eHealth 2026 Conference: Effective digital solutions in health care and social welfare services

The 31st eHealth Conference, held at the University of Helsinki on 1-2 October 2026, was organised by the Finnish Society of Telemedicine and eHealth in collaboration with the Finnish Society for Effectiveness in Social and Healthcare. 

Through keynote presentations, scientific sessions, and poster exhibitions, participants gained insights into the current state of digitalisation and AI implementation in healthcare in Finland and across Europe. The discussions also explored how digital innovations can generate meaningful benefits for patients, professionals, healthcare organisations, and society. The conference programme combined keynote presentations with a diverse range of thematic tracks, on topics such as the evaluation of digital health and social care services, artificial intelligence, data-driven management, cybersecurity and trust, digital care pathways, and emerging innovations. In this blog post, we highlight some of our key insights and takeaways from the conference.

Conference keynotes and tracks

The first keynote was delivered by Sara Kinnunen, AI and digital services director at Helsinki University Hospital (HUS). The presentation explored how artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming healthcare, evolving from isolated tools into an integral part of clinical practice, patient services, and care pathways. At HUS, AI-based solutions such as summary- and translation helpers are already implemented, and 40 of the organisation's 54 AI systems are already actively in use. Kinnunen emphasised that digitalisation and AI should not only improve individual tasks but also help create a more seamless patient journey across services and channels, with end-user, both patients and professionals' needs at the centre of development. The presentation concluded with the vision of "AI-native hospitals" (meaning hospitals designed around AI from the start, rather than adding AI as an extra feature afterwards) as a future benchmark, while stressing that professionals must remain central to clinical decision-making.

In the second keynote, Sari Palojoki, Senior Advisor at the Finnish Ministry of Social Affairs and Health, highlighted how the European Health Data Space (EHDS) is shaping the next phase of digital health in Europe. It aims to strengthen citizens' access to health data while enabling its secure use for research, innovation, and policymaking. She also emphasised that achieving effective, scalable digital health services requires not only technology, but also interoperability, governance, trust, and the responsible adoption of AI. Organisational capacity for change was seen as essential as focus shifts from pioneering pilots to structural transformation, embedding effective digital services into routine healthcare, with cybersecurity, digital literacy, adoption and change management at the core. In regards to this, Palojoki also noted an important aspect regarding policy work, where a shift towards resilience, security and democratic stability is visible.

The third keynote was delivered by Professor Mika Kortelainen from University of Turku and the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare (THL). Kortelainen presented findings from a large, randomised study (Haaga et al., 2026) in Ostrobothnia, Finland, examining the impact of a public digital primary care clinic. The study explored whether digital services replace existing healthcare contacts or primarily generate additional demand. The findings showed that access to the digital clinic increased digital care contacts but did not substantially reduce face-to-face primary care visits. While some substitution occurred through reductions in other traditional primary care contacts, overall primary care utilisation increased. The study also found no clear effects on the use of hospital, private, or occupational healthcare services. Furthermore, Kortelainen highlighted that improved access does not automatically translate into use, making it important to understand who chooses to engage with digital services. Overall, the results suggest that the potential of digital services to reduce healthcare costs may be more limited than often assumed, underscoring the need for rigorous evaluation and stronger evidence of the real-world impacts of digitalisation on health and healthcare utilisation.

In the "How to evaluate effectiveness of digital health and social services?" -track, Professor Paulus Torkki from LUT University examined how the value and impact of digital health services can be evaluated in practice, considering patient benefits, service utilisation, costs, productivity, and system-level effects. He also discussed the current evidence and the challenges of determining whether healthcare digitalisation creates genuine value for both patients and the healthcare system. In the context of digital health services, value is often reflected in patient outcomes and user experiences, while costs are more relevant from a healthcare system perspective (Laukka et al., 2025). Torkki also provided an important conclusion, to always start with the goals, not the technology, and carefully evaluate the consequences of digital solutions, keeping improved patient care and health outcomes as the ultimate goal. 

In the same track, Elias Vaattovaara from the University of Oulu, Finland, presented their findings on economic impact of AI-based fracture detection in the emergency department (Vaattovaara et al., 2026). The implementation of an AI software facilitated a reduction of 81 hours and 39 minutes in radiologist working time over the four-month study period, extrapolating an estimated annual saving of 245 hours. This generated annual cost savings of approximately 10,500€. However, after accounting for the software license cost of 10,000€/year, the financial benefit remained modest at around 500€. This highlights the importance of carefully evaluating the cost-effectiveness of AI solutions before large-scale implementation. 

In the “Improving Effectiveness and Cost-Efficiency through Digital Care” -track, Jari Haverinen from the Finnish Coordinating Center for Health Technology Assessment (FinCCHTA) at Oulu University Hospital, presented their abstract "From Evidence to Impact: Enabling the Adoption of Digital Therapies in Finnish Healthcare" (Laitinen et al., 2026). The presentation highlighted the growing importance of generating robust evidence on the clinical, operational, and economic impact of digital therapies. Drawing on Finland’s Digital Therapy Pilot and international experiences, Haverinen emphasised that demonstrating effectiveness alone is not enough: successful adoption requires real-world evidence, integration into care pathways, sustainable reimbursement models, and clear proof of value for patients, healthcare professionals, and health systems. This also serves as an important reminder that AI alone cannot resolve inefficient workflows. Successful implementation depends on well-functioning underlying processes.

