The City of Oulu outsources sleep apnea screening to medtech company Nukute

City of Oulu, the high-tech capital of northern Finland, has selected medtech company Nukute as the sole provider for the City’s sleep apnea screening.

Nukute’s service solution, powered by Nukute’s own CE-marked medical device innovation, facilitates a healthcare process that leads to a reduced need for specialised health care. The cost effectiveness the device and solution provides unequivocally helped seal the deal with the City of Oulu.

The decision was made in collaboration with the previous service provider, the University Hospital of Oulu (OYS). The agreement highlights the importance of shifting the screening diagnostics of sleep apnea to a primary healthcare provider, away from specialised clinic duty. In Oulu, there are already over 500 people within the public healthcare system referred to home sleep apnea testing (HSAT) by the City’s general practitioners. OYS will now transfer the whole of this patient queue to Nukute. Nukute's healthcare unit is located in Rehapolis 1, right beside the Oulu University Hospital and at the heart of Oulu's healthcare district.

”First and foremost we need to speed up the screening and diagnostic processes of sleep apnea. The City of Oulu has a strong track-record of participating in the development and deployment of new technology. We hope our cooperation with Nukute will be a stepping stone for the Nukute technology becoming widespread throughout the world” -states City of Oulu’s Deputy Chief Physician Artturi Vuotila.

“For us at Nukute, for our technology and medical approach to sleep apnea screening, this is nothing less than a pivotal project to be handled with the utmost sense of priority. To follow in the Oulu University Hospital’s footsteps is not a minor task for a healthtech start-up. That being said, we sincerely thank the City of Oulu for the trust they have placed in us. Our goal is to have this become an industry benchmark from which we’ll drive a success story in the global medical technology business.” -comments Pekka T. Saavalainen, the CEO (interim) of Nukute.

Sleep apnea can be described as a new first-world endemic that is suffered by 936 million people around the world. (Estimation of the global prevalence and burden of obstructive sleep apnoea: a literature-based analysis; The Lancet Respiratory Medicine, Volume 7 Issue 8, August 2019) 

Photo: Nukute Oulu healthcare unit's bioanalysts Susanna Korhonen and Lotta Alaniemi at work.

For additional info, please contact:

Nukute CEO (interim) Pekka T. Saavalainen, +35840 685 0717, [email protected]

Nukute Medical Director Usko Huuskonen, +35840 527 7246, [email protected]

City of Oulu Deputy Chief Physician Artturi Vuotila, +35850 460 9353, [email protected]