Mehiläinen – more than 110 years of treatment and care

Mehiläinen’s story is part of Finland’s story. At the turn of the 20th century, Finnish society, science and art started to become more Finnish. However, there was no Finnish-language hospital or medical vocabulary yet. A medical society, Duodecim, was founded for this purpose, with the aim of establishing the Finnish language in health care.

Four of the society’s doctors, Walter Sipilä, Reguel Löfqvist, K. F. Hirvisalo and Akseli Koskimies, established a Finnish-language hospital at their own risk and with their own money. Sairaala O.Y. Mehiläinen was established on 6 November 1909. It was named after the selfless and hardworking healer in the Kalevala, the bee.

In 1917, Finland declared independence. However, the mood in the new state was far from harmonious, and the following year Finland plunged into a civil war. During the war, the future Finnish president P. E. Svinhufvud sought refuge at Mehiläinen, hiding under a hospital bed and pretending to be a patient. When the peace came, the number of patients increased and the Huvilakatu premises became cramped. In 1932, Mehiläinen moved to new premises in Töölö, which it still uses today. 

Health centres came to Finland in the 1970s, and since then Mehiläinen has worked together with public health care. In the late 1970s, Mehiläinen also started providing occupational health care services. In addition to medical care, more and more attention was paid to the effects of lifestyle.

From the beginning, delivering babies was an important part of Mehiläinen’s activities. Mehiläinen was the first hospital in Finland to allow fathers to be present during delivery, and so people came to give birth at Mehiläinen also from further afield.

Mehiläinen made its first acquisitions in the early 1980s, expanding to the Ympyrätalo and Forum clinics in Helsinki and to the Kielotie clinic in Vantaa. The early 1990s depression hit the whole of Finland hard and also greatly reduced the demand for private health care services. At that time, more than 60 young cardiac patients were able to have surgery at Mehiläinen thanks to financial donations. Mehiläinen had to significantly reduce its operations, but was able to survive.

In 2001, Mehiläinen merged with the Turku-based Tohtoritalo. At the same time, the private equity investors Capman and Sitra became owners of Mehiläinen. The nationwide expansion also continued as Remedi in Vaasa and Säveri in Kuopio merged with Mehiläinen. Under the leadership of CEO Antti Kasi, the company was developed in a purposeful way, and soon there were clinics in all Finnish cities with universities.

Mehiläinen started to invest in modern information and quality management systems and nationwide chain operations. Mehiläinen’s occupational health services also grew very significantly as a result of numerous new customer relationships. 

In 2005, Mehiläinen’s management system received the ISO 9001:2000 quality certification. At that time, the foundation was laid for future digital development by introducing a uniform electronic patient information system in all units. In 2005, Matti Bergendahl became the new CEO, and in 2006, Mehiläinen became part of the Nordic Ambea Group, owned by the private equity investor 3i.

Over the past ten years, Mehiläinen has made more than a hundred acquisitions and built dozens of new care homes and medical clinics. The acquisition of the Mediverkko group in January 2015 was an important milestone and driver of change. Following the acquisition, Janne-Olli Järvenpää became Mehiläinen’s CEO. 

In addition to private health care services, strong growth was also created by Mehiläinen’s public health and social care services. In 2018, Mehiläinen made history by taking over the operations of its first public central hospital in Sea Lapland.

During the decade, Mehiläinen expanded from less than one hundred units to a network of nearly 500 locations throughout Finland. Dental care, public health and social care services, care for the elderly, mental health rehabilitation, services for the disabled and child protection became a bigger part of the range of services that mainly consisted of private medical clinic services. 

Since 2010, Mehiläinen has invested heavily in digital services. The OmaMehiläinen online service, developed by Mehiläinen, was launched in 2012, followed by its mobile app version four years later. A Mehidoc app was developed for doctors, along with an entire Kompassi app family for occupational health customers. In 2019, Mehiläinen started a new chapter in its story as a service export company after it sold its OmaMehiläinen platform to its first international customer in Greece.

Mehiläinen also continuously develops its quality and measurement of effectiveness as a pioneer in its industry. Its achievements to date include the industry’s first algorithm for predicting work ability risks, the first comprehensive quality index for care services and the systematic measurement of the quality and effectiveness of surgical operations. Mehiläinen’s patient safety, treatment effectiveness, speed of access to treatment and customer satisfaction are the best in the industry. For example, Mehiläinen’s Net Promoter Score (NPS), which measures customer satisfaction and loyalty, is exceptionally high at 88.

2020 was a year marked by the global COVID-19 pandemic, and it will also go down in history as an exceptional period in Mehiläinen. Mehiläinen responded to the unforeseen COVID-19 pandemic promptly and decisively. Our main priority has been to ensure the safety of our customers and staff and to take measures to allow society to function with as little disruption as possible.

Mehiläinen has taken on responsibility for managing the COVID-19 pandemic throughout the pandemic in all its activities. Measures to manage the pandemic have been taken extensively: we developed a fast and smooth COVID-19 testing model and have ensured analytical capacity, encouraged our customers to use our safe digital services and offered our help with COVID-19 vaccination.

The global health care market is undergoing a digital transformation. The change is expected, as the sector has been one of the slowest in terms of digital development. The continuing coronavirus pandemic has provided a strong impetus, bringing about changes in legislation and financing models in several countries.

Mehiläinen has long been a pioneer in digital healthcare. Many of the functions that are now in high demand around the world have been used by us for years. Our digital development has been achieved internally with our own resources and capabilities, which we can now commercialise elsewhere. We are in a unique position to promote digital development outside Finland by offering ready-made and tested solutions to other health care providers. 

Mehiläinen founded its subsidiary BeeHealthy in 2020 to meet the international demand for digital solutions. BeeHealthy offers a platform developed and proven in Mehiläinen as Software as a Service (SaaS) with an annual licence fee. BeeHealthy offers digital health care software services in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

In 2021, Mehiläinen also expanded its health care services to three new countries of operation: Estonia, Sweden and Germany. In Estonia, Mehiläinen acquired two leading health care companies: Qvalitas, which offers occupational health care and medical services, and Unimed, which offers oral health services. In Sweden, Mehiläinen provides public primary health care based on freedom of choice as well as occupational health services and specialist medical services in the Stockholm and Gothenburg regions. In 2021, the acquisition of a small orthopaedic hospital allowed us to expand our medical clinic services to the German market. In the German market, Mehiläinen is aiming for a revenue in the hundreds of millions during the next few years from outpatient care with digital capabilities.

During its history and especially the past 10 years, Mehiläinen has become the market leader and pioneer of its industry. The company invests in the opportunities offered by digitalisation and in the effectiveness and quality of care in all its business areas. Mehiläinen’s revenue exceeds EUR 1.3 billion and the company employs more than 29,000 professionals. Every day, Mehiläinen’s expert and qualified staff does meaningful work in building better health and well-being in society.

Mehiläinen has a strong ownership base: the company’s main owners are funds managed by CVC Capital Partners, in addition to which Mehiläinen is owned by several significant Finnish institutional investors, including Apteekkien Eläkekassa, Ilmarinen, the LocalTapiola Group, the State Pension Fund of Finland (VER) and Varma. Mehiläinen’s management and some of its employees are also owners of the company.

However, the company’s most important asset is loyal and satisfied customers: 21,000 companies, 1.5 million private individuals and the majority of Finnish municipalities. Based on these strengths, the company will be developed on a long-term basis over the next one hundred years.