Correspondent: Marianne Storm
In his annual hospital speech in January, Norwegian Minister of Health and Care Services Bent Høie announced new wait-time targets for adult and youth mental health services and substance use disorder treatment, among other improvement priorities for 2019. The Norwegian Directorate of Health also has been commissioned to revise provider reimbursement to better incentivize use of telehealth and other digital technologies in medical consultations. Meanwhile, the health ministry is embarking on work to reduce the volume of surgical procedures with limited clinical benefit.