Doctor’s services

The number of visits to general practitioners, which also includes general practitioner visits within occupational healthcare services, grew from 2.0 million to 2.6 million visits between 1999 and 2005, i.e. an average of 4.0% per year.

Visits to specialists correspondingly grew from 2.9 million to 3.8 million, i.e. on average by 4.8% per year.

The visits to general practitioners and specialists, excluding occupational healthcare visits, increased by 0.3 million visits between 1999 and 2005, i.e. by approximately 8% per year (Stakes statistics 2000-2006).

In doctors’ services, organic growth consists of both volume growth and price changes.

In 2007, there were approximately 18,000 doctors in Finland, of whom over 6,700 had a full- or part-time private practice. Full-time private doctors have the most extensive practices in Helsinki and the Uusimaa region, in Varsinais-Suomi and Pirkanmaa. Doctors have transferred from the public sector to the private sector because, for instance, as the size of private healthcare service companies has increased, the operational preconditions in the private sector have also improved.

Hospital services

A majority of hospital services, which comprise surgery and overnight ward services, are produced in the public sector. The providers are either municipalities, federations of municipalities or the State. In the private sector some actors produce highly-specialized hospital services and some focus on outpatient surgery with brief after-care.

The share of the private sector in all hospital service production is less than 6% (Ministry of Trade and Industry and TE centre publication, February 2006). In 2005, a total of 543,000 surgeries were performed, of which slightly over 180,000 were outpatient surgery procedures. The prevailing trend for less critical procedures has been to move to outpatient surgery where the patient arrives for the procedure and leaves on the same day. The share of outpatient surgery in less critical treatment periods was 36% in 1997 and 51% in 2005 (Stakes statistics 26/2005).

As technology and surgery methods develop, new opportunities are created for traditional hospital operations. Seamless treatment chains are developed, remote diagnosis is already possible and in the long run, remote surgery can be taken into wider use.