Sharing medical record documents across organizations is no longer a pilot project. That means the note you write today could be read by a colleague you never meet – in a completely different context than the one in which you wrote it.

For many years, the medical record note had a rather limited audience: yourself, colleagues at the same office, and whoever might have received a discharge summary or referral response in the mail. That is no longer the case.

Through the service The patient's medical records healthcare personnel with a service need get access to read medical record documents – discharge summaries and syntheses, radiology reports, referrals and test results – across healthcare institutions. The documents are available both in the Summary Care Record portal and directly in the medical record system via API, according to Norsk helsenett. The purpose is to provide whoever is with the patient with an overview of the patient's contact with the healthcare system.

That is a good thing. But it also shifts something: your note has gained readers you do not know.

The use is increasing – and the emergency wards are the ones reading the most

This is no longer a theoretical possibility. In the Norwegian Directorate of Health's status reporting for the measure, reported by Norsk helsenett in March 2026, describes a clear increase in the number of documents read by healthcare personnel.

The figures indicate where the need is greatest: 8 of the 20 businesses with the most lookups are emergency clinics, and the Oslo emergency room is at the top. There is also a large increase in lookups from the care and nursing services, general practitioners, and contracted specialists. The residents themselves read around one million journal documents a month through their own access solutions.

That emergency clinics dominate makes sense. It is precisely there that the need for medical history is greatest and access to it has traditionally been the poorest. We have written about that situation previously, in the post about the emergency room doctor who meets a patient with no medical historyThe note you write at two in the morning is often the only trace that follows the patient further.

Now the opposite applies as well. The note someone else wrote is suddenly available to you – and yours is available to them.

The legal requirement was there all along – now it is being felt

Legally, this is not new. Healthcare Personnel Act § 40 has long established that the medical record must contain relevant and necessary information about the patient and the healthcare provided – and that it must be easy for other qualified healthcare personnel to understand. Og the Health Personnel Act section 19 requires the data controller to ensure that relevant and necessary health data is available to healthcare personnel when necessary to provide, administer, or quality assure healthcare – within the framework of professional secrecy.

The difference is that the requirement in Section 40 has long been a bit theoretical. «Easy to understand for other qualified healthcare personnel» means something entirely different when «other healthcare personnel» are actually sitting somewhere else, in a different service, without knowledge of local abbreviations, without your memory of the patient, and often under time pressure.

It is worth thinking through what that means for the things we all do: the abbreviations that are self-explanatory internally, the reference to «as previously agreed,» the assessment that was thought through but only half-written. Neither part is a violation of anything. But they work less well when the reader is a stranger.

The Medivox fits in

The challenge is rarely that healthcare personnel do not know what should be in the note. It is that the note is written after the conversation is over, often several hours later, when the details have turned into bullet points. That is when the clear, complete formulations are the first to go.

Medivox is built for that exact gap. You dictate while the consultation is fresh – preferably right afterwards, while you still remember the nuances – and receive a structured draft of the medical record that you edit and approve. The point is not to write more, but to get what you actually assessed into the text while it is still precise.

You build your own templates. This means the structure can reflect how your service actually works – and a fixed structure in itself is an advantage for the person reading your note without knowing the context. Directly identifiable information is pseudonymized before the data is processed further, and all data processing takes place in Norwegian data centers.

Two clarifications: Medivox does not manage access sharing or which documents are made available through the core health record – that happens in the electronic health record system and at the healthcare provider. Nor does Medivox make any medical assessments. The tool documents the healthcare you have provided; you own the record and make the final assessment.

One perspective: collaboration is also a writing style

We often talk about collaboration as something structural—systems, agreements, integrations. It is that, too. But in practice, much of collaboration is determined by something far more modest: whether the sentence the other person reads makes sense without explanation.

We have previously looked at what documentation means for the collaboration between the primary care physician and the specialist, and on how documentation is squeezed when time is tight in home care services. The common denominator is the same: the information almost always exists. It is just not always written down in a way that survives the journey to the next reader.

When medical records are shared across systems, that journey becomes shorter and more frequent. That is a benefit – but it is only realized at the stage where someone actually articulates themselves.

Next time you write a note: would a colleague at an emergency clinic in another municipality understand it at three in the morning?

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the patient's medical records?
It is a national interoperability service from Norsk helsenett that gives healthcare personnel with a professional need access to read patient records across organizations, via the summary care record or directly in the electronic health record system.

Which documents are shared?
Including epicrises and summaries, radiology reports, referrals, and test results. Which document types are shared is under further clarification between the Directorate of Health and Norsk Helsenett.

Who reads medical record documents the most?
Emergency clinics dominate: 8 of the 20 businesses with the most lookups in 2026 are emergency clinics. There is also strong growth among general practitioners, contracted specialists, and the care and nursing services.

May I write differently now that the memo can be read elsewhere?
The requirement is the same as before – the medical record must be easy for other qualified healthcare personnel to understand. However, it is a good opportunity to review local abbreviations and implicit references.

Can speech-to-text make the note more readable for others?
Indirectly, yes. When you dictate while the consultation is fresh and get a structured draft back, it becomes easier to include the entire reasoning—not just the keywords. You always edit and approve yourself.

Use Medivox for free – Get started completely free

Do you write notes that other services should be able to read? Contact us - then we will show you how Medivox can provide you with a more complete draft before you approve.

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