In the session “Advance Analytics and AI”, Oscar Boldt-Christmas from Tandem Health, Sweden, introduced a framework for understanding AI deployment in healthcare, classifying solutions according to their underlying model and their role in clinical or administrative work (Boldt, 2026). Boldt concluded that AI adoption is currently concentrated in clinician-supervised tasks such as documentation and information summarisation, while the success of AI implementation depends less on the model itself and more on integration into workflows, training and governance. Using the metaphor of the tortoise and the hare, Boldt also illustrated how consumers often adopt AI at high speed, while healthcare organisations and institutions advance more deliberately to ensure safety, effectiveness, and responsible implementation.

In the final session "A paradigm shift toward Planetary Health", associate professor Chiara Cadeddu from Erasmus School of Health Policy & Management (ESHPM) at Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands, introduced the idea of a paradigm shift toward Planetary Health and One Health in digital services. Cadeddu (2026) argued that the evaluation of digital health solutions should extend beyond clinical outcomes and cost-effectiveness to include environmental sustainability, equity, and societal impact. While technologies such as telemedicine and AI can reduce travel, save time and resources, and improve access to care (Purohit et al., 2021; Rodler et al., 2023), their environmental footprint and broader consequences must also be considered to ensure that digital transformation benefits both human and planetary health.

Key takeaway

A key takeaway from the conference was that successful and effective digital transformation depends not on technology alone, but on evidence, implementation, and value creation. eHealth initiatives should be approached as change management efforts rather than technology projects, with a strong focus on real-world impact, trusted and scalable solutions, and meaningful benefits for patients and professionals. Finally, there is a need to broaden our perspective beyond healthcare systems themselves, ensuring that the development and evaluation of digital solutions also consider their societal and environmental implications. As illustrated by the tortoise and the hare, healthcare may move more slowly than consumers in adopting AI, but sometimes we need to dare to be slow: a cautious, evidence-based approach can help build trusted, effective, and scalable solutions.

We wish to thank all the conference organisers for a well-organised and inspiring event, and for creating an excellent forum for knowledge exchange and collaboration. We look forward to participating in the next eHealth conference in Helsinki, 2028.

All the conference proceedings from 2026 can be found online: https://www.telemedicine.fi/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/978-952-65791-4-6_eHealth2026-Conference_2026_10_01.pdf

Lotta Eronen, Ph.D., senior lecturer in healthcare, Arcada UAS. 
Jonas Danielson, Ph.D., degree programme director, principal lecturer in Healthcare, Arcada UAS. 
 

References

Boldt, O. (2026). Front-line deployed AI in healthcare: where are we today?  Finnish Society of Telemedicine and eHealth (FSTeH) publication 1/2026, 81. 

Cadeddu, C. (2026). A paradigm shift toward Planetary Health and One Health in digital services.  Finnish Society of Telemedicine and eHealth (FSTeH) publication 1/2026, 105.

Haaga T, Kivimäki A, Kortelainen M, Nokso-Koivisto O, Saxell T, Seppä M, Sääksvuori L. (2026). Ostrobothnia Digital Clinic Experiment: Populated Statistical Analysis Plan for a Randomized Controlled Trial. SoteDataLab. Available at: https://www.julkari.fi/items/84035f86-1a99-472d-95bc-922f03499971

Laitinen, T., Haverinen, J., Vuollet, J., Mäkynen, T., Aulanko, L. (2026). From Evidence to Impact: Enabling the Adoption of Digital Therapies in Finnish Healthcare. Finnish Society of Telemedicine and eHealth (FSTeH) publication 1/2026, 62.

Laukka, E., Tuunanen, T., Jansson, M., Vanhanen, M., Hirvonen, N., Palukka, J., ... & Torkki, P. (2025). Value cocreation and codestruction in digital health services: protocol for a systematic review. JMIR Research Protocols, 14(1), e63015.

Purohit, A., Smith, J., & Hibble, A. (2021). Does telemedicine reduce the carbon footprint of healthcare? A systematic review. Future Healthcare Journal, 8(1), e85-e91.

Rodler, S., Ramacciotti, L. S., Maas, M., Mokhtar, D., Hershenhouse, J., Abreu, A. L. D. C., ... & Cacciamani, G. E. (2023). The impact of telemedicine in reducing the carbon footprint in health care: a systematic review and cumulative analysis of 68 million clinical consultations. European urology focus, 9(6), 873-887.

Vaattovaara, E., Brix, M. &Nevalainen, M. (2026). The Economic Impact of AI-Based Fracture Detection in the Emergency Department. Finnish Society of Telemedicine and eHealth (FSTeH) publication 1/2026, 42.