Excellent hospital care
In 2019, we treated 680,600 patients in all. We delivered 16,000 babies and performed 92,000 surgical procedures. There were 2,920,700 outpatient visits and 184,100 treatment periods.
Demand for services at HUS has grown steadily in recent years. Every day, HUS received 1,300 elective referrals on average. In the year under review, we had an average of 820 outpatient visits every day, an increase of 19% on the previous year. This was partly due to the emergency clinic rearrangements with the City of Helsinki.
At the end of 2019, access to treatment within the time limits specified by law declined for patients in the queue for inpatient care but improved for patients in the queue for outpatient care, compared to 2018. Sufficiently timely access to treatment is a challenge regarding which we are constantly striving to improve.
Improvement of operations and patient safety are taken very seriously at HUS. Quality improvements in 2019 focused on preparing a Quality and patient safety plan and acquiring a quality system covering all occupational groups, JCI accreditation. Digitization projects make our services more customer-oriented and uniform, both of which are key elements in quality improvement.