Aava’s Occupational Health Reporting Renewal: Impact and Competitiveness Through Data
Lääkärikeskus Aava and HiQ renewed Aava’s occupational health reporting. The objective was clear: to transform previously static reports into tools that support end-clients’ decision-making and demonstrate the tangible impact of occupational health services.
Starting Point: The Need for Reporting Reform
At its best, occupational health reporting brings competitiveness to the occupational health market when it’s built by listening to customer needs. A comprehensive reporting solution increases transparency when clients can see how occupational health services genuinely make a difference, for example by reducing sickness absence.
The occupational health services market is highly competitive, and price often takes a central role in decision-making. However, reporting is one way to stand out from the crowd. At its best, reports can tell employers in real time about workforce capability and wellbeing. They can also help identify risks proactively and target interventions where they’ll be most beneficial.
However, the reports Aava had been using were outdated and didn’t function seamlessly within the IT environment.
“What mattered most to us was that we could genuinely build a situational picture for clients, both internally through our own team’s understanding and for the client themselves,” says Hanna Kankainen-Aho, Business Director for Occupational Health at Lääkärikeskus Aava.
The goal therefore became a transition from traditional reporting towards measuring impact and data-driven, proactive, and transparent management.
Solution: From Static Reports to Data-Driven Management
The aim of the collaborative project was not only to comprehensively reform the occupational health reports, but also to migrate them to the Power BI platform, which works naturally within the Microsoft environment and integrates with Aava’s other systems. From HiQ, they needed not only technical expertise but also service design capabilities.
“Collaboration with HiQ got off to an excellent start when we received a well-structured and concrete proposal. Based on that, we quickly got to grips with what we were aiming for in this project and what was meant to be done during it,” describes Aulikki Juntunen, Senior Occupational Health Physician.
Implementation of the new reports began with design workshops where the needs of different user groups were identified. We also interviewed Aava’s clients – the actual end-users of the reports. This gave us a valuable understanding of reporting needs. The reporting solutions were ultimately tailored according to three different customer groups and their needs. The reports’ user interface and content were designed in close collaboration to ensure the reports would function in the midst of a busy day.
In the technical implementation, Microsoft Fabric served as a scalable data processing platform. Power Platform’s own internal database, Dataverse, enabled data enrichment – for example, diagnosis codes were given clear names and classifications. Power Automate, meanwhile, automated the creation of PDF reports for small clients, significantly reducing the amount of manual work.
The aim of the collaborative project was not only to comprehensively reform the occupational health reports, but also to migrate them to the Power BI platform, which works naturally within the Microsoft environment and integrates with Aava’s other systems.
Results: Data-Driven Management as a Competitive Advantage
The new reports display real-time information on sickness absence, service usage, and return on investment. Internal reports were implemented in spring 2025, and client reports in autumn.
The reception was excellent. Aava’s Hanna Kankainen-Aho says: “We’ve had really good feedback from our specialists – we’ve clearly moved forward. Those clients who’ve already had a chance to see the solution have also praised it greatly. Now we can access things that previously had no visibility.”
Aava’s Service and Development Director, Liisa Säkkinen, also commends the collaboration: “The collaboration has gone really well and been transparent and clear. We’ve had a clear template throughout, which has made it easy to keep track of the project’s progress.”
Thanks to the project born from customer needs, Aava gained an effective tool for offering their clients transparent and, above all, usable information for managing organisational work capability. Data-driven management supports both business development and customer experience, whilst simultaneously creating a foundation for future innovations.
Collaboration in brief:
- A holistic overhaul of occupational health reporting: Outdated, static reports were transformed into dynamic tools that support decision making and make the impact of occupational health services tangible.
- Migration to the Power BI platform: Reports were moved to Power BI, which integrates seamlessly with the Microsoft ecosystem and Aava’s other systems.
- A scalable technical foundation: Microsoft Fabric for data processing, Dataverse for data enrichment (for example, clarifying diagnosis codes), and Power Automate for automating PDF report generation.
- Real time data driven management: The new reports provide real time insights into sick leave, service usage, and return on investment, enabling proactive risk identification.
- Leveraging service design expertise: HiQ’s technical expertise was combined with service design to ensure the reports are practical, usable, and fit for the demands of everyday work.
