Familiarization with KELA and it’s services

Kela has offered many kinds of support during my life. Probably the first form of their support in my life has been the maternity box my mom received when expecting me in 1986 and with the child benefit my parents started receiving when I was born. Kela has supported me in different phases of my live with students financial aid and aid for housing. For some diseases I have gotten prescriptions by a doctor, and for these medications Kela has covered a part of their cost. After high school I did a short apprenticeship in a daycare center, and for this time I got payed financial support from Kela, and this was called labour market subsidy. When I had started expecting as an adult, I got the maternity allowance, we received the maternity boxes from Kela, and Kela payed the paternity allowance for my husband and parental allowance for the time I was on maternity leave. Also since the birth of the children we have received child benefits for the children. The European health care card I have had for a decade now. (Kela 2022.)

OmaKanta access

OmaKanta is very familiar to me, I manage most importantly my ePrescription renewals and my childrens ePrescription renewals through the site. I also check laboratory results and the patient texts there. I access the site always with my bank identification provided by Nordea. The access to my underaged childrens sites happens through the Suomi.fi authentication. From the OmaKanta website I have also printed my COVID-19 vaccination certificates and downloaded them to my Apple Wallet in my phone. (Kanta 2022.)

My pension (Keva)

I logged in to the Keva site and checked my estimated pension. The website kindly informed me that the earliest possible age to retire for me is at 67 years and 5 months. The difference in the pension if I retired at the earliest possible age, compared to retiring at the age of 70 (which was the age that gave me the highest pension), was 318 euros. (Keva 2021.)

Digital shops and pricing and information adequacy and service reliability

I visited the ebay webshop that I have visited many times before. I have ordered many years ago mobilephone covers and protective glasses from ebay because then I found it to be a lot cheaper even with post fees compared to shops in Finland. Now I compared the price on a football I had just purchased for my son. The Adidas soccer football cost 29,90€ in a Finnish local supermarket, the only matching ball in ebay was prized at 80,11€ plus the shipping cost of 16,28€ (ebay 2022). I was quite shocked by this difference. The same soccer ball in amazon was priced at 36,61€ with the additional shipping costs of 18,35€ (Amazon 2022).

From amazon I have not personally ordered products, but my relatives have successfully shopped there. From my own ebay experiences most have been good, but I have had some cases where the products never have arrived. The good thing with these sites is that users give feedback to sellers, and from these you can do some evaluation on the accountability.

When ordering from these digital shops you have to be very careful in reading the descriptions thoroughly, evaluate the sellers reliability, check the total cost estimate including possible taxes and posting fees and do some evaluation also regarding from what country you are ordering from.

An important view when ordering products from digital international shops, is the safety aspect. From a press release by Tukes (2018) cheap online shops often contain either chemicals or other safety risking factors. As a consumer you have to be aware that if you order from shops outside Finland or the EU, the safety regulations obeyed here do not affect shops from other countries and the responsibility of possible consequences is left to the person who ordered the products.

I think it is also important to evaluate the ecological point of view with the emissions caused by transporting from far away and evaluating that how sustainable is it to use these kind of services. I myself have reduces substantially using these kind of sites, and done my shopping more with local sellers and from shops based in Finland. I think in the current economic situation it is important to think who you support with your purchases.

Service from my own field – Omaolo

I chose to study more about the Omaolo website and its services. I chose the service because it has grown to be an important service especially during the COVID-19 pandemic and it is a service that I think has shown the first steps in the public healthcare sector towards a service aiming to also do preventive work and that is accessible to all. In the Omaolo website their major focus is on the symptom estimates a person can do to help evaluate symptoms or a health issue. Other services available are health checks, assess support needs or start coaching programs. Omaolo is integrated to many local services that offer for example appointment booking possibilities if the Omaolo symptom assessment suggests booking an appointment due to the severity of the symptoms.

I have used the Omaolo service to do symptom evaluations especially with COVID-19 symptoms for a few times. Depending on the symptoms and current treatment suggestions of COVID-19 testing, sometimes the service guided straigth to booking a COVID-19 test and sometimes it adviced to stay quaranteened and contact your local hospital. I thought that the symptom assessment was good, but sometimes questionied its value if it in the end still guided to call your local hospital, and at the hospital the healthworker asked the same questions all over again that already were in the assessment I had filled out. It left me as a patient to wonder what was the point of the Omaolo symptom assessment. (Omaolo 2022.)

Digitalization and the digital gap

In this courses first assignment Digi society I introduced a bachelors thesis by Veid (2018) that had the topic of the possibilities and challenges of using Big Data in health care and brought forward important topics like the is the Big Data reliable when not everybody is included in the data gathering due to for example their socioeconomic possitions and how people are divided because not everybody has the possibility to use digital services and the technology they require. Already then I found this topic highly important and thought that this topic needs more research and focus.

When talking about digital gap it can refer to many subjects. It can mean the difference in digital skills, the difference in the availability of digital services, the persons socioeconomic situation and it affects of the possibilities to use digital services and for example the persons care for data protection and decision to not use digital services for that reason.

In the World Development Report 2016 by World Bank Group Staff (2016, 6-8) is discussed the truth that still the majority of people in our world are outside from the digital revolution. The report states that there is no internet access to nearly 60 percent of the population in our world. According to the report the largest areas that are left outside and offline are India, China and North America. This was very surprising to me.The report raises that in addition to this big amount of countries that do not have access to a mobile phone or the internet, there is also big digital divide within countries. In the report was the astonishing fact that worldwide there was a 21 percent amount of households that were in their countries bottom 40 percent income distribution and that didn’t have access to a mobile phone and a high percent of 71 did not have access tot he internet. Of course things have evolved in the last eight years, but still I found these numbers surprising.

