KELA/Social Insurance Institution of Finland

KELA or Social Insurance Institution of Finland is a Finnish government agency that provides basic economic security for everyone living in Finland. KELA helps in different life situations. I have used KELA with child benefits, sickness benefits, health insurance and students financial aid. And if I remember it right I might have used it for unemployment benefits also when I was younger. I also use OmaKela digital service nowadays to pay student health care fee as every student in higher education must pay for the students health care services for KELA. Otherwise I’m not using OmaKela that much. Children benefits are that kind of benefits, that don’t really require any applications once you have had an approvement for them. I used KELA’s services much more often when I used students benefits or housing benefits. Now when I’m employed and study only part time, I haven’t needed or aren’t allowed to get any student or housing benefits.

I already have an European health care card.

OmaKanta

Acces to OmaKanta requires an authentication. I used my banking codes, but you can also use a mobile sertificate or an electronic identity card. If OmaKanta is used as a professional the authentication works with social and health care professional card or organisation card issued by the Digital and Population Data Services Agency. In my work I use Social and health care professional card to authenticate.

Keva

I logged in Keva, but I got an notification that my pension matters are taken care of by Varma and Keva adviced me to log in to Varmas webservice. I visited Varma. My earliest pension age is 67 years and 7 months and the latest 70 years. I had an information what my estimated pension per month should be with both these ages. I was not able to search an information how much my pension should be in age of 63 or 68, because the earliest retirement age depends of the year of birth.

Visiting Booking.com

I use booking.com quite much when travelling and searching for an accomodation. Usually I search the prices and locations with Booking.com, but then I also visit the actual website of the hotel. Sometimes it’s cheaper to book direct from the hotel or some hotels have offers or different kind of rooms that are not visible in Booking.com. Also usually the information about the accomodation is more reliable when visiting the direct website.

Still I sometimes do the bookings with booking.com, because sometimes I get accomodation offers for my Booking.com account or there’s easier cancellation for the booking. And some accomodation providers don’t have a proper web booking system. Even though in some countries email or phone call takes the place and are  quite as good as web order. Even though I like the web orders better as I can get a confirmation as soon as the booking is done. With a phone call I always have a little doubt as long as I get there and have the room key in my hand.

Service from my own field: OmaMehiläinen

Most of the health service providers have their own applications. I chose to take a closer look to OmaMehiläinen. I have used this application as a private customer and as a customer of a occupational health. This application gives you information about your appointments, health information, prescriptions and vaccinations. You can also book an appointment or have a digital appointment with doctor or nurse. Digital clinic allows you to ask for renewal to your prescriptions or chat with a health care professional. You can also check you labs.

I think OmaMehiläinen is easy to use, and helps me to take care of my health issues. Sometimes I hope public health care had as easy digital services as private clinics seems to have, and I think OmaKanta is quite near to this service even though it doesn’t work as an application. And public services don’t offer as much remote appointments as private clinics do. I think this is going to change soon, because the digitalisation is here to stay.  

Digitalisation and digital cap

Even though I think digitalisation is a good thing and helps me with my everyday life, there is still a lot of people left confused with all these changes. It creates an inequality for example between generations. Some people also has more abilities to use digital services than others. It’s a matter of socioeconomic background and information technology experience and competence. Not all has the same possibility to learn digital skills. That’s why we should save traditional services as well and make sure the availability to those who aren’t able to use digital services fluently. We don’t want the inequality to grow because of the digitalisation.

Digital competence test

Here are my results of the test.

Self evaluation

I haven’t visited Keva or Varma, and it was very interesting to search information about my pension and working history also. Actually I haven’t even thought about my retirement age, as it has been rising all the time and I think it’s going to rise more before I get there.

This assignments also made me think about the inequality that digitalisation creates. I am very interested in digitalisation and I’m looking forward what it has to give to us. But sometimes I forget to think about those who hasn’t got the ability or option to use digital services. In health care this must be considered when digital healthcare paths are designed. Public health care must remain accesible for everyone despite of the information technology competence or experience.

Blogs I commented:

https://eemi45.wordpress.com/digi-citizen/

DIGI CITIZEN
DIGI CITIZEN