Mehr Einsatz Wagen Folge 76: Bridging Innovation: How Finland is Reimagining Healthcare through Public-Private Partnerships

In this episode of The Mehr Einsatzwagen Podcast, host Arthur Oles broadcasts from Europe’s leading digital health conference, DMEA in Berlin. He is joined by Pekka Kahri, Technology Officer at Helsinki University Hospital (HUS), one of the most advanced hospitals in Europe. Pekka shares his unique journey across government, industry, and healthcare, and dives deep into the strategic role he plays in fostering innovation and public-private collaboration within Finland’s healthcare ecosystem.

From leading EU-funded projects on pediatric data collaboration and cancer treatment analytics to shaping the future of AI deployment and health data governance, Pekka explains how Finland is pushing boundaries in secondary health data use, digital transformation, and federated data systems. The episode explores the cultural, structural, and strategic factors that make Finland a model for collaborative health innovation, and why hospitals need roles like his to drive future-ready solutions from the ground up.

Show Notes:

Host: Arthur Oles – Journalist specializing in digital health
Guest: Pekka Kahri – Technology Officer, Helsinki University Hospital

 Topics Covered:

• Pekka Kahri’s professional journey: from health tech industry to government to HUS
• The role of a Technology Officer: strategic, collaborative, and innovation-driven
• How HUS initiates and leads large-scale EU-funded health innovation projects
• Examples of public-private partnerships in:
  • Pediatric data collaboration
  • AI in cancer therapy assessments
• The mechanics of collaboration:
  • Engagement forums and advisory boards
  • Clinician-driven innovation and co-creation with industry
  • Transparent, structured partnership pipelines
• Finland’s low-hierarchy culture and its advantages in healthcare innovation
• Secondary use of health data and European Health Data Space (EHDS)
• Key digital health priorities in Finland:
  • Better EHR usability and clinician feedback loops
  • Federated data collaboration
  • Responsible, cost-effective deployment of AI
  • Equity in digital access for all patient groups
• Why clinical engagement and small-scale experimentation are vital for transformation
• The importance of building trust and mutual understanding in public-private collaborations

 Highlights:

• “Innovation doesn’t naturally fit into hospital structures—it needs free agents.”
• “Federated analytics may solve the challenge of data sharing across borders.”
• “Finland’s size and culture are not barriers—they're superpowers for innovation.”
• “If we don’t show clinicians the value of data collection, we risk losing their trust.”

 Key Takeaway:

Hospitals must create internal champions for innovation. Roles like the Technology Officer are essential to bridge clinicians, IT, and industry to co-create future-proof, patient-centered healthcare systems.

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Transcript

…the Mehr Einsatzwagen podcast: Dare to do more, do more in healthcare, your trusted source for conversations at the cutting edge of healthcare innovation. I'm your host Arthur Oles, journalist specializing in digital health, and today we are broadcasting from DIMIA in Berlin, Europe's premier digital health conference, where forward leaders and pioneers are coming together to share bold ideas and practical solutions for the future of medicine. I am honored to be joined today by Pekka Kahey, technology officer at the Helsinki University Hospital, the largest healthcare organization in Finland and one of the most advanced hospitals in Europe. Previously, Pekka was director of innovation services at the Finnish Institute of Health and Welfare, so no doubt he brings a wealth of experience in digital transformation and health innovation. Pekka's partner at Hoos, I'm in Helsinki University Hospital, his mission is quite clear: to foster public-private collaboration, build strong industry partnerships, and accelerate co-innovation in areas like digital health, secondary use of health data, and AI, of course. He serves also as a vital link between hospital leadership, clinicians, and innovators helping to navigate complex procurement and regulatory landscapes, all while working to streamline bureaucracy and strengthen governance. in today's episode we will talk about how Helsinki University Hospital is pushing the boundaries of what's possible and how Finland is building a model of innovation that our countries can learn from. So Pekka, it's great to have you today. 

Welcome to the podcast. 

Thank you very much. Great to be here. 

So to start, could you please briefly introduce yourself and show your journey through the Finnish health sector leading up to your current role at Hoos? 

Yes. I have an engineering background, so I graduated in the late 1990s in Helsinki University of Technology, majoring in medical technologies and I started my role, my working life in industry. So I worked with the health tech industry, a family owned business for about 10 years. Then I worked with innovation in the funding agency, and now for the past 10 years or so, first in the central government and now in the biggest hospital or healthcare provider in Finland. And the advantage of this sort of role is looking the healthcare sector from different perspectives, I have to say that it does look quite different depending on where you work, whether it's industry, whether it's central government, whether it's healthcare provider, whether it's healthcare provider and I think that this has given me a great advantage to bridge and foster collaboration between different parties. Because having been in a role myself in different sides does help to understand what are your drivers and motivations. 

