Towards digitalized patient-centered integrated healthcare in Finland – Examining the future of digitalized healthcare

Abstract

Over the past decade, the Finnish healthcare sector has witnessed a gradual digital transformation, where traditional delivery of healthcare services has been augmented with innovative digital tools, services, and channels. One viewpoint elevated by this digital transformation is a paradigm shift toward a more patient-centered integrated healthcare system.

This thesis aims to build an understanding of the interplay between digital health and patient-centered integrated care, a domain that has received relatively limited research today. The study draws its theoretical foundation from the affordance theory by examining potential affordances that emerge from the perceptions of ten interviewed e-physicians on the future of digital health in Finland. Using a grounded theory methodology alongside a speculative design mindset, the thesis presents a future vision of digitalized patientcentered integrated healthcare. Furthermore, the study explores the factors that facilitate the realization of the envisioned future.

The findings of the thesis show that digital health is an evolving multidisciplinary concept that has the potential to establish a more integrated, continuous, and personalized healthcare system, with shared value co-created in collaboration between different healthcare stakeholders. The generation of this value was identified to be bound to a transition in three distinct yet interconnected meta-level themes: 1) from a single system to a modular ecosystem, 2) from data silos to consolidated insights, and 3) from isolated to integrated care paths.

The envisioned future portrays an adaptable, participatory, and coordinated healthcare system, seamlessly blending the digital and physical worlds to deliver a cohesive and mutually supportive multichannel healthcare service system. The realization of the envisioned future necessitates progress in three categories: 1) enhancing multidisciplinary collaboration, 2) developing a shared vision, and 3) establishing ecosystems for testing and integrating solutions.