OLKA, customer panels and experts by experience

Patients can influence and participate in the planning, development, and evaluation of our services.

Our trained customer-panel members and experts by experience collaborate with our personnel. As a member of the research panel, you can influence the research performed with us.

Our customers have the opportunity to participate in developing our patient-oriented care culture, the use of facilities, and our services by acting as a member of the customer panel.

The selection of members to our customer panels is made through the selection of the Joint Authority Administration, the hospital areas, or departments by making use of your experience and training. In principle, the term of office of the members of the trained customer panel is approximately two years. We have customer panels operating in almost all the departments in the Helsinki metropolitan area and in the hospital areas of Raseborg, Hyvinkää, Lohja, and Porvoo.

We strive to develop our practices to increase patient inclusion in accordance with the Magnet Hospital model.

Magnet Hospital

In the Children and Adolescents department, we work closely with our patients and their families.

A family panel consisting of our patients’ parents brings the families' perspective to the development work and operating methods of our hospital. The family panel takes a position, for example, on patient satisfaction issues, hospital development plans, digital services, and patient guidelines.

The members of the panel have personal experience of the various functions of our hospital, as their children have been cared for in our pediatric units. The family panel meets at least four times a year, and the term of office of the members lasts for two or three years.

Contact information:

Inger Mäenpää, Nurse Director, tel. 09 4717 2727
Tuula Kortekangas, Nurse Manager, tel. 050 427 9719

The members of our research panels include patients and their loved ones, as well as other people interested in our research.

As a member of a research panel, you will receive training for the task, organized in cooperation with the University of Helsinki. If you are already a member in a customer panel or you are an expert by experience, you can also participate in research panels after the further training.

Research panel members present our researchers with questions and insights that researchers can utilize in their studies. As a research panelist, you can provide influence in the different stages of pharmaceutical research and treatment and health-scientific research, from planning to the presentation of research results.

Research panels at HUS

Emergency Medicine and Services, Coordinator: Marja Mäkinen
Comprehensive Cancer Center, Coordinator: Marita Repo
Children and Adolescents, Coordinator: Minna Lehtola
Diagnostic Center, Coordinator: Maria Sandberg

Members of HUS Research Panels having a training at Biomedicum Helsinki.

Expert by experience is a person who has completed the training and has first-hand experience of the illness. They can be either a current or former patient, a family member, or another person close to a patient. We select people for the expert by experience training on a case-by-case basis. Through shared expertise, they will participate in the planning and development of our activities.

As an expert by experience, you have the capacity to act:

As a member in various working groups, steering groups, and executive groups
In the assessment of services and in research teams
In the planning of new activities
As a support person or team leader.

Expert tasks based on being an expert by experience are fee-based, and nationwide recommendations are provided by Koulutetut Kokemusasiantuntijat ry (KoKoa ry), an association of trained experts by experience.

Further information on KoKoa ry is available on the association's website.

As an expert by experience, you are providing a valuable perspective on the treatment process from the customer's point of view. For example, you can be a team leader together with a personnel representative.

For more information, refer to the website of the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health:

OLKA – You will not be left alone, support is available

OLKA® refers to coordinated organization and volunteering activity in our hospitals. Our activities aim to offer our patients and their loved ones unhurried encounters and support in coming to terms with their disease. OLKA is a partnership activity developed jointly by HUS and EJY association.

In addition, we have volunteer activities at Espoo Hospital, Haartman Hospital, Surgical Hospital, Malmi Hospital, Women's Hospital, Peijas Hospital, Eye and Ear Hospital, and Töölö Hospital.

Patient associations are welcome to share information about their activities and provide peer support at our OLKA points. Peer supporters of associations can engage in activities in our hospitals by organizing association theme days at the OLKA points and by volunteering through OLKA.

Helsinki Metropolitan Area OLKA points:

Use an electronic form to book a theme day.
Give us feedback on the theme day you organized!
Statistics form for volunteers (to be completed after the shift).

OLKA, customer panels and experts by experience

Customer panels

Family panel

Research panels

Experts by experience

OLKA – You will not be left alone, support is available

OLKA activities in our hospitals

Information for patient associations

Contact information