Telemedicine and eHealth in Finland: On the Way to Digitalization – from Individual TeleHealth Applications to Connected Health

Abstract

Finland is a relatively sparsely populated country (5.5 million inhabitants) with a highly advanced technological infrastructure. Like in other Nordic countries, the health care system in Finland is mainly based on public health care providers. Municipalities, through taxes, finance most of the health care and the government is providing additional support. There are additional private services based on insurances and service fees. All the primary health care centres, secondary and tertiary hospitals as well as private service providers obey the same general health care and medical treatment guidelines and patient documentation policies, which has contributed positively to the opportunities offered by Telemedicine and eHealth [1]. In this article the authors share the Finnish history of telehealth development with strategical and national guidance, the Finnish as ‘first-timers’ in the change and modernizing health care into eHealth, our national FSTeH (Finish Society of Telemedicine and eHealth) association, evaluative research, development and education, example of private eHealth provider, and current situation in Finland with the experimental development attitude, and future.