So what is the technical technology officer and so, I'm a little bit lost in all these names like CMO, Chief Medical Innovation Officer, Chief Innovation Officer, Chief Information Officer. So technology officer sounds both quite broad and strategic. So what exactly does your role involve at Helsinki University Hospital? 

So maybe looking at where, what is the department where I work? I work in a department which is called strategy and development. So that already frames that I'm working with long-term strategic initiatives, and my role is really to help identify large-scale projects, help building them up. If needed help in getting external funding for those, for example, the European Union programs, and then also when the projects are started, if there are multiple organizations, they require certain type of coordination and management. 

So it's really a generalist role meaning that I am, I have to say, I am not an in-depth expert in anything, but have a very broad understanding over what a hospital or what healthcare is like, and also what are the main technologies and main industry developments that there are, and trying this way to foster new collaborations. 

So it's more about collaborations, you are not engaged in some kind of information system creation or designing, but you are this bridge between different parts of the health care system and also different stakeholders within the hospital. 

Exactly. Exactly. So for example, if we then procure new systems to our hospitals, that is not on my desk. We have an IT department and the director. That's more like the chief information officer type of role, really on the line duty of procuring budget responsibility, deployment responsibility, and service responsibility. That's more on that side. But in order to prepare these types of work before you, especially when there are things that are not mature in the market, then there's maybe a collaborative research and development project where we want to engage clinical teams to make sure that we are doing things that fulfill their needs. Then of course the IT so that we know that we could deploy and implement them in our IT systems. And then external partners because even though we are a big organization, of course, we don't have all the competencies in house. So then tap into academic or industrial partners. 

So we are somewhere on the border between strategical investments and maybe project management? 

In a way, yes. I would personally. If so, we are a public hospital. So we don't have formally a role of business developers. But that would be maybe the closest thing when I would refer to private sector actors. So I'm trying to develop those kinds of initiatives that can be strategically significant and prepare them then for large scale deployment and implementation. 

Okay, so maybe to make a big picture of what are you doing at the hospital. Can you please walk us through a typical day in your positions or what kind of project or conversations probably are you usually involved in? 

So I work in several projects and my my days are can be relatively, let's say, scattered in activities, but typically it always involves engagement with our project management team. So those who are then managing the day to day things so that things get done. And then it's all involvement with our clinical units. So for example, we are we are running a large EU-funded project coordinated by our hospital, which is focusing on data collaboration between children's hospitals in Europe. So we work very closely with the department of pediatrics in our hospital. And we have five European hospitals in our project. And another five companies who are working with the technology and business development around the topic. And this is, you know, my day is working with these networks or ecosystems of actors and seeing that our projects move forward. And then all the time also thinking that when the project ends, how do we make it a permanent activity if we are successful in solving the topics that we are. So think about what happens when we run out of funding, because if the project ends and we have good results, we have to be thinking about how do we bridge them into a permanent activity. 

And some countries do have already long tradition of these public-private partnerships. How is it basically, in your case? Is it in Finland also, you know, longer tradition or it's something new? 

There is a relatively long tradition. So we do. Finland is also a small country. It's a country of low hierarchies. So people are comfortable and willing to collaborate. And there is a tradition of doing, of course, as with other places. So the tricky and important part is that we don't mix the roles when we are, for example, going for a big tender We would need to be transparent towards our partners, but when we are doing co-development. So everybody has a stake and a requirement need to develop something that is not yet there. Then we want to engage with our partners, which are both local companies and also multinational companies who have some presence in our country. 

and, one of your key missions is to foster this public-private collaboration partnership and connect hospital with industry partners. So why this engagement is so critical for healthcare innovation today? Why public-private collaboration is the thing that we should maybe make stronger these things? 

I think that hospitals, even though they are, the focus of medical knowledge, still we can't say that we do hold all the competencies or expertise in, for example, how the digital solutions or technology should be applied. And that's where I think it's wise to join forces with private partners, in order to co-develop, to learn, and also to share the medical and clinical needs to the technology developers so that they can develop solutions that they can better meet these needs, and not pushing some technology which might not be suitable for the hospital's purposes. So I think it's both ways. We need industry and private partners to help us with competencies, but also private sector needs information and engagement about real and important needs that are worth solving. Because there are lots of challenges, lots of needs, lots of needs in a hospital, but maybe those who are important and urgent and can be solved are those that can lead into real implementations. 

