Tampere Region – a dynamic growth hub in Finland for med-tech and health IT companies

The Tampere Region in Finland offers a unique mix of industrial heritage and expertise in ICT and healthcare. This lays a perfect ground for developing and producing world-class health tech solutions. In this article you’ll meet Atostek and Vitec, companies that both have decades of experience in the field of ICT and health technology in Tampere.

Tampere health community is a highly innovative network of experts from healthcare institutes, hospitals, research centres and companies of all sizes and types. There are dozens of health companies, and further to that, around 1300 ICT companies, almost 5000 people working on AI and analytics, and an unrivalled imaging ecosystem.

The powerful industry cluster that evolved around mobile communications with Nokia remains strong. There is an extraordinary talent pool in the region and many former Nokia employees have founded their own businesses or have been recruited locally by cutting-edge international tech companies.

Atostek and Recibus e-prescription system, ready to go

Once it was Nokia that developed camera phones in Tampere and then made them world-famous. If you ask Mika Torhola, CEO of Tampere-based Atostek, solutions for healthcare digitalisation might be the next big hit.

– One reason for Nokia’s success was the high-quality Finnish infrastructure that they were able to use as a test bench. This applies to health tech as well, because Finland is one of the forerunners investing in national healthcare infrastructure, says Torhola.

Atostek’s offering for global health market is Recibus, a cloud-based electronic prescription system that is already in use in Finland. According to Torhola, Recibus allows a real quantum leap in healthcare digitalisation for any country deploying the system.

Cost-efficient expertise for health tech

Atostek is a software company with two decades of experience in healthcare and medical applications, but also industrial product development and public sector information systems. Torhola describes Atostek as a company of highly educated software designers.

For Atostek, Tampere is a place where it is safe to invest in the local expertise. Software development is cost-efficient even in global comparison, because the local high quality professionals are insightful and motivated, yet employee retention rates tend to be good in the region.

– The multidisciplinary Tampere University has three strong fields that are equally important for us: medical, technical and social sciences. These are all necessary when we are developing systems that improve citizens’ welfare, Torhola says.

The Tampere Region has always provided industries with both labour and world-class expertise – according to Torhola, that’s an essential feature in the industrial heritage of Tampere. Foreign customers and partners also acknowledge the tech-savvy nature of the Finns in general. It is very convenient to test new solutions when local people are eager to put them to use.

Vitec – close to customer, developing ACUTE patient information system

Tampere-based expertise on international shoulders, that’s what ACUTE patient information system by Acuvitec most certainly is. The roots of their healthcare software knowledge go back to 1987 and the development of ACUTE started some 20 years ago. The Tampere-based company was acquired by Vitec Software Group, a Nordic market leader for Vertical Market Software, in 2013.

– We welcomed Vitec, because it strengthened our business just the way we had already conducted it in Tampere, with the local expertise: developing business-critical products for the highly regulated and competed healthcare market, says Acuvitec CEO Janne Vainio.

Vitec Software Group is developing business-critical software for specific industries' unique needs. It grows through acquisitions of well-managed companies that are willing to keep on evolving.

– For years, circa one million euros per year has been invested in the product development of the ACUTE system. As the national healthcare system is changing, so does our system, says Vainio.

Cooperation creates competitiveness

Forerunner from the very beginning, ACUTE system was cloud-based when cloud was not mainstream. Thanks to an open-minded Finnish customer the company was able to try a cloud solution, with success, and the rest is ACUTE history.

For better understanding of the new digital markets, Vitec is building an ecosystem around ACUTE. There is an open partner API in the system, for the digital partners chosen by the customers. Additionally, ACUTE MARKET is an e-market-place for the new generation of healthcare applications and solutions.

– Healthcare operators face a multitude of challenges today, and it is not possible to tackle all of them with just one product. Cooperation creates competitiveness, says Vainio.

Author: Päivi Stenroos