Up-and-coming Esbjerg-based company aims to alleviate the societal problem of doctor shortage

In the autumn of 2018, Falck chose to sell its 12 medical clinics in Falck Lægehuse. The buyer was the Esbjerg businessman and entrepreneur Thomas Helt, who had previously been Senior Vice President at Falck Healthcare and founder of the company Quick Care, which later merged with Falck.

The ambition was in the long term to expand the number of medical clinics and help solve the societal challenges of doctor shortages, as he saw great potential in developing the way clinics are run.

Today, just over two and a half years later, the visions seem well on their way to being fulfilled. Before the end of the year, the company expects that alles Lægehus, based in Esbjerg, will have expanded to 32 clinics, serving 100,000 patients around Denmark.

”At that time, the clinics were primarily run as tender clinics, meaning that the region owns the clinic. The tender clinics are run by us or other suppliers according to the agreement for general practice and under contract terms with the region. Contracts for tender clinics are typically designed with a short time limit, which makes them, among other things, expensive to operate and harder to future-proof with, for example, stable staff due to the uncertainty related to the time limitation,” says Thomas Helt.

”But there was an interesting practice model inside Falck Lægehuse that we had not yet managed to get working. That is the model that forms the foundation of our partnership concept. The concept is a more modern and innovative operational collaboration, where it is a PLO doctor who owns and is responsible for the clinic, but where we handle the surroundings and support the medical house's operations, including by taking on tasks within IT, GDPR, HR, quality, procurement, and personnel management. In this way, doctors can be relieved of administration and operations and thereby focus 100% on medical tasks,” explains Thomas Helt about the new practice model, which really started to work during 2019 by methodically using digitalization to create overview in the company – and which today is well underway to being rolled out.

A ‘missing link’ in the system

The need to rethink the way general practice is run is emphasized by the fact that many places in the country have problems with doctor shortages due to challenges in finding doctors who want to take full operational responsibility for a practice themselves.

”There is a societal need, as there is something here that has not been solved by the current structure, which consists of a very conservative system where a doctor typically buys a practice and runs it themselves, and at some point sells it on to another doctor. We have enough doctors and the regions have allocated enough money for the task, but there is a ‘missing link’ which means it does not work and we experience doctor shortages.”

”There we can offer a service that can help eliminate the doctor shortage and solve a societal problem through a collaborative and innovative approach to the traditional practice system. Our model promotes a development of the system, and one could say that we are first movers and market leaders in the field. Our approach is that we must reflect the times we live in, so our medical houses offer frameworks that doctors can endure working in. The profile of a modern doctor looks massively different today, and therefore it is interesting for many that someone like us comes along who can support them in creating the framework for an attractive working life in general practice that fits their wishes and needs,” says Thomas Helt.

Alles Lægehus experiences great interest from doctors regarding the partnership model, which is why the company looks forward to cooperating with even more doctors nationwide in the near future. Recently, another existing medical house has been added in North Jutland.

”We have just signed a contract in Hirtshals with two doctors who no longer managed to run the practice themselves. They have more than 8,000 patients to attend to and felt they had too many administrative tasks. Here our model can help retain doctors who can then continue working there as long as someone takes care of the operations. In this way, we can help future-proof existing medical houses and thereby maintain patients' opportunity to see a doctor locally,” explains Thomas Helt.

Opening new clinic in Esbjerg for 5,000 patients

One of the newest additions to the alles Lægehus family is a brand-new clinic in Esbjerg city center, where up to 5,000 patients can be welcomed in the former Rambøll headquarters on Willemoesgade.

”We experienced that many of our patients thought it was far to drive from the center out to the clinic we have in Hjerting. In addition, many clinics in Esbjerg have closed to new patients and quite a few doctors in the city are retiring, so it made sense to have a clinic in Esbjerg C. It is the first new clinic in the city in many years, and it is positive and a future-proofing for a large city like Esbjerg, as it helps support the positive urban development for the benefit of both current Esbjerg residents and newcomers and students,” says Thomas Helt.

Besides the clinic in Esbjerg, alles Lægehus has also just opened in Thisted. The opening of alles Lægehus Thisted means that as of July 1st, the operation of nine medical houses is supported and well over 40,000 patients are served in the North Jutland Region.

North Jutland and West Jutland are not the only places where alles Lægehus can be found. The medical houses are located from Frederikshavn in the north to Tønder in the south and from Thyborøn in the west to Tårnby in the east – and soon there will be even more. According to plan, alles Lægehus will have more than 30 medical houses during 2021, which together will serve 100,000 patients nationwide.

”Our model shows that it is possible to move doctors to Vollsmose or Thyborøn – to areas where it has previously been problematic to fill positions,” emphasizes Thomas Helt.

”Building the airplane while flying”

With so many new clinics in the portfolio, things have moved quickly for WeCare, which has been in massive growth over the past year, welcoming over 50 new employees to alles Lægehus. This brings both challenges and opportunities.

”We have to invent everything from scratch and have gone from a small to a medium-sized company. We started by almost doing everything ourselves, but as the company develops, we also need to lift ourselves from operational level to strategic. You could say that we are building the airplane while flying. Fortunately, if you are an experienced pilot, you know that it flies as long as it has wings. And that also means that we are not bound by ‘the way it has always been’ and dogmas, since everything is new and a challenge we must find a solution to,” explains Thomas Helt, who together with the rest of the administrative staff handles tasks for the group’s approximately 230 employees within IT, GDPR, HR, quality, procurement, education, and personnel management from the headquarters at Esbjerg Brygge.

Another task Thomas Helt and company are currently working on is the CSR strategy. Alles Lægehus aims to help ensure that socially vulnerable citizens also have equal access to primary healthcare. At the same time, they want to contribute a little extra to show care for citizens with special needs, which they do, among other things, by offering free vaccines to vulnerable and homeless people.

”We are very aware of the ‘footprint’ we want to leave. Traditionally, our industry has not engaged in branding and CSR or related global goals. We are very aware that when we have such a large impact as we do, we also have the resources to make an extra effort to help take care of especially the weakest in society and thereby contribute to giving back to the welfare society. We have a societal and social responsibility and an obligation to serve the vulnerable and weakest in society to support equality and health, regardless of social group and health status,” believes Thomas Helt.