In the SoteDataLab project report, we examined out-of-hours (Mon–Fri 8:00–16:00 excluded) remote contacts in public outpatient care, private outpatient care, and occupational health care. The results indicate there has been demand for extended opening hours, and that children and their parents, young adults, and women may have benefited in particular.

Most wellbeing services counties have already adopted—or are in the process of adopting—a digital clinic or a digital health and social care centre, i.e., a digital and often chat-based alternative to in-person primary-care services. Digital clinics serve a broader population base than traditional health centres, which makes it possible to offer longer opening hours—for example, evenings, nights, and weekends. Our study based on the AvoHilmo register included 837,000 residents from five wellbeing services counties where a public primary-care digital clinic was in use for at least six months during the 4/2023–3/2024 observation period.

According to the results, a clearly larger share of digital-clinic or other remote contacts took place on weekends or outside office hours (8:00–16:00) than was the case for in-person visits. This supports the view that digital services have enabled extended opening hours and that there has been demand for them.

For example, in public outpatient care, 7% of digital-clinic contacts occurred on weekends, compared with 12% of remote contacts in private outpatient care and 7% in occupational health care (Figure 1). By contrast, a clearly smaller share of in-person visits occurred on weekends than digital-clinic or other remote contacts (2% in public outpatient care, 6% in private outpatient care, and 2% in occupational health care).

Similar results emerge when looking by time of day. In public outpatient care, 17% of digital-clinic contacts occurred outside office hours, compared with 31% of remote contacts in private outpatient care and 24% in occupational health care (Figure 2). Most out-of-hours remote contacts took place in the evening (16:00–20:00) or in the morning (6:00–7:00), while only a small fraction occurred at night. By contrast, a clearly smaller share of in-person visits occurred outside office hours than digital-clinic or other remote contacts (7% in public outpatient care, 17% in private outpatient care, and 9% in occupational health care).

The potential demand for out-of-hours service provision is probably best understood through the results for remote services in private health care, since in public outpatient care and occupational health care, service availability is on average more limited outside office hours. These results can help wellbeing services counties consider, for example, whether digital-clinic opening hours should be extended further.

Which population groups would benefit most from extended hours for remote services? We assessed this using a logistic regression model. The results are reported as odds ratios in Figure 3. The odds of out-of-hours (Mon–Fri 8:00–16:00 excluded) oddsremote contacts decreased with age relative to 20–39-year-olds and were higher for women than for men in each sector. The model also included income and distance from the place of residence to the nearest health centre, but these showed no clear or consistent association with the odds of out-of-hours remote contacts. A possible exception was income: in public outpatient care and occupational health care, the odds were lower in the lowest income quartile than in the other income groups.

We interpret the results to mean that extended opening hours for remote services may have especially benefited children and their parents, young adults, and women.

More information about the study

This blog post is based on the SoteDataLab project report (reference below), which examined health-service use across sectors of primary health care using the AvoHilmo register and Statistics Finland’s FOLK individual-level data. For the public sector, the study covered digital-clinic contacts and in-person visits; for private health care (incl. occupational health), it included remote contacts and in-person visits. When interpreting the results, it is important to note that among the included wellbeing services counties there was considerable variation in how comprehensive the AvoHilmo data on digital-clinic visits were compared with the counties’ own data lakes. 

The research report contains a wide range of analyses and results, along with a concise literature review, a description of the data, an assessment of AvoHilmo data quality, and assessments of research limitations and possible directions for further study. 

Source reference: Haaga, T., Kortelainen, M., Mauno, V., Nokso-Koivisto, O., Saxell, T., Seppä, M., Sääksvuori, L. (2025); Digital clinic and remote services in primary health care and sector-specific attendances in Avohilmo data 4/2023-3/2024; working paper, January 2025, https://osf.io/ey7bn

Authors: Tapio Haaga, Vivi Mauno, What is Kortelainen, Oskari Nokso-Koivisto, Tanja Saxell, Meeri Seppä and Lauri Sääksvuori