The vision and goal of Axel Health have long been to streamline and enhance the operations and planning of healthcare services. This goal took a significant leap forward in the summer of 2024 when we acquired the shares of Finnish company Unitary Healthcare Oy. But what does this mean in practice for healthcare professionals – both in Finland and Sweden?

In the social and healthcare sector, personnel costs account for the largest expense, ranging from approximately 30-60% of the total costs, depending on the responsibility area. The shortage of frontline professionals, such as doctors, nurses, and therapists, poses challenges to improving cost efficiency. At the same time, automating administrative tasks offers significant cost-saving opportunities without increasing the workload of frontline staff.

In the modern healthcare sector, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is playing a pivotal role in transforming various aspects, from clinical procedures to population health management and diagnostics. One of the key advantages of AI is its capacity to improve administrative efficiency. By automating routine tasks, AI technologies free up healthcare professionals to focus on more critical aspects of patient care.

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. 

Do you know what computers are good at? Computing. Do you know what optimization is? A mathematical problem. 

Healthcare service production requires careful planning, and the larger the unit sizes become, the larger is the planning effort required. What does it take to produce efficient healthcare services? In simple terms, patients and professionals need to encounter in the same location – and this location also needs to offer the equipment and materials required, no matter if they’re related to diagnostics, care, or medication.

Shift.xlsx, annual plan.xls, resource planning Excel, mighty Excel, smart Excel... The world revolves around spreadsheets. These magical inventions are the primary planning tools in almost every organization. Why? Let’s take a closer look at where Excel works well, and the areas where it’s about time to give up using it for efficient healthcare resource management.