In June 2022, Business Finland, Health Capital Helsinki and Helsinki Partners invited a group of top-tier European media to Helsinki to learn about the Finnish health sector, health data reserves, companies and the growth drivers of Finnish health tech innovation. During the 3-day-visit, the group also visited the HIMSS22 Europe Conference and its Finnish Pavilion, as well as the ultramodern simulation hospital facilities and testbed environment at Metropolia University of Applied Sciences in Helsinki. Here is a collection of articles published as a result of the visit (list to be updated).
“Just as case studies are the bedrock of management education, simulations are central to the training of doctors, nurses, and other medical staff. The idea is to give staff access to realistic scenarios to hone their skills before being set loose on real-world patients.
One of the more advanced facilities in this domain is the “simulation hospital” operated by Metropolia University of Applied Sciences in Helsinki, Finland. The facility contains a fully equipped, standards-compliant simulation hospital complete with ambulances, delivery rooms, an intensive care unit, and even a reception area, with the aim being to provide medical students with a realistic environment to develop their skills.”
Link to full article by Adi Gaskell, published 29 August, 2022
An article about Finnish health data reserves, and more specifically the FinnGen study, the biobank network in Finland and Fingenious Service for access to the biobank data.
“If in France the hosting of health data raises questions, the Finnish model is surprising: the country has been storing the medical information of its citizens for research purposes for 10 years. At the heart of the system, trust between the population and the authorities.”
‘Finns have a positive attitude towards medical research. Finland is a society based on trust,’ said Päivi Sillanaukee. For the fifth year in a row, Finland is at the top of the “World Happiness Report”, which lists the degree of happiness of the inhabitants of different countries in the world. And the authors of the survey explain Finnish happiness, among other things, by the degree of confidence felt by the population.”
Link to full article by Guillaume Serres, published 26 July, 2022
“Digital health lives in Finland. Case studies, new solutions, innovative start-ups and large-scale projects make up a very significant picture: a kind of ‘Nordic way’ to health made up of daily well-being and advanced technology.”
An extensive reportage from the media visit, taking the participants to the heart of Finnish healthcare.
Link to full article by Cecilia Biondi, published 19 July, 2022
An article on Metropolia Proof Health in Helsinki, the modern testbed environment for Finnish and international companies, research institutes or public sector organizations:
“The Metropolia University of Applied Sciences has 17,000 students and 1,000 workers, and its headquarters in Myllypuro (Helsinki) is the main of the four campuses and where this clinical practice is developed that mimics a real one thanks to health devices. It is a spacious, modern building equipped with state-of-the-art technology throughout its six floors. The journey has been long, the institution has been teaching medical simulation for more than 10 years and has become one of the largest simulation hospitals in the world.”
“Our objective is to support the preclinical phase of health and medical technology companies, so that they receive a clear path from R&D&i to internationalization”, says Minna Elomaa-Krapu, Innovation Director, Metropolia Proof Health.
“Metropolia Proof Health seeks to be a learning environment that encourages innovation, development and search for solutions to demanding global challenges.”
Link to full article by Claudia Vila Galán, published 14 July, 2022
“There is next to no support given on the demand side in terms of creating sufficient spare capacity within healthcare providers so that they can pull innovations through. … Scaling innovation can be a full-time job in its own right, and largely impossible to do alongside frontline delivery.”
“I think we’re beginning to understand that it takes a village to raise health innovations, and getting things into use at scale is a difficult process,” Lauri Kuronen, Senior Business Advisor at Health Capital Helsinki, says. “So if that means we have to have external resources deployed to help clinical teams adopt and scale up new technologies, then that is what will need to happen.”
Also interviewed: Visa Honkanen, CleverHealth Network and HUS Helsinki University Hospital, and Hal Wolf, HIMSS
Link to full article by Adi Gaskell, published 12 July, 2022
Is there a link between innovation and happiness? Check out the vlog finding answers from Finland and HIMSS22Europe Congress, with interviews of Helsinki startups Sooma and iXu Smart Touch Bear by JoyHaptics.
Link to vlog by Marcus Bellonne, published on 4 July, 2022
“Finland-born telemedicine startup Buddy Healthcare is helping the NHS to overcome growing waiting lists and resource challenges by digitising care pathways. … Patients can make use of data-driven instructions and documents; doctors and nurses can take actions based on that data and the current situation; and real-time structured measures of outcomes and experiences allow for intuitive facility management.”
Link to full article by Aaron Hurst, published on 29 June, 2022
A lengthy article on how Finnish healthcare system works, the patient data repositories and how data is used for research, simulation training in medical education, and the simulation hospital at Metropolia University of Applied Sciences.
“This simulation hospital is unique internationally, as it is fully equipped and compliant with standards, and has both reception and operational facilities, i.e. a delivery room, an operating room and an intensive care unit, and even an ambulance, where the staff is able to reproduce the typical situations of a real hospital.”
Link to full article by Italo Vignoli, published 23 June, 2022
“We live in a society where everything functions, with education that is free, healthcare that is free, and everything is provided for in a secure and safe manner, so we focus more on the things that make people happy, such as creating government and institutions that just work,” Kari Klossner, Head of Smart Life Finland, Business Finland, says. “This then gives people the base and the outlook to be entrepreneurial as they have both the optimistic mindset all entrepreneurs need and the functioning institutions to help them.”
“The Nordic country, which came 7th in the latest Global Innovation Index, has over 4,000 startups in Helsinki alone, many of which were founded by the talented engineers cut adrift after the demise of Nokia. This engineering prowess has been augmented by R&D institutions, including Aalto University and the Technological Research Centre of Finland VTT, which have developed ample intellectual property to build companies around.”
Link to full article by Adi Gaskell, published 17 June, 2022
Health Capital Helsinki
