News

The perception of insurance companies in the daily lives of people is quite mixed nowadays, to say the least. To many, an insurance is something like a bus card – you need it to travel, but you don’t expect it to hold your hand or help you to your destination. There is an emotional gap between the insurance company and its customer, but should this still be the case?

Looking closer at the healthcare landscape, new innovative companies are shifting away from “problem and solution” products. Instead, preventive digital healthcare market is growing rapidly, and solutions that can prevent major health issues and diseases will have insurance companies as major benefactors. This is why it is important for insurance companies to acknowledge that a significant amount of time and resources needs to be allocated to preventive care, possible even a mindset shift. Prevention needs to be at the core of everything.

At LähiTapiola, in order to take giant steps towards prevention in healthcare we are focusing on our customers and their actual needs. The only way to develop truly relevant preventive care solutions you need to be able to walk a mile in the shoes of your customers, understand their concerns and how you can improve their life – one feature or service at a time.

In January 2018, LähiTapiola launched Finland’s first Virtual Hospital, where a team of doctors and nurses can handle majority of basic GP consultations over the phone or chat. Remote doctor services improve the availability of health care services and cut costs. They also improve the geographical equality of patients, as health care services at home are available to everyone regardless of location. LähiTapiola has a long-term plan of improving preventive services for its customers. So far the doctors and nurses at the TerveysHelppi Virtual Hospital have treated a growing number of customers, of which the youngest was 4 months old, and the oldest a respectable 101 years old.

We are working directly with our customers and startups to innovate and help develop the future of the preventive care ecosystem. For this very reason we recently started working with Vertical; to add principles of open innovation into our processes, work with our customers to identify their concerns, learn how we can better serve their needs and bring new ways of co-creating with innovative companies.

You can join us on the 31.05 at 14.15 for a panel at Upgraded Life Festival where we discuss the future of preventive digital healthcare and the roles of insurance companies, startups and actual end-users in it.

Jani Tikkanen

VP of Healthcare, LähiTapiola