KELA, OmaKanta, My pension
KELA is a state institution that manages basic security for people living in Finland in various life situations. KELA’s customers are all persons covered by Finnish social security living in Finland. The task of KELA, which operates under the supervision of the Parliament, is to secure the livelihood of the population, promote health and support independent survival in various life situations. KELA’s benefits have been useful for me and my family in many situations, e.g. in the form of unemployment benefits, health insurance and sickness benefits, study support and child benefits.
I have obtained a European Health Insurance Card from KELA, with which I can receive medically necessary medical treatment while traveling or staying temporarily in another EU or EEA country, Switzerland, Great Britain or Northern Ireland. However, I haven’t had to use the card in question yet, but it’s good to have it as a good security.
In OmaKanta, I can view my own personal health information, prescriptions, laboratory and X-ray examinations. I have also printed the EU corona certificate from there, among other things. There you can also give consents to hand over your own health and prescription information, or save your will for treatment and organ donation. Strong authentication is required to access OmaKanta, I personally use bank credentials to log in there.
On VARMA’s website, I found my employment pension statement, which seemed to be correct in terms of employers and wages received. In it, the lowest retirement age is 65 years 3 months, the target retirement age is 66 years 9 months, and the highest retirement age is 70 years. If I retire at the target retirement age, the monthly pension will be approx. 243 Euros higher compared to the lowest retirement age, and the difference between the highest retirement age will be approx. 814 Euros. The monthly pension would increase by 40% in the last five years if I were to work until the maximum retirement age.
DIGITAL SHOPS
EBAY, AMAZON, SPORT-CONDRAD
I have never ordered any of these yet, but I have compared prices. As a rule, the price level seems to be more affordable compared to domestic online stores. I also read a lot of reviews from other customers and ask my friends about their experiences with online stores. Regarding the shops in question, I have received positive feedback regarding prices, delivery reliability and quality. Thus, I have no particular reason to doubt the reliability of these. However, I usually end up preferring domestic companies and especially local services when purchasing.
BOOKING.COM, TRIVAGO
I have visited these sites sometimes when looking for e.g. hotel accommodations both at home and abroad. The sites are quite easy to use and problem-free. When I stay at a hotel in Finland, I usually make reservations using the hotel’s website directly, because the price level is almost the same.
RT-CARD – Service/application from my field
The RT card is the construction industry’s most versatile, broadest and constantly updated information service for the needs of construction industry professionals. I use it at work almost every week. I usually find solutions for many design tasks there. It is easy to use, with a suitable search term you can quickly find information both in image and text form.
DIGITALIZATION AND DIGITAL GAP
In today’s highly digitized society, it is of the utmost importance to know how to use virtual services. Especially for the older generation, this rapid digitization of society often causes problems/challenges in daily activities. They often need help in many situations, and it would be important to adequately train all those who need support in using the new services. User groups of different levels should also be taken into account in the development of services and efforts should be made to make the services as easy to use as possible. Virtual services are also associated with risks, such as power outages and data security attacks.
COMMENTS ON THE OTHER STUDENT´S BLOGS
THE DIGITAL COMPETENCE TEST
My attached test result was as expected. I use a lot of digital services on a daily basis, both on a computer and a smartphone, and I have accumulated a lot of experience over the years. Despite this, sometimes there are situations where using the service is not as easy as I imagined.
SELF-REFLECTION
The topics of this section were mostly already familiar to me. But I thought it was a good refresher to go through them. Even though I have a lot of experience using different applications, it’s still good to familiarize yourself (especially with new applications) carefully. The digital test also gave a good result for my skills, but there is still room for improvement in terms of skills.
The next time you are looking for prices for a certain product, try changing the Google search parameters to another language or region, for example German. The search results change surprisingly a lot and you can make good discoveries this way.