who have opted out.

Summary care records are also automatically created for children. When children turn 16 years of age, they can obtain digital access to their own summary care record on Helsenorge as long as they have a BankID.

What is the difference between a summary care record and patient records?

The summary care record collects a selection of key information about your health that is available to all treatment providers. Your patient records contain health data relating only to treatment you have received at hospital.

Learn more about patient records

What the summary care record contains

Your summary care record collects data from several sources and makes this health data available to healthcare professionals. You can also log in to check that your health data is correct.

Your summary care record contains:

  • Critical information in the summary care record means important data about you that healthcare professionals need to be able to access in the event of an emergency. Such health data can help healthcare professionals make better decisions in relation to examinations, treatment and monitoring at hospital.

    You can improve your summary care record by checking that all critical information has been registered and by entering your own information about your medical history.

  • You can register certain information in your summary care record yourself. The information you can enter could be information such as details of next-of-kin, whether you have any special communication needs or details about your medical history.

    Read more about making your own entries.

  • Healthcare professionals can view your vaccinations in your summary care record. All lookups are logged so that you can see when the lookup was performed and who by.

    You can see which diseases you have been vaccinated against and when the vaccine was administered by logging in to Helsenorge.

    Learn more about your vaccinations

  • You can create a digital donor card via your summary care record. You can also enter one or two people who are familiar with your views on organ donations. These people could be family members, friends, colleagues, your GP or neighbours and must be over the age of 18.

    Learn more about donor cards

    • The following information can be found in your summary care record:
      Medicines you have received via e-prescription or paper prescription from Norwegian pharmacies
    • Nutrition and consumable supplies
    • List of valid prescriptions

    The following information cannot be found in your summary care record:

    • Medicines you have purchased without a prescription
    • Medicines you have received at out-of-hours medical services, hospitals or nursing homes
    • Medicines you have purchased abroad
    • Prescription medicines you received from pharmacies before your summary care record was created

    Learn more about your medicines

  • Healthcare professionals can view your test results for COVID-19 and other viruses and bacteria that can cause respiratory infections. All lookups are logged so that you can view any lookups performed in your test results.

    You do not have access to view all test results in your summary care record, but test results for e.g. COVID-19 can be found by logging in.

    Learn more about test results

  • Healthcare professionals can view hospital medical records. All lookups are logged and you can see that someone has looked at your summary care record.

    You are not able to view documents in your summary care record, but you can view many hospital-related documents by logging in to your medical record via Helsenorge.

  • You can find information about your contact with hospitals and the specialist health service in your summary care record. The appointment history can also include specialist appointments, such as appointments with dermatologists or cardiologists.

    Contact refers to the time and place of the examinations and treatments via the specialist health service, such as hospitals. This includes outpatient appointments or hospital admissions.

    Information relating to your appointment history goes back to 01/01/2008. It may take four or more weeks from your attending a hospital until the information is available in your summary care record.

    Reporting errors in your appointment history

    It is usually not possible to amend information in the appointment history in the summary care record. The information is retrieved from the Norwegian Patient Registry. The information is displayed as reported by the treatment provider.

    You can limit healthcare professionals’ access to your appointment history and parents have the option to block access to children’s appointment history.

  • You can check which healthcare professionals have accessed your summary care record.

    Who accessed the document will be logged at the hospital at which the document is included in the record system.

    View summary care record access log.

    The log provides a simple overview of dates, names, events and the reason why your summary care record was accessed.

    You can also see if healthcare professionals have accessed your summary care record and looked at documents from your patient records. You will not be able to see which documents have been accessed.

    There will be a delay of one week before you can see who accessed your summary care record.

Making your own entries

If you enter key health information in your summary care record, healthcare professionals will be able to obtain a more complete picture of you and your health. This could be important if you become acutely ill.

Data you can enter yourself:

Who has access to your summary care record?

When you receive healthcare, information relating to your health and treatment will be entered in your patient records at the place at which you receive treatment.

Documents in patient records at a hospital can be shared with others via the summary care record. This means that if you subsequently receive treatment elsewhere, documents from your patient records can be made available via the summary care record. Each hospital will determine which documents to share.

Only authorised healthcare professionals have access to your summary care record when you receive treatment. They will also be able to access it when they plan and monitor your treatment.

Healthcare professionals have access to information about you either directly via the summary care record portal or by requesting that the data is delivered to a professional system.

You can see any disclosure of data under “Usage log” when you have logged in to your summary care record at Helsenorge.

You can limit which people can access your summary care record.

You can limit how your summary care record will be used and who should have access to information about your health.

By logging in, you can:

  • Remove access to the summary care record on Helsenorge
  • Opt out of having a summary care record, including for your children
  • Opt in and restore access (within 30 days)
  • Block access for named healthcare professionals
  • Block the overview of your appointments at hospitals and with specialists for all healthcare professionals
  • Restrict access to all or parts of your summary care record for all healthcare professionals
  • Receive notifications when healthcare professionals have accessed or made changes to your summary care record

Would you prefer to complete a paper form?

If you would like to change who has access to your summary care record and you are unable to log in to do so, you can also complete a paper form.

You can find the form for making changes to your summary care record here (in Norwegian)

Which documents are available to healthcare professionals in your summary care record?

Healthcare professionals can also look at your previous medical records:

  • Discharge summaries and summaries: brief descriptions of e.g. health status, treatment and examinations (unlimited in terms of time, from the date on which healthcare professionals access and retrieve documents from your summary care record).
  • Radiology descriptions, e.g. x-rays, MRI, CT and PET scans (dating five years back in time).
  • Referrals (dating one year back in time)
  • Test results (dating one year back in time)

Content provided by Norsk Helsenett

Norsk Helsenett. About the summary care record. [Internet]. Oslo: The Norwegian Directorate of Health; updated Monday, December 19, 2022 [retrieved Thursday, April 18, 2024]. Available from: https://www.helsenorge.no/en/summary-care-record/om-kjernejournal/

Last updated Monday, December 19, 2022