And can you please describe how this collaboration works in practice? I mean, so how do you connect with all the hospital leaders, clinicians, and external partners? Where does it start? So it comes from the management. For example, the executive director of the hospital says, "Yeah, we need a new cooperation for X." So, and then you start to look for the partners, or where does it start? 

So there are several levels. First of all, we have a permanent engagement forum, like an advisory board, where we invite representatives from the industry, which is more like a policy level, but it's a permanent body, which meets three, four times a year under the chairing of one of our executive leaders in our hospital. And this is a way to exchange like a policy and general level topics between companies and our hospital key executives. So this is like a stakeholder type of engagement. Then we have programmes, very concrete programmes, where we have a written agreement between companies, so that we want to engage in elaborating and finding what would be new initiatives for collaborative activities. And that is often done through workshops or clinical presentations. We scan where in the hospital they might be willing and fresh ideas or fresh needs that are presented to the industry. Then we organise a workshop, either in-person or hybrid, or sometimes just a virtual meeting, where the clinicians and clinical teams are presenting what their tricky current topics, which they want to work with. And then the companies are listening to these, and then we see if there is mutual interest, then we can start facilitating a joint project. Then there is of course needs that might come from the companies. So for example, clinical trials are clear examples. So you need to have a way to take them in. But also for devices or other software innovations. So how do we engage when a company wants to find out whether a prototype or a product is suitable. So then we have a channel to process those and then find clinical counterparties. So there are many mechanisms. So there are many mechanisms and I think that the important part is that there is a sort of strategic statement that this is something we need to do and we have some persons who are dedicated for doing it. 

And then it's just trying to create routines and also relations with the people in the province It sounds like a very democratic approach in Finland when it comes to public-private partnerships because you mentioned already that it starts from the bottom to the up. So also clinicians are already engaged in, you know, proposing what problems could be solved by introducing new solutions, by introducing new ideas. So it's not the case in every country, I think. Because in some countries I have seen that the management is, you know, this body that is deciding what partnerships we are doing. But in Finland it's more coming from the bottom to the up, right? 

I think it needs both, as we know, you know, the story from geology. You know, when you have a chalk stone cave. If you have a top-down approach and a bottom-up approach that come together, it makes a pillar. And that's when it comes strong. So I think we need both. Top-down thing, a strategic initiative, which means that engagement with private sector is a topic which the hospital is strategically committed to. But then it needs bottom-up activities because it's also about the drive and ambition of individual clinicians or clinical teams that make things happen. And that's why I think we need both. It's true that it's democratic in a sense that there is a high, let's say, freedom of bringing forward these ideas and we are trying to scan them very openly. Of course, then there is selection which things move forward. And then it's, I think, an assessment of strategic, like top-down criteria, but then also practical criteria. Are there resources? Can we commit people? Are the companies interested in it? So it's a combination of this. But I think that both top-down and bottom-up approaches are needed. 

So maybe if you could, if you could give some more examples of such partnerships that you were leading recently. You've mentioned already one, so if you could maybe give an example of one more or two more. 

Okay. So one initiative that we have is related to cancer therapies. And as we all know, so there are lots of new medicines that are coming into, especially late-state cancer that come to the market. They often get a conditional approval for their market introduction. And there is fairly little evidence on how well they work with actual patient populations. So we started a project in order to use the hospital-generated data to assess how well the new medications work. And we combined here forces with five, between five cancer hospitals in Europe. And then there are technology partners. Siemens Healthineers being one of those, providing AI tools for measuring disease progression based on CT scans. And then also IQVIA, who is providing tools for extracting structured information from free text. So an NLP type of approach. And we're trying to build ways to use the hospital data, so that clinics who are treating seriously our patients, they have a variety of drugs that they're used and not always knowing which patient groups benefit from the drugs, which are often also quite expensive. So we're trying to improve this data collection and data utilization together with our partners. And then also support regulatory decision-making or health technology assessment, HDA. And this is a close collaboration, again, with the cancer department clinicians, those who treat the patients. Our model diseases are breast cancer and lung cancer. And then data analysts and data engineers. So how do you retrieve the data from the source systems, and how do you make a reliable analysis of that? And that is a fascinating project, also funded by the European Union Horizon program. 

Do the projects that we are leading also include the European data space, because Finland is already quite advanced when it comes to the secondary use of data, or is it too early for this kind of projects in the HDS? 

It's very much in the core what we think currently, because what we have in Finland, is quite advanced legislation to use data within our country. But still the topic of how do you collaborate on data across borders is fully unsold. And hopefully, EHDS will bring some solutions to that when it's being implemented. But still there is a topic that can we do, for example, federated analytics, not moving data around, but making queries between hospitals, to somehow extract insights from data sources, even before the EHDS with all its implementation is in place. And I think that this is a fascinating approach, also promoted by the European Medicines Agency in their initiatives like Darwin EU. So how do you tap into data sources, draw insights from the data without moving the sensitive data around? I think that this is a really, really important topic at the moment, and it's very in the core of European health data space, meaning technical solutions and governance rules that allow collaboration on data. So we are very much into that and hope to also demonstrate some like showcases what could a data space provide as value for the clinical and also for scientific research. 

It's really fascinating when I'm listening to you when you talk about this collaborations within the Finnish healthcare ecosystem. So maybe Finland should be a kind of blueprint for collaboration also in regard to European health data space, because it also requires collaboration between different stakeholders and between different member states. 

So I mean, that there are a big problems that we can see in the country, and I think the size of Finland, which is small, is somewhat an advantage. People know each other. It is, as I said, it's not very hierarchical so we have a quite good collaborative spirit in the country. Yes, I think it is possible and also I think it's important always to bear in mind that the value that is coming, for example, from building data infrastructures and data spaces, we have to very soon be able to show to the clinical teams and also the healthcare payers that this brings value back to the treatment of the patients. Because if it's only, for example, demanding hospitals and clinicians to record high quality data, do more work on entering data into the systems, but you never get any feedback about the value, it will be highly demotivating. And already now, as we know, physicians and nurses are sometimes complaining that there's too much work with the medical record. So we need to show them value, but it makes sense to do proper documentation in the electronic systems because you get insights which help your work. And this feedback loop is super important. and it should not be forgotten when we talk about implementing EHDS. If we do a lot of demands for hospitals and healthcare workers and then the potential benefits come in 10 years, it's going to be difficult to motivate them. 

So also making easier the electronic patient record is the key topic right now in Finland. 

It is one key topic. I think that physicians are very sensible and also understand the value of recording data, at least in Finland, because it's been fully penetrated for 20 years old. All hospitals have electronic medical records. But still, if the benefit of what is done with the data is not visible, then there's a risk that this motivation is deteriorating. And if the clinical teams then start cutting corners or are not motivated, then we lose the very foundation of all data usage, the correct and high quality entry. 

How do you see the future of public-private partnerships, evolving in healthcare both in Finland but also internationally? 

I think it requires delivering results and sharing those results that are good. And it's clear that these are also risky projects. Not always do they come out with a positive solution. So we have to accept that these co-development public-private partnerships, they are done with an ambitious goals, but also accepting that they are demanding projects to take through. So we have to know that the solution to take through. And I think that those hospitals and those private entities who understand this mentality and are able to work and find together where those projects, where really the ambition level and potential outcomes are the biggest. 

They will create these success stories and then it feeds itself so that the collaboration becomes better. But it's also, it's very much, I think, a question of trust. It's a question of mutual respect. So understanding that there are different drivers. So healthcare organizations are driven, at least in the Nordics, where the public system is very much driven by health So you need to get good patient outcomes, good clinical results. And then, of course, companies need to develop their businesses. So it cannot be just scientific or other academic interests. So we have to understand that these drivers are different, respect them, and then work in a trusting environment. And very much is that relationships between people. So persons, individuals are also, also there on the table. 

And from our perspective, what are currently the top digital health priorities in Finland? You mentioned already European health data space is the topic. Then maybe making electronic patient record easier is another topic. So, what are the top digital priorities? Are they the same like in Europe or maybe some others? 

I think that there are several priorities. But of course, as we are relatively mature in using digital tools and electronic medical records in our country. So I think that it's really about the efficiency gains that we must gain from the system. So that the production of services and the way the systems are used, they really provide measurable, quantifiable benefits. I think this is like an efficiency topic. Then there is the topic of what the new technologies, especially artificial intelligence or generative AI, how can they be deployed in a trustworthy and reliable way in healthcare. So it's really inspiring and fascinating to set up pilots. But these technologies don't develop from pilots into production scale systems before there is certain maturity. And it requires that we are solving again real needs, important needs of the clinical teams, and that we can manage the risks and the compliance topics that are related to these technologies. So that we are clearly a topic and as we know AI needs data. So it goes very much hand in hand with the access and availability of high quality data, which is the goal of European health data space. 

Then always it's the topic, especially in public healthcare systems that all patient groups are included. So that also those who are not most digitally savvy, they can have access to the services and patient portals are an important part of those. But then there still has to be ways that you are serving those who cannot themselves use photos, like minors, or older people, or those who have cognitive limitations. So this is always an important topic. 

And we are at the MEIA, the leading healthcare digital health conference and the first in Europe. We see AI at every corner. Is it also a topic in Finland, AI in healthcare. 

Of course, it's very much a topic. And I think it's, in our hospital we have had projects on AI, especially on machine learning for quite a while already. And there are even some early applications that have been taken into production scale, meaning that they are no longer pilots. They are usually relatively simple, or they are related to certain well-developed areas. Like imaging. Imaging is something where AI algorithms are already available. And I think that the big question and the big hurdle for the, for the next coming years is that, choosing wisely, where is the applications or the clinical use cases where deploying AI gives most value also compared to the cost of investment that you, that you need to do. Because it's, it's requires investment. It requires maybe process changes. It requires maintenance. And we know that the IT budgets tend to inflate nowadays. The IT is expensive. So we have to be very considerate. Where do we invest so that the value is really coming into the clinical care and all the benefits of patients. 

So, the last question. I haven't met so many technology officers so far. So maybe if you could say why every hospital should have a role like this. 

I think it's a, when we talk about innovation. So innovation is, is maybe something which is not typically fostered by those structures and those hierarchies that are present in a hospital, which is normally related to clear responsibilities, clear division of tasks, clear accountability. Okay. So I'm a bit like a free agent, meaning that I can, I have activities, which are maybe less certain. They, they become somehow, um, offer potential, but we don't really yet know where would they lead. Mm. And in this sense, if we are not inside the hospitals actively working with this topic, somebody else will do it and then propose those, those to us later on. And I think that then it's, it's a bit late because the innovative work has already been more or less done. So at least, of course, I am biased to say, but this is the greatest job in healthcare because, because it's very engaging. It's very, um, inspiring. And it's also providing a large visibility to different clinical disciplines, to technology and also to the top management and, and even, uh, national and European policy. 

Mm. I think that after this conversation, uh, no hospital has adopted. It's a very key role, uh, to make, um, you know, these collaborations working within hospitals, but also within healthcare ecosystem. And the very last question, because, uh, I have the pleasure having you on the podcast from the university hospital in Helsinki. Um, how do you envision the future of the hospital and how it will look like in terms of digital transformation in, in, let's say, five years. It's 2013. 

I think that when we talk about digital transformation, it is not digital transformation alone, it's a transformation of the entire hospital. Yeah. So it's, it's continuously, uh, rethinking that, uh, how the clinical teams are doing their, their work, how they are delivering care, how they are engaging with patients. And nobody from the outside can sort of dictate that. It has to be the clinical teams themselves who have to start thinking, okay, if we have these types of new innovative tools like AI, uh, or generative AI tools, which help you summarize information from various sources. So how do we change our practices, so that we get the most gains out of these technologies, uh, but also then make sure that we are not blindly following those, but still remain, like, on top of the technology, so that if there is some sort of bias, or whatever, so these can be detected. But I think it's, it's quite exciting. Five years is a short period in healthcare. Mm, yeah, yeah. There is. There is a short period in healthcare. There will be, there will be, there will not be, not be maybe, maybe major things, but these things move slowly. And I think that, that, uh, the key is that there are also, from the clinical departments, that there is enthusiasm and engagement from there. Uh, and also support from there, their clinical management is important. And then, um, experimenting is one key thing. So doing small things first see, does it make sense? And then maybe build from there. 

Yeah. Yeah. Um, is there a kind of dream, public, private partnership that you would like to manage, uh, in the next two or three years? 

Yeah, each large collaborative project is a dream as such. So there's always a new composition with new partners. And for example, these, these projects that I've mentioned before, one on oncology and one on the pediatrics, they were, they both started with an idea within our clinical teams and our IT people, that what, how could we address that debt? Um, and then engaging with some known and some new partners, we came into, into a nice project setup, which has really been a great adventure, really. So I think that, that these types of projects, when they are generated, each of them will be a, uh, like a dream to, to, to, to take forward and hopefully there will be many more. 

Um, thank you very much, Pekka. It was such a great conversation with you. And I think that everybody is now convinced that the role of technology officer is such a needed role. And if you are listening to us, thank you very much for being with us and stay tuned for the next episode of the podcast. Thank you. Bye. Thank you. Bye