Patient fees can be a complex matter, no matter whether you're dealing with a private or public healthcare provider. These fees typically include both statutory and provider-specific charges, often capped at certain maximum limits. Payments may be collected entirely from the patients or partially covered by Kela (the Social Insurance Institution of Finland), insurance companies, or other entities.

In Sweden, the digital transformation of healthcare is gaining momentum, and patient flow management is a common denominator among the regional councils’ priorities. As healthcare organizations modernize their core systems, the tendering process for patient management can seem daunting. We’ve put together this short checklist that simplifies your journey, steering your organization towards a solution that not only boosts operational efficiency but also significantly improves patient experience.

Automation and digitalization bring remarkable benefits and improvements to emergency services. They're not just elevating patient experiences and optimizing workflows but also saving invaluable time and resources. Can these advancements also contribute to crafting precise reports that push operational efficiency even further?

Automation in hospital emergency departments brings significant benefits to both patients and healthcare professionals. However, these benefits are not limited to triage. Automation also provides significant advantages in the processes that follow this initial evaluation. In this blog post, I continue from my previous write-up on automating the check-in processes in emergency departments, and we delve more into how automation can streamline operations and improve patient experience post-triage.

Emergency units in hospitals are often busy and chaotic environments where patients require prompt attention for a wide range of medical conditions. One of the most critical parts of the emergency care process is the check-in process, which involves collecting patient information, assessing the severity of their condition, and prioritizing treatment based on urgency. However, the check-in process can be time-consuming, leading to longer wait times for patients and increased workload for hospital staff. In this blog post, we will explore how automating the check-in process can help emergency units improve efficiency and enhance the patient experience.

In many countries, healthcare organizations have hard times ahead because of the issues in their current healthcare systems. In Finland, there are significant problems in the overall patient flow management, which is painfully visible, for example, in joint emergency departments. According to the statistics of the Finnish Institute of Health and Welfare (THL), emergency department visits in primary healthcare and joint emergency departments have increased by 10.1% and at the same time, the number of long-term clients in health centers has grown by over 21% from 2019 to 2021. These problems have a horizontal impact on the entire treatment chain from access to primary healthcare to finding follow-up treatment. 

Finland seeks to solve these problems by regulation. The treatment time guarantee will change in September 2023 when the waiting time will be reduced to 14 days and at the end of 2024 it will be reduced to 7 days. Access to primary healthcare plays a crucial role in solving the challenges of emergency departments, but it’s equally important to ensure patients’ smooth access to follow-up treatment to reduce the pressure on the overloaded emergency services.