HUS year 2025: Cooperation with wellbeing services counties

The Customer Relations Unit coordinates cooperation between HUS and the Uusimaa wellbeing services counties, the City of Helsinki, and the Southern Finland collaborative area to ensure that patient care pathways run smoothly between primary and specialized healthcare. 

Ensuring the functionality of collaboration structures and operating models.

In 2025, we continued to develop our collaboration structures in various segments together with the Uusimaa wellbeing services counties and the City of Helsinki.

Children, adolescents, and families segment 

In 2025, we built a service chain for families expecting a child or with a newborn, known as the Baby Journey, for residents of the Uusimaa region. It was published in Terveysportti. We also developed an electronic maternity clinic card to improve the flow of information. 

We improved specialized healthcare support for primary healthcare by developing a consultation structure to support psychiatric care for children and adolescents. The consultation structure will initially be piloted between the Western Uusimaa Wellbeing Services County and HUS. In addition, we widely adopted the therapy guarantee operating model. 

We also promoted the care of difficult-treat adolescents and the integration of child welfare and mental health services. In January 2026, we opened a shared hybrid unit for primary and specialized healthcare. 

Working-age segment

In the working-age segment, we developed consultation and urgent access to care in order to reduce the number of emergency visits.

In addition, we examined the costs associated with self-care supplies in Uusimaa and identified ways to curb the increase of costs.  

Senior citizens segment

We conducted an extensive survey of ward beds in the Uusimaa region, which, with the exception of childbirths and pediatric diseases, covers somatic specialized healthcare as well as primary healthcare ward beds, assessment beds, and home hospital activities. In the report, we assessed the future need for ward beds in Uusimaa and presented recommendations for measures to be implemented. 

In 2026, the action plan and its implementation will be taken forward. The aim is to ensure that the measures taken will enable the ward capacity to meet the demands of the aging population and population growth in a cost-effective manner.

In this segment, we also created a referral guideline for surgical treatment of elderly patients, which was adopted in the Uusimaa region. We also prepared a plan for the safer discharge of elderly patients from emergency care. We will start piloting the plan in 2026.

Mental health and substance abuse services

During 2025, the segment group launched an update of four Uusimaa-wide service chains, the first of which is scheduled for completion in spring 2026. The group will also review the use of digital services and the expansion of existing online therapies to new areas of therapy.  

The segment also agreed on the organization of services for patients with intellectual disabilities and the treatment of refugee patients suffering from severe post-traumatic stress disorder.

We implemented integrations cost-effectively and with maximum impact

At the beginning of 2025, primary healthcare and social welfare services for people dependent on respiratory equipment were transferred in their entirety to the City of Helsinki, the Western, Central, and Eastern Uusimaa wellbeing services counties, and partly to the Wellbeing services county of Vantaa and Kerava. HUS will continue to be responsible for specialized healthcare.

At the beginning of September 2025, the cardiology department of the Helsinki City Internal Medicine Outpatient Clinic, specializing in the examination and treatment of heart diseases, became part of HUS. The change improved the availability and effectiveness of cardiology services. Cardiology services will continue to be organized in the same way throughout the Uusimaa region.

In 2025, we continued to create Uusimaa-wide service chains with the aim of clarifying the division of labor between specialized healthcare and primary healthcare. Nine new service chains were finalized during the year.

We also streamlined the functionality of eConsultations and improved their technical functionality. At the end of 2025, HUS offered more than 20 different eConsultation services, with general psychiatric consultations being the most widely used.

We ensured equal treatment

In 2025, we created a single queue model for orthopedics, with the aim of basing decision-making in waiting list management on a shared knowledge base, thereby promoting equal access to treatment for patients. Our work will continue in 2026, and the goal is to expand the operating model to three new patient groups.

The collaborative area agreement entered into force at the beginning of 2025. On the initiative of the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health, the agreement was reopened for negotiation in spring 2025, and its preparation will continue in 2026. The update aims to clarify and strengthen cooperation across the collaborative area and its development models.

At the beginning of July, the scope of operations of Socca, the Centre of Excellence on Social Welfare, expanded to cover the entire Southern Finland collaborative area. Socca’s main focus was on strengthening the knowledge and research base in social welfare. Socca continued to develop social welfare services for the elderly and working-age people, as well as development activities related to the effectiveness of social welfare work, social welfare information management, and structural social work.