The risk in this digital gap, that is a reality for many different reasons, is that services are created that increase inequity and some people are left in more misfortune position since they do not have the skills or the access to use digital services. Also we get distorted data and statistics because of this fact. The people whom are less fortunate or suffer from disabilities that limit their possibilities of services available, are being left even more outside. When these people are unable to raise their voice or answer in questionnaires, their needs are not covered and taken into consideration. Who is taking care of their needs?

Digital Competence Test

Here are the results of my Digital Competence test

According to the test my strongest area was configuration under the production sector with the result of Level 8 (highly specialised). This means that I have good abilities to adjust applications and devices and solve technical problems and tasks. Thinking that I have worked in IT for the last four and a half years as an application specialist for most of this time, this seems like a very likely result. During my life I have always enjoyed using technical devices and been curious about their function and features. As a child I have many times broken my parents computer while trying to figure how it works and what functions it had. I think the reason I am good in problem solving is my natural tendency to be curious. My weakest competence was Automation in the same sector of production. In this I scored a Level 4 (intermediate) and this competence was explained to involve with he ability to modify or create digital solutions that can automate or perform tasks. This is very true since I do not have any education regarding programming, on the contrary my bachelors degree is from radiology and radiotherapy as I am a radiographer.

During current times with the increasing amount of identity thefts and cyber attacks, I think the competence area I, and we all need to take care of and evolve with the most, is the area of data protection, critical evaluation and identity management.

Self-reflection

These topics were very interesting and it was thought provoking to read the posts from other students. This assignment clearly pointed out that here in Finland we are in a very fortunate position regarding our digital services, access to digital services and coverage of internet accessibility. The digital competence test was interesting to do, and reminded me once again of the fact that not everybody is equally interested in technology and using it. I often get a bit blind about this fact, thinking that all people are interested in digital options and technologies. The test clarified to me that I am on the right career path when I can use my natural strong technical capabilities and interests in my work and that I am fortunate to be able to do so.

References

Amazon 2022. Adidas Unisex-adult FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 Al Rihla Training Soccer Ball. Internet publication. https://www.amazon.com/adidas-WH360-unisex-adult-Rihla-Training/dp/B09BS52L72/ref=sr_1_9?currency=EUR&keywords=adidas&qid=1671364505&refinements=p_n_feature_seventeen_browse-bin%3A5744252011&rnid=5744249011&s=team-sports&sr=1-9&th=1&psc=1. Accessed 18.12.2022.

ebay 2022. Adidas AL RIHLA Qatar 2022 World Cup League Speedcell BOXED Match Football Size 4. Internet publication. https://www.ebay.com/itm/234823036485?hash=item36ac8b2e45:g:PTgAAOSw9WxiZB2Y&amdata=enc%3AAQAHAAAAwMcxi7YMsymd5xMcMlZyK5GRXTol3e4XRmqoXHNNC6FEKsuPlORgaWyhXlMnkTQDE7tf1l4hlqQ9f9osP4NjKrlygp2X7gXzAEBtF7mM%2FosqjpE1wpW9vp1iHMNnWLgruXXJ8I50W1qUitskDh42ikvRa77bDJK6COUiRJg8vNf9eTLfznDviykpYCkw8hbX0eqXsX%2FFmTKVVO4KBtgIh54O%2FJf2RfTgdLjUP9fL4dOxnSZlpyWjrI1FNcb38WjTQQ%3D%3D%7Ctkp%3ABk9SR56tgtGkYQ. Accessed 18.12.2022.

Kanta 2022. My Kanta Pages. Internet publication. https://www.kanta.fi/en/my-kanta-pages. Accessed 17.12.2022.

Kela 2022. Our services. Internet publication. https://www.kela.fi/main-page. Accessed 17.12.2022.

Keva 2021. My Pension. Internet publication. https://www.keva.fi/en/pensions/my-pension/. Accessed 18.12.2022.

Omaolo 2022. Welcome to take care of your health and well-being in Omaolo! Internet publication. https://www.omaolo.fi/. Accessed 18.12.2022.

Tukes 2018. Tukes tested products from cheap online shops: nearly all of the toys, child care supplies and electrical appliances were dangerous. Internet publication. https://tukes.fi/-/tukes-testautti-halpisverkkokauppojen-tuotteita-lahes-kaikki-lelut-lastentarvikkeet-ja-sahkolaitteet-vaarallisia?languageId=en_US#89e189e9. Accessed 18.12.2022.

Veid, Amanda 2021. Massadata terveydenhuollossa: mahdollisuudet ja haasteet. Bachelor’s Thesis. University of Jyväskylä. https://jyx.jyu.fi/bitstream/handle/123456789/76725/URN%3ANBN%3Afi%3Ajyu-202106213919.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y. Accessed 18.12.2022.

World Bank Group Staff 2016. World Development Report 2016. Washington, DC: World Bank Group. https://ebookcentral-proquest-com.ezproxy.savonia.fi/lib/savoniafi/reader.action?docID=4397385&ppg=34. Accessed 18.12.2022.

Comments on three interesting articles

Paula’s site

Digitalised Anne

Kon Pitsakis