Finland faces challenges in well-being regions as director Petri Virolainen calls for new strategies

Well-being regions in Finland must devise new strategies to ensure the future availability of services. According to Petri Virolainen, the director of the Päijät-Häme well-being area, a significant challenge ahead is that the allocated financial resources for welfare will not be sufficient. However, a more pressing issue is the lack of workforce to meet the service demands. While Virolainen asserts that the system is not on the brink of collapse, changes are imminent.

One avenue is to incorporate more technology into service delivery. “We must accept the idea that if there is a task better suited for a machine or application, we should embrace that technology,” he stated. This would allow human resources to be focused on areas requiring personal interaction where technology cannot be utilized effectively.

Virolainen does not foresee the need to eliminate some of the most expensive treatments from service offerings. Rather, the aim should be to find more cost-effective solutions. “We have examples of medical and surgical treatments where we could opt for conservative therapies or cheaper medications. We need to evaluate whether the cheaper medication provides sufficient benefits or even matches the effectiveness of a pricier alternative, reserving the latter for cases where cheaper options fail.”

The necessity for individualized assessments remains. Virolainen noted that such considerations are already being made and will increase. He believes a national guideline in Finland that establishes uniform limits and objectives for well-being regions would be beneficial. However, he is skeptical about defining choices more precisely. “The reality is that all care and service decisions are individualized, necessitating personal assessment,” he explained. He emphasized that defining service options should be based on efficacy, which requires further research into treatment effectiveness.