The new Södertälje Hospital requires close proximity to Research

In March 2013 the county council in the Stockholm area decided to invest 1,5 Billion Swedish Krona (around MUSD 200) to build the new Södertälje Hospital. This new, bigger hospital has the capacity to serve a much bigger population in the South Stockholm area.

– We are becoming bigger and therefore there is a demand to get closer to medical research, Mikael Runsiö, CEO at Södertälje Hospital, says.

He explains that the cooperation with Biovation Park will open up new opportunities for development of the hospital.

- Those doctors and nurses we hire will be able to do research in parallel with their clinical work, which will be important for competence development, Mikael Runsiö says and emphasise that Södertälje new Hospital will become an innovation hospital. Modern health care has many similarities with the knowledge based industry and we need to stay on top. We need to develop our competent staff and view continuous education as a very important factor to endow the hospital with new knowledge.

Mikael Runsiö notes that the best way to gain in competence is to be involved in research and education.

– That involvement exists at Biovation Park. The new Södertälje Hospital will also be a suitable platform for several of the companies at the Park for progressing their research to clinical trials.

New Professional Groups

The plans for the hospital include the creation of a Diagnostic Centre at the department of internal medicine for diagnosing rare diseases.

– In the new hospital we will introduce new working procedures. One consequence of this is to identify the need for new capabilities in the borderland between the current capabilities. There could also be a redistribution of the different assignments in existing job roles, Mikael Runsiö says

Pilot Project

Development projects also connected to Södertälje Hospital are the initiatives taken together with ”Forum för Välfärd” (appr. Forum for Health and Welfare). This forum has been formed by people with long and broad experience from academia, industry, labour unions, health care authorities and politics. To begin, a special focus will be on health & care.

– Södertälje Hospital will perform a number of pilot projects to investigate how the future health care systems could be developed. In this project the hospital, the local health care and occupational health care centres will participate. The implementation of the details is, however, still in an initial phase. Screening programs will probably be part of the program including information to relevant groups in the society with higher risks to create awareness and promote taking more own responsibility for health. Here researchers in the field of health and welfare will play an important role.