HUS Diagnostic Center launched in July 2019
One of the most important events in 2019 was the establishing of the HUS Diagnostic Center. The laboratory services of HUSLAB and the imaging services of HUS Imaging were brought under one roof in the HUS Diagnostic Center as of July 1, 2019.
The HUS Diagnostic Center serves the entire Specific Catchment Area. This is beneficial not only to the Specific Catchment Area but also to HUS, since combining diagnostic services gave economies of scale and allowed us to keep treatment chains under our own control.
The purpose with merging laboratory and imaging services was to improve management in both units and to highlight the importance of these departments to the Specific Catchment Area and indeed their nationwide service role.
We planned the operating model and management structure for the HUS Diagnostic Center at workshops in May and June. We decided for 2019 that the former HUS Imaging and HUSLAB departments would form the divisions of the new profit area, and changes were only made to profit area level management.
The HUS Diagnostic Center opened on July 1, 2019, but through the autumn its constituent divisions largely continued to operate as before. The department will be completely reorganized as of January 1, 2020; the functions will be divided into three divisions instead of the former three, with a shared layer of management at the top.
Eksote laboratory and imaging services join HUS Diagnostic Center
Diagnostic services are important at the level of the Specific Catchment Area in facilitating shared treatment paths. For smooth internal cooperation and transfer of patients between hospital areas within the Specific Catchment Area, laboratory and imaging results must be stored in one shared information system. There should also be common reference values for all tests. Having diagnostic services in common is in the patient’s interests, as it will never be necessary to perform the same tests again. This also saves on costs.
Shared diagnostic services, laboratory services and imaging services were introduced with the Joint Authority of Kymenlaakso Social and Health Services (Kymsote) back in 2017.
At the end of 2019, the functions of the Eksote laboratory and imaging center were merged into the HUS Diagnostic Center by corporate acquisition. Eksote diagnostic services were transferred to HUS ‘as is’, including functions, equipment, personnel and service agreements. In the transaction, HUS purchased the diagnostic service functions of Eksote at a price higher than the balance sheet value. Eksote is also being paid an adjustment allowance. In this transaction, 235 employees were transferred to the HUS Diagnostic Center as old employees.
Harmonization of functions is intended to begin at the beginning of 2020. Harmonization of IT systems will take longer. For laboratory functions it will be possible to achieve harmonization during 2020, but in radiology the current systems will remain in use until the Apotti system is brought on line.