Interview: Nina Torp Hoisaeter, Norlandia Care
publication date: Sep 22, 2009
Norway’s largest private healthcare provider plans to be one of the top 3 or 4 in Sweden and is targeting the care home market, the patient hotel market and the fast developing Swedish intensive domiciliary market, Severely handicapped patients who often have personal annual care budgets stretching to over SEK 1m have a choice of care provider and Norlandia’s chief executive Nina Torp Høisæter reckons that half of them are turning to the private sector.
Norlandia Care - which is half owned by FSN Capital and half by Norlandia Investments, the Adolfsen brothers’ property and hotel vehicle - is active in three main areas – hospital hotels, care homes and domiciliary. Torp Høisæter projects sales of 600m NOK for 2009, up from 470m NOK in 2008. Much of the rise is due to the drive into Sweden, where Norlandia has been competing in the care home business with market leaders Attendo and Carema to win contracts from local authorities. It has also been pushing into domiciliary care where patient choice is creating a large market.
The Independent Living Institute places Norlandia, with 120 clients, sixth behind Humana Group with its Assistansia arm with 1,350 clients, Frosunda with 1,100 clients, Olivia (540), Särnmark (200) and VH Assistans with 170. Humana sales came to SEK 1.3bn in 2008, almost entirely from domiciliary care.
Something like two thirds of sales still comes from Norway where the private healthcare market is still very circumscribed.
Patient hotels remain another growth market. Norlandia now operates five contracts – three in Norway where the concept was pioneered, one in Sweden and one in Denmark. Torp Høisæter reckons there are now approximately forty across Scandinavia with between 8 and 140 rooms. Most are run by the hospitals themselves. As patients recover from operations they can be moved out of the hospital and into the hotels placed close by the hospital. “Being in a hotel gives them more independence and a better quality of life than sitting in a hospital bed. It is also means hospitals can use beds more productively and reduces infection rates,” she claims. Some hotels offer some nursing/midwife services, some have not, but in general, they are run as normal hotels with especially trained hotel staff with close contact with qualified medical staff in the hospitals.
The family of the patient can also stay in the hotel, and, when hotels are attached to university hospitals, they can also be used by visiting academics and students. In the holidays, Norlandia even offers rooms to tourists. This combination of visitors means that occupancy rates are typically high.
Norlandia itself may sometime be sold, concedes Torp Høisæter: “We are not for sale now, but you never know.” Meanwhile, she plans to focus on building sales in Sweden.
Norlandia Care - which is half owned by FSN Capital and half by Norlandia Investments, the Adolfsen brothers’ property and hotel vehicle - is active in three main areas – hospital hotels, care homes and domiciliary. Torp Høisæter projects sales of 600m NOK for 2009, up from 470m NOK in 2008. Much of the rise is due to the drive into Sweden, where Norlandia has been competing in the care home business with market leaders Attendo and Carema to win contracts from local authorities. It has also been pushing into domiciliary care where patient choice is creating a large market.
The Independent Living Institute places Norlandia, with 120 clients, sixth behind Humana Group with its Assistansia arm with 1,350 clients, Frosunda with 1,100 clients, Olivia (540), Särnmark (200) and VH Assistans with 170. Humana sales came to SEK 1.3bn in 2008, almost entirely from domiciliary care.
Something like two thirds of sales still comes from Norway where the private healthcare market is still very circumscribed.
Patient hotels remain another growth market. Norlandia now operates five contracts – three in Norway where the concept was pioneered, one in Sweden and one in Denmark. Torp Høisæter reckons there are now approximately forty across Scandinavia with between 8 and 140 rooms. Most are run by the hospitals themselves. As patients recover from operations they can be moved out of the hospital and into the hotels placed close by the hospital. “Being in a hotel gives them more independence and a better quality of life than sitting in a hospital bed. It is also means hospitals can use beds more productively and reduces infection rates,” she claims. Some hotels offer some nursing/midwife services, some have not, but in general, they are run as normal hotels with especially trained hotel staff with close contact with qualified medical staff in the hospitals.
The family of the patient can also stay in the hotel, and, when hotels are attached to university hospitals, they can also be used by visiting academics and students. In the holidays, Norlandia even offers rooms to tourists. This combination of visitors means that occupancy rates are typically high.
Norlandia itself may sometime be sold, concedes Torp Høisæter: “We are not for sale now, but you never know.” Meanwhile, she plans to focus on building sales in Sweden.