Experiences of the Finnish social and health systems
I have been familiar with KELA‘s (Social Insurance Institution) services since I was a student in upper secondary school. Kela’s services have included benefit services, which have been convenient to apply for via the online service. I currently receive child benefit and special child care allowance from Kela. I also pay Kela the health care contribution for university students and receive student meal allowance. I obtained a European Health Insurance Card (EHIC) for myself and my children for our first trip abroad five years ago and it’s automatically renewed every two years. I haven’t yet needed to use the card. I also have a Kela card, which I use to identify myself when I go to the pharmacy or hospital services.
I can log in to Omakanta via strong authentication. I’m used to using the service to check my own and my children’s health records, renew prescriptions and monitor treatment. In my work in healthcare, I also guide clients to use Omakanta for things like follow-up care and checking information. The service also allows people to influence the use of their own data in social and health care.
I logged on to the Keva website for the first time during the course assignment. My minimum retirement age according to the calculator is 67 years 2 months. If I could work until I was 70, I would get 340e more pension. I would be able to take partial early retirement at the age of 64. I think it’s important to invest and save for the future, as I don’t have full confidence in the current pension system when I reach retirement age. By investing, my aim is to be able to retire before my lowest calculated retirement age, even as early as 60.
Online shopping
My online purchases are mainly clothes, shoes, travel and hotel bookings, both 1–4 times a year. My most recent e-commerce order was to an online pharmacy, where I ordered skincare products. I’ve learned that I’d rather spend a few hours browsing online than two hours in a physical shop. I try to choose reliable, well-known online shops when I shop and I usually use the invoice app. Ethics also influence my choices, which is one of the reasons why I have never agreed to order from Temu. The ease of returns also influences my choice if the product is not as described. This year, I have found online flea market from which I tend to make purchases instead of new products. Initially I was concerned about the reliability of the service, but so far I haven’t had any bad experiences. The service allows you to read reviews from users, which makes it even more reliable.
For this task, I compared the prices offered by booking.com with the prices offered by the hotels’ own websites. For one night in Tampere, booking offers a price of 130e and on the hotel’s own website you can book a room for the same date for 118e. For the other chain of hotels, the prices were the same both on booking.com and on the hotel’s own website. I always try to compare prices when making reservations. I have the Booking.com app on my phone, and by centralising my bookings there I get discounts and benefits. The good thing about the app is that you can also book airbnb apartments through it. I find the app more reliable than booking directly from the customer. The reviews used by the app also tell a story about the service.
Social and health application
In the social and health sector, I chose Terveyskylä (Health Village) website for a closer look. Terveyskylä was developed by the University Hospitals of Finland and is a public online service. The content is produced by social and health care experts and users of the service (Terveykylä). The service has been recommended by a public organisation for customer use, so I consider it reliable. What I find useful in Terveyskylä are the different houses with information on well-being support and self-care. There is support and free material on topics such as pain management, weight management, quitting smoking and starting to exercise. As a professional, I can log on to the Health Village PRO service and find support material to support my rehabilitation work. There is a lot of information available to clients on the internet these days, so I feel it is important to have websites with researched, reliable information for clients to use. The website is easy to use and progresses logically.
Digitalisation and the digital divide
I think the biggest concern about digitalisation is the loss of social skills and presence. With digitalisation, interaction is changing and human contact has decreased. My second concern is the increased mental strain of digitalisation, where the fast-paced information overload challenges concentration and motivation.
In my work, I have also encountered an increase in anxiety and pain problems. Many clients carry concerns that they feel are unanswerable and seek information on the internet. However, this can make matters worse, as the information found online is not always reliable and can exacerbate the problems. This type of welfare problem is bound to increase in our society.
In my work, I encounter older people who do not use digital services. However, conversations with them have shown that they don’t feel excluded from the health system. The pace of digitalisation in healthcare has been so slow that they don’t yet feel threatened by total exclusion – on the contrary, they even feel protected from too much harmful information online. As one person said – he felt he was still present in life. However, older people are the age group most at risk of being left out of reach of health services if digitalisation proceeds too fast. However, I don’t believe that public health will ever become fully digital. Digitalisation will increase inequalities, as there are already many services in society that can only be provided digitally. This makes life more difficult for those – young and old – who don’t know how to use digital services.
Digital competence
My results of the Digital Competence Wheel were:
Information 81 %
Communication 69 %
Production 54 %
Safety 78 %
According to the Digital Competence Wheel, I’m strongest in information and communication skills and safety skills. On the other hand, there was room for improvement in production skills. I would like to develop in this area and learn how to make different kinds of websites or how to produce content and digital materials.
Self-assessment
The exercise made me reflect on my own digital behaviour. Digital services have increased in recent years and I have found that I have a strong desire to keep up with developments and a willingness to learn new systems and applications. I think this desire is important for the future, also because in my professional life I may need to guide others in the use of digital services. The assignment gave me a good insight into the digital opportunities online and sparked my interest in how I could exploit them even more fully.
I particularly enjoyed learning about the Open Padges platform. I had heard mention of this, but had not known what it entailed. I was left wondering what all these digital badges could be used for in the workplace, for example. I think we will hear more about this in the workplace.
Blogs I comment on:
Hello Niina, and thanks for your really clear post. I’m not Finnish, so I’m not really familiar with KELA and Omakanta but it’s been informational to read about it. I resonate a lot with your desire and drive to keep always up-to-date with new digitalization trends and tools, because I think that it is really important in professional life, but it also can make personal life easier in some settings.
Thank you for sharing!
Hi Niina,
thank you for your interesting article.
You did describe the services and steps regarding Kela, Omakanta and Keva very clearly. Terveyskylä was totally new website/application for me but it seemed to be very useful. You scored quite high in the digital competence test, especially under information and safety, keep ut he good work!
You are very welcome to visit also my blog. You will find the link below.
https://blogi.savonia.fi/jessenmaailma/
Hi Niina,
Thank you for sharing your experiences so openly. It was really insