I’ve always been easily bored, and what bores or annoys me most is when things are done in unnecessarily complicated ways. When I run into something that in my opinion doesn’t work right, I automatically start thinking about why something is done the way it is and how this could be done smarter, better or faster. So, for me everything starts with “why” and this is also why I think helping people to understand “why” is one of the most important things in leadership. Understanding gives everything a purpose and that inspires people and help them align with the goals.

The Challenge in Healthcare

Healthcare is lagging behind other sectors in terms of adapting to technical possibilities, i.e., seizing opportunities. There are several good reasons for this; patient safety, information security, and regulations are among the most defendable ones. The future hurts only once but resisting it hurts forever. And if you resist, you are not among the ones shaping the future so resisting leaves you worse off when the future catches up. This is especially true with AI and machine learning.

Don’t be scared of technology and the future but be realistic. Don’t plan too much in detail—start small but start somewhere—for example supporting current operations with new technology. Support successful change and kill off less successful initiatives quickly. After all, augmented intelligence where man and machine work together usually render much better results than just man or just machine.

The Journey to a Better Health

I’m easily irritated by suboptimal processes, and healthcare has felt overly complicated forever. It’s very doctor-centric and siloed.

The start for me and Etsimo was three things happening at once; (1) I had three small children that needed medical care now and then, always in the middle of the night, (2) my wife got ill with a rare and life-threatening disease, and it took 2,5 years for the professionals to diagnose her correctly and even then it happened by coincidence, and (3) I was presenting an information discovery technology to the largest hospital district in Finland, and they gave me feedback that changed my thinking. All these together got me thinking that healthcare should be fixed, and I realized we could do it, we have the required skill sets and technology. So, I talked with my team and these discussions led to us start building our current offering.

We provide a platform with the infrastructure that enables our customers to get started on the journey towards being a data-driven company utilizing AI in their operations. It utilizes medical data and makes it possible for our customers to transfer from reactive to personalized and preventive care. For the consumer, the above translates into an improved customer experience with 24/7 access to healthcare and an easy-to-use fully digital care experience. For the provider and payer, it reduces the costs of the care process with automated triaging and care path assignment. This enables optimization of the use of human care resources and analytics on the care process.