How North Denmark Region set a new standard for safe clinical imaging

Industry: Healthcare
Location: Northern Denmark
Hyland solutions: Enterprise imaging

Clinical images are an essential part of modern healthcare. In specialties such as dermatology, images document disease progression, support diagnosis and enable collaboration across departments. But they are also among the most sensitive forms of patient data.

In North Denmark Region, leaders recognized that existing approaches to non-radiology image capture introduced unnecessary risk. Reliance on personal devices, manual transfers and delayed availability in the patient record created vulnerabilities that could undermine patient privacy, clinical trust and regulatory compliance.

This wasn’t simply an operational issue — it was a clinical and governance risk. The region needed a solution that would protect patient data by design while fitting naturally into everyday clinical workflows.

That concern became the driving force behind a region-wide initiative: to make clinical image capture safe, intuitive and fully integrated — without changing how clinicians work.

Dermatology at Aalborg University Hospital became the first department to adopt the new mobile imaging workflow. 

For Head of Dermatology Maiken Glud Dalager, the value of the solution was immediately clear: “Preventing data breaches is the biggest benefit. It’s a very serious clinical issue for us.” 

Dermatology images often include highly identifiable features. Even small workflow weaknesses can have major consequences. The new solution removed those risks by design.  

• No patient images stored on mobile devices  

• Encrypted transfer directly to the regional archive  

• Access controlled through existing user credentials  

• Immediate availability in the patient record 

From the first day, clinicians described the solution as easy to use, intuitive and well-adopted across the team.

“Once the preparations are in place, it’s really plug and play,” Dalager said. "Images are stored immediately in the patient record, in good quality, and are easy to find again.”

Within a short period, the dermatology department had already uploaded more than 100 clinical images, using the solution as part of everyday practice. Dermatologists highlighted that the workflow felt natural — requiring no change in clinical behavior, only the removal of unsafe steps.

By storing images centrally and making them immediately available in the patient record, clinicians can now:  

• Instantly compare current and previous images 

• Collaborate more easily with other departments  

• Rely on a complete and consistent visual history  

As Dalager noted, the solution is designed to scale: “It can easily be rolled out to the rest of the region, making it simpler to share clinical images between departments.” 

Dermatology’s experience became a blueprint for the wider region.  

“Dermatology has already uploaded over 100 images,” said Christian Victor Otte Odgaard, IT consultant in digitalization and IT. “Their experience and valuable feedback help us prevent friction, making it even easier for the next departments.”   

Feedback from the initial deployment was used to strengthen onboarding materials, guidance models and rollout processes. 

With the dermatology solution successfully live, North Denmark Region has approved a structured rollout across additional clinical areas — demonstrating how a standardized, enterprise-ready solution can scale safely and efficiently across departmental specialties. By using a single, repeatable model, the region is able to accelerate adoption, ensure clinical and operational consistency, and significantly reduce implementation risk as usage expands.

Key outcomes

• Faster time to value, with pediatrics scheduled to go live next

• Lower rollout risk, enabled by a proven deployment model already validated in dermatology

• Consistent clinical and governance standards across departments through a shared platform

• Improved scalability, supporting future departments without incremental complexity

• Reduced operational overhead, driven by a standard onboarding package for rapid, repeatable adoption

• Stronger cross-functional alignment between digitalization and IT, clinical teams, and Nobly

“The solution has been received extremely well,” Deputy Head of Strategic Digitalization Annemarie Lomartire said. “With our guidance model, the remaining departments can adopt it quickly and simply.”

A new regional standard for clinical imaging

Today, North Denmark Region has a secure, modern approach to non-radiology imaging:

• Clinicians capture images quickly and confidently.

• Images appear immediately in the patient record.

• Compliance risks are dramatically reduced.

• Patient data is protected by design.