Almost every Finn used health services in 2025
In 2025, there were more than five million patients in health services in total, meaning that almost every Finn used health services. The highest number of patients, about 4.6 million, were in primary health care services.
Approximately 4.5 million patients used public health services and about 2.7 million patients used private health services.
A larger share of services was provided face to face than via remote connections.
The number of care events — that is, visits or inpatient periods — varied by region. The highest number of services per patient was used in Kainuu.
Explore the dataset
This page compiles information covering the entire health care system in Finland.
Database reports
Data can be retrieved on how the use of services is distributed among patients who have used different health services, both nationwide and by wellbeing services county.
Information is available on services in public health care, private health care, and occupational health care. Occupational health care data are divided into privately and publicly provided occupational health care.
The visits shown in the reports for private health care and occupational health care represent the share of visits for which data have already been received in the registers.
Data from occupational health care and private health care have increased significantly in recent years as more information has been submitted to the registers. New providers are still joining, so the amount of data continues to grow. The largest gaps in coverage among private service providers are estimated to be in oral health care.
The reports do not include data on home care, home nursing, home services, or hospital-at-home services.
The data in the database reports are also updated retrospectively, meaning that published figures may change. Most of the numerical data are unverified, meaning they have not undergone expert review.
Service providers, such as wellbeing services counties or private health service companies, are responsible for their own data. The information is generally based on entries made by health care professionals.
Reports on reasons for visit
The reports include annual patient numbers based on all diagnoses recorded in health care and submitted to THL’s care notification registers from public health care, private health care, and occupational health care.
The data do not represent the total number of diagnosis entries reported to the register, but the annual number of patients observed in different diagnoses and diagnosis categories. This means that the same person is counted only once if they have the same diagnosis recorded multiple times, for example a recurring long term diagnosis.
In addition to diagnoses from health care encounters, the data also include patients’ long term diagnoses reported to the register.
The collection of long term diagnosis data is still being established, and there is variation between regions in how these diagnoses are reported.
Types of reports
- Summaries show the key figures from the registers.
- Cubes offer the most versatile options for selecting perspectives and filtering data with various criteria from the registers.
Background information
- Quality reports of the statistics
- Data protection notice (Avohilmo) (in Finnish)
- Data protection notice (Terveyshilmo) (in Finnish)
- Dataset description (Hilmo) (Data catalogue) (in Finnish)
- Instructions for submitting health care care notification data (in Finnish)
Sources
The data are based on information from the primary health care (Avohilmo) and specialised health care (Terveyshilmo) care notification registers.
Description of the statistics
The Health services as a whole page compiles information from primary health care, specialised health care, and occupational health care, covering both public and private services.
The Avohilmo register collects information on primary health care outpatient services, occupational health care, and home care, including visits and remote contacts, clients, reasons for visit, procedures, follow up care, and infections.
The Terveyshilmo register collects information on outpatient clinic visits in specialised health care and on completed care periods in social and health care. Data on primary health care inpatient wards are reported from the Terveys Hilmo register.
Private health service providers submit data to both registers.
The register data are based on information received from service providers, such as wellbeing services counties.
Update schedule
The data in the reports are updated monthly.
Contact information and responsible persons
Responsible persons: Jutta Järvelin and Kaisa Pyrhönen
THL email format: [email protected]
Primary contact addresses: [email protected] ja [email protected].