Finland is introducing a new national operating model designed to improve cooperation between wellbeing services counties and businesses, with the aim of accelerating health innovation, attracting investment and making it easier to bring new technologies into healthcare and social welfare services.
The model, developed under Finland’s RDI Growth Programme for Health and Wellbeing, aims to create a more consistent framework for how counties and companies can work together to develop and test new healthcare solutions.
Having a joint operating model will help wellbeing services counties and businesses develop and adopt new solutions more easily. The model will also strengthen Finland’s position as an attractive environment for health and wellbeing innovations.
Päivi Sillanaukee, Programme Director for the RDI Growth Programme for Health and Wellbeing
The operating model outlines the structures, processes and competencies needed for cooperation. It is designed to support dialogue between wellbeing services counties and businesses, improve understanding of the market, and help identify needs, develop new solutions and test them in practice.
The model consists of six phases:
- identifying the need,
- exploring and developing new solutions together,
- agreeing on how to proceed and cooperate,
- developing and testing the solution in an authentic environment,
- assessing the impacts and lessons learned,
- and deciding on adoption or expansion.
According to the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health, the aim is to ensure that effective solutions developed through cooperation can be adopted more quickly across other counties, while giving businesses a clearer understanding of collaboration opportunities within the public health sector.
Alongside the operating model, a new set of indicators has also been introduced to help wellbeing services counties assess the quality and impact of cooperation with businesses in a comparable way.
The indicators will monitor issues including whether responsibility for innovation cooperation is clearly defined, how many collaborative projects move from trial to implementation, and how smoothly counties and businesses experience the cooperation process.
The initiative forms part of Finland’s broader ambition to attract more health sector investment and strengthen innovation activity.
In order to boost growth, it is important that wellbeing services counties, businesses and investors see Finland as an attractive development and business environment for the health sector. The new operating model will clarify cooperation, speed up the adoption of new solutions and make counties increasingly attractive.
Tomi Laitinen, Senior Specialist at Finland’s Ministry of Social Affairs and Health
The work has been carried out in cooperation with wellbeing services counties, research institutes, businesses and healthcare innovation consultancy Vertical.
An event on innovation cooperation between wellbeing services counties and businesses will take place in Helsinki on 3 June 2026.
22.05.2026.
