Kela, OmaKanta ja Keva
Kela, or the Social Insurance Institution of Finland, provides Finnish citizens with financial support and social security for various life situations. I have personally used Kela’s support system in many different situations throughout my life. As a student, I received student financial aid and student loans, as well as housing benefits for students. When starting a family, I received maternity allowance and home care allowance while taking care of my children at home. We receive child benefit for both of our children monthly. I believe I also received sickness allowance during an extended period of sick leave. Every member of my family already has a European Health Insurance Card, as it is necessary for our frequent travels.
OmaKanta is a national online service where I can conveniently see all my health records in one place. Logging into OmaKanta is easy with personal online banking credentials at www.kanta.fi. I am very familiar with the OmaKanta online service, as I use it weekly.
Keva is a Finnish online service that maintains a person’s work pension information. On Keva’s website, you can also calculate the potential amount of early retirement or disability pension in the future. However, I believe that old-age pension is currently the most common option for retirement. Looking at my own work pension information, I can only conclude that I still have a lot of work ahead of me to earn my pension!
Service/application:
After some consideration, I chose the TerveysHelppi mobile application by the insurance company Lähitapiola for this task. This choice is based on my long-term user experience with this application, which is designed for customers with health insurance. Through TerveysHelppi, insurance customers can communicate with a remote nurse or doctor via a chat service about their health concerns. During the same interaction, an insurance event is opened, and if necessary, a doctor’s appointment is booked at the customer’s preferred clinic or with a specific doctor. The costs associated with the service are directed through the opened insurance event directly to the insurance company, leaving the customer – at least in my experience – with an impression of easy and smooth assistance with health concerns.
After logging into the application, the homepage presents a very pleasant and clear visual interface. From here, it is easy to start a new conversation about a health concern or to review the details of one’s or one’s family’s active health insurance policies. The symbols and overall illustration within the application are large enough compared to the rest of the interface, ensuring that even elderly or possibly nearsighted users can easily see and click on them. The font is also clear and of a smart color, making it easy to distinguish from the light background. If using Finnish poses challenges, for example, for immigrants, the application’s language can be easily switched to Swedish or English with just a few clicks. For sign language users, Lähitapiola offers the free Chabla mobile application, which allows the customer to make a video call with an interpreter included in the call.
Overall, the user experience with the TerveysHelppi mobile application has always been very pleasant and positive. The visual appearance of the mobile application is appealing, but there is still room for improvement. The service is offered by an insurance company, one of whose core tasks is likely to sell insurance services to customers. Therefore, after logging in, the homepage, for example, features advertisements for Lähitapiola’s LemmikkiHelppi service, which provides quick assistance with pet health concerns. Such insurance advertisements could be removed from the initial view and moved a few clicks away, perhaps to a compiled folder where the mobile app user could choose to look for and read more information about other insurances if desired. This would make the initial view of TerveysHelppi even clearer and more accessible, and seeking help for the issue for which the app was opened would be faster.
Digitalization and digital gap
The majority of us use smartphones and various applications, which are essential for our daily lives. However, owning a smart device or using digital services is voluntary, so all services should also consider those who, for some reason, do not want or are unable to use digital devices or services. A good example of this is my mother-in-law, who, as an elderly person, is used to handling her banking at the service counter. She always gladly took her bills to the bank to be paid by a customer service representative and was happy to pay a small service fee for this assistance. Today, however, her bank no longer offers such a service, and bills must be paid using a digital device and online banking. As an elderly person, my mother-in-law does not want to learn digital skills, and now we, her relatives, handle tasks for her that she could take care of herself at the bank service counter. Switching banks would have been an option, but she did not want to do that.
Even though digitalization and the development of various services are advancing at an explosive rate, a small “slice” of live customer service should be preserved in all service providers, especially when it comes to essential everyday services.
Digital competense test
My results:
My thoughts and self-reflection
The content of this section was quite general, making it quick and easy to complete. Similar reflections have been done in several mandatory courses in my degree program, so I didn’t really feel like I learned anything new. However, it was interesting to take a test related to my digital skills, even though the results didn’t reveal anything surprising or new. Additionally, I hadn’t visited Kevan’s website before, so that did provide a new perspective to my experiences. Writing blogs throughout this course has been enjoyable, and reading other blogs has been enlightening and inspiring. I’m now looking forward to what the next assignment will bring.
Blogs I commented on: