Quality of treatment in Finland

The service provided by the healthcare system must be of high quality, safe and appropriately organised. You are entitled to good healthcare and medical care and related treatment. Good care and treatment consist of, for example, the quality of treatment, patient safety, equality and professionalism and competence of the personnel.

A high quality health service is characterised by the following aspects:

• A client-focused approach to treatment: you are respected as a patient and your right to self-determination is the starting point in delivering the service.
• Availability and reachability of services: you receive services within a reasonable period of time regardless of socio-economic status, gender or ethnicity.
• Fairness: clients in a similar situation receive treatment or service on an equal basis. Emergency treatment must be given to everyone without unnecessary delay.
• Freedom of choice: you can choose your place of treatment and the healthcare professional treating you.
• Patient safety: treatment, medication and equipment are safe. Healthcare professionals are highly competent, and their expertise includes practical know-how such as people skills.
• Effectiveness: the social and health services you use are effective and increase your wellbeing and health as much as possible.

You can be sure that you will receive high-quality treatment when your care is based on the best available knowledge or scientific evidence, and it will bring you greater health and wellbeing. Tried and tested therapeutic practices are also needed.

Every health centre and hospital must draw up a plan for quality management and the implementation of patient safety. The places of treatment may also have a quality system in place. The healthcare unit must also ensure the quality and patient safety of services they procure from other service providers.

National quality registers in Finland

Information on treatment given and its effects is collected in national quality registers. Information on the effects of treatment can also be collected from patients themselves. The utilisation of the information in quality registers is always performed anonymously, and it is never possible to identify the information of individual patients in the results. In the collection and processing of treatment data, valid privacy legislation is followed.

The better the quality register covers the treatment of an individual disease or patient group, the more reliable the statistical results derived from the register on the quality and effect of treatment given in Finland are. National quality registers form a valuable national information pool enabling the development of treatment and research, and the monitoring of the service system.

In the future, patients will receive information from the quality registers for the decision-making concerning their own treatment and to support their choices. Using quality registers, the health benefits gained by the patient can be increased by

• streamlining the patient journey
• comparing and developing treatment practices
• examining the effectiveness and safety of different treatments
• informing patients and other citizens openly about treatment results
• guiding the service system and the production of services towards high quality, effective treatment.