Terveystalo is the first Finnish healthcare service company to be granted the ISO 13485 quality management system certificate. The company invests heavily in the product development of intelligent software used in healthcare and the continuous development of related expertise. Innokas’ software experts helped develop a tool that supports Terveystalo's decision-making in workforce management and guided development work when a temporary Product Owner was needed for the product. The project also helped Terveystalo redirect the further development of the applications, as the cooperation led to a close review of the system's architecture and technologies.

"Intelligent, automated, and effective care is at the core of our strategy. To achieve this, we require medical software. Developing medical software differs from ordinary application development, and at Terveystalo, we are continuously cultivating this specialized expertise, both independently and in collaboration with our partners," says Maija Savolainen-Koskinen from Terveystalo. Maija leads a unit at Terveystalo that focuses on smart data-driven healthcare solutions, which develops applications for data collection, its analysis and interpretation, and treatment management (Smart Care, Tribe Lead).

"Innokas and Antti Kaltiainen were chosen for the role precisely because we aimed to improve our expertise in this area and had positive experiences from previous cooperation with Innokas. Through our role as a key Product Owner, we were able to leverage our expertise effectively. In addition to leading the R&D team, Antti was able to work smoothly in several different interfaces, such as medical quality and substance expertise, as well as with business management. Through this, we were able to distribute extensive information on what is needed for medical software development,” Maija continues.

The product in question is an application intended for Terveystalo's professionals to be used alongside the patient information system, which has several different functionalities that enable the use of new functionalities as part of patient work.

"One of the key capabilities of the product is the identification of work ability risks at both the population and individual level. Based on the risks, the professional can initiate the work ability process and monitor its progress. In this way, the treatment of an individual and the entire population can be carried out preventively. These features make the application a medical device," says Maija Savolainen-Koskinen.

In cooperation with Innokas, Terveystalo carried out tasks such as redesigning the system architecture and delineating the medical device from the enterprise architecture. In this way, development efforts can be allocated efficiently and in accordance with the requirements of the quality system.

"When designing the architecture, we considered the technologies we had chosen for the system. This work also helped us to think more broadly about which technologies we should utilize in the development of medical devices," Maija adds.

"Terveystalo is a well-known provider of health services, but during our collaboration I've come to appreciate its impressive digital and software capabilities. This combined with Terveystalo's substantive expertise in business creates a strong competitive advantage. Though, the practical process of retrofitting existing software to MDR compliance is a challenging step for any operator. With Innokas' software expertise and practical regulatory expertise, we were able to fill in the missing pieces that enabled us to prepare changes to the architecture together with Terveystalo's experts and teams that significantly save on the development work. I am pleased that we were able to help Terveystalo at this early stage of their medical device development project," says Antti Kaltiainen from Innokas.

"During the cooperation, we have been able to manage the product in accordance with the roadmap, and at the same time we have been able to specify guidelines for medical devices. Now is a good time to continue developing the product on our own," Maija Savolainen-Koskinen sums up.

Translation

Teija Tulinen