Guide that safely leads AI into the social welfare and healthcare

Hyvil is a joint influence and advisory organisation of Finland’s wellbeing services counties, the City of Helsinki, and the HUS Group. Therefore, Hyvil played a crucial role in preparing the social welfare, healthcare, and rescue services sectors for the EU AI regulation. Since February 2025, the regulation, also known as the AI Act, has required organisations to ensure their staff have sufficient AI literacy.

Utilising AI in the social welfare and healthcare sector is particularly challenging because the data is often extremely sensitive. Hyvil wanted to address this by creating a common, clear, and accessible guide for the entire sector. The goal was to avoid duplicate work, save taxpayer money, and, above all, complete the guide before the regulation came into force.

“AI solutions are developing, and their use is becoming more common in wellbeing services counties. This opens up opportunities to improve the quality and efficiency of services. However, it is important to ensure that staff sufficiently understand the use and risks of AI”, says Marjo Orava, special expert at Hyvil.

The AI Literacy Guide helps social welfare and healthcare organisations utilise AI and thus improve their services. Additionally, patient safety improves as the guide helps all employees understand what needs to be considered regarding data security when using AI. The guide also enables organisations to demonstrate compliance with the EU AI regulation.

The guide is available to all organisations interested in increasing their AI capabilities. Although the content is for the public sector’s needs, it is also helpful for private social and healthcare organisations. This ensures that the material produced with taxpayer money provides the greatest possible benefit.

“Organisations themselves are responsible for implementing the AI regulation, but this guide helps them move forward more easily. The guide can be used as is or developed and modified to meet specific needs. Wellbeing services counties have already expressed great gratitude for the guide,” says Marjo Orava.

HUS Group has used the guide as a basis for its own Moodle course. Almost all of its employees use AI in some way in their work, so the course affects most of its staff.

“The guide’s content was beneficial for us in building the course. The guide and our course help increase our staff’s understanding of AI’s possibilities and emphasise the responsible use of AI,” says Taru Hermens, Development Manager of Data, AI, and Analytics at the HUS Group.