Discussing health care
10.06.2013
Aalto University wants to add the reform of wellbeing service contents and operating approaches to the debate on social welfare and health care in Finland.
There has been a lot of public debate on the prospective social welfare and health care reformation in Finland. The starting point for the reformation measures have been issues related to administrative structures or the relations between public and private service production, however.
Organised at Aalto University on 6-7 June, the Regional Health Care in 2025 conference discussed issues related to health care service production. Experts from other European countries, such as Denmark and the Netherlands, also participated in the event.
The debate involved topics such as the kind of society the services are planned for, where patients will be treated and how changes relative to health care will be taken into account when planning hospitals and designing their architecture, for example.
Ageing causes pressure
State Secretary Martti Hetemäki, one of the speakers at the conference, highlighted the pressure on health care brought about by our ageing population. In 2030, more than 40 per cent of the population will be over 65 years of age. The change in age structure will slow down economic growth, and yet at the same time, an increasing amount of money is needed in health care.
Hetemäki takes notice of the fact that the utilisation rates of hospitals in Finland are high compared to other EU countries.
’Hospital care is the single most expensive form of health care’, Hetemäki states.
He encourages us to consider whether non-institutional long-term care could be further developed in Finland. Instead of having patients stay in expensive hospital care, we should find different options for patient rehabilitation, for example.
Bringing hospitals up to date
Hospital buildings should also keep up with other changes taking place in health care. Architect and Adjunct Professor Teemu Kurkela states, however, that no new hospitals have been built in Finland since the 1970s.
’If we look at pictures of shopping centres from the 1970s, they look outdated, but pictures of hospitals from the 1970s reveal what our hospitals are even today. There has been no development’, says Kurkela.
Bringing hospital architecture up to date is important, as architecture has great impact on the functionality of health care processes. Kurkela has familiarised himself with the modernisation of hospital environments and participates in the planning of a new hospital in Jyväskylä.
This design work makes use of research knowledge from Aalto University’s Sotera Institute, which works in cooperation with the entire field of social welfare and health care and focuses particularly on the problems and development tasks related to its creation.
The new hospital in Jyväskylä will be completed in 2019. The aim is high: the goal is to make this hospital the most modern and efficient one in Finland, and to make it a patient-oriented hospital.
’In practice, this refers to the reorganisation of the regional system, involving the integration of specialised care, primary health care and social services. The elements required in this process must be placed in the hospital in a concrete manner. We are analysing various hospital functions and also seeking solutions elsewhere in Europe – we are looking into the way things are done in other countries.’