#1 Sweden

In terms of the result, the top 10 of the NRI is made up exclusively of advanced economies. That group is dominated by the Nordics, with Sweden, Finland, Denmark, and Norway featuring in the top 7, and Iceland coming in at a not-so-distant 15th place. All members of the top 10 are relatively close to each other, and they tend to do well across all pillars.

Sweden’s performance is remarkable in every aspect. The country leads four of the 10 pillars of the Network Readiness Index:

• Infrastructure and digital content 
• Individual usage 
• Business usage 
• Economic impact 

Sweden also appears in the top 10 of a further five pillars, while in
 the last one, skills, it ranks a very solid 12th.

Sweden has in place a virtuous circle. This conducive environment, combined with the highest degree of readiness and widespread use of ubiquitous technologies, maximizes the economic and social impacts of ICT, creating new business opportunities, fostering innovation, and reinforcing a knowledge-based economy.
In this near-perfect assessment, only a handful of indicators call for attention: the typical corporate tax rate is fairly high at 53 percent of profits (114th), and two indicators reveal the length of certain administrative procedures which contrasts with the otherwise extremely efficient institutional framework.
In addition, the government has room to improve its online presence and its degree of interaction with the population.

Re-engineering healthcare 

For the Stockholm County Council (SCC), Sweden’s second-largest health system, patient safety is a top priority. The SCC has implemented a text-mining system that lets medical staff automate a systemic medical review that sifts through both structured and unstructured data to review charts, search for specific triggers, or locate indicators of adverse events. 

Since its inception in January 2010, the program has spread across the country. Today regulators are planning to award bonuses based on patient safety quantified by these reviews. If the results at the SCC are duplicated countrywide, the system could slash annual healthcare injury costs in Sweden by SEK 2 billion and reduce deaths caused by injuries by up to 50 percent.

GITR 2011 results in review

For the 2010 - 2011 edition of the GITR, Sweden topped the rankings for the second time in a row, with an outstanding performance across the board. Although some Nordic countries lost some ground with respect to the year before, the others were still amongst the most successful countries in the world at fully integrating new technologies in their competitiveness strategies and using them as a crucial lever for long-term growth. Finland, Denmark, Norway, and Iceland ranked among the top 20, at 3rd, 7th, 9th, and 16th, respectively.

Singapore was stable at 2nd, leading Asia and the world in networked readiness, followed by Finland(up three places from the previous year), Switzerland, and the United States.

Europe continued to display remarkable levels of ICT readiness, with 11 regional economies featuring among the top 20 of the world’s best performers. Besides the Nordics and Switzerland, the Netherlands (11th), Germany (13th), Luxembourg (14th), the United Kingdom (15th), and France (20th) ranked among the most networked economies worldwide.

Asia was home to some of the best performers in the world in the NRI rankings and to the countries that have proven the most dynamic over time. In particular,six economies besides Singapore featured amongst the top 20, namely Taiwan (6th), Korea (10th), Hong Kong (12th), Australia (17th), New Zealand (18th), and Japan (19th). With regard to the largest Asian emerging markets, China consolidated its position at 36th after years of impressive progression in the rankings, while India lost some ground and dropped down five places to 48th.

Although a number of countries in Latin America and the Caribbean region posted notable improvements or consolidated their achievements in networked readiness, last year the region as a whole continued to trail behind international best practices in leveraging ICT advances.

No Latin American or Caribbean economy appeared in the top 20 and only a handful featured in the top 50: Barbados (38th), Chile (39th), Puerto Rico (43rd), Uruguay (45th), and Costa Rica (46th). While Brazil climbed five places to 56th, Mexico was stable at 78th, and Argentina dropped five places to 96th.

The assessment of sub-Saharan Africa’s networked readiness was disappointing, with the majority of the region lagging in the bottom half of the NRI rankings, bar Mauritius (45th) and South Africa (61st). Tunisia consolidated its leadership in North Africa at 35th place, while all other countries in the region, with the exception of Morocco (83rd, 5 places up), followed a downward trend. The biggest decline was that of Libya, which dropped a staggering 23 places to 126th. Egypt (75th) and Algeria (117th) lost 4 places each, although both improved in score. On a more positive note, the Middle East continued to feature prominently in the rankings, with four countries in the top 30, namely Israel (22nd), the United Arab Emirates (24th), Qatar (25th), and Bahrain (30th).