Finnish city selects Nukute as sleep apnoea screening provider

City of Oulu, a high-tech city in northern Finland, has selected medtech company Nukute as the sole provider for the city’s sleep apnoea 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 healthcare. The cost effectiveness the device and solution can provide 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). In Oulu, there are already over 500 people within the public healthcare system referred to home sleep apnoea 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 in Rehapolis 1, right beside the Oulu University Hospital and at the heart of Oulu's healthcare district.

City of Oulu’s deputy chief physician Artturi Vuotila said: “First and foremost we need to speed up the screening and diagnostic processes of sleep apnoea. 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.

Pekka T. Saavalainen, CEO (interim) of Nukute, added: “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.”

Sleep apnoea can be described as a first-world endemic that is suffered by 936 million people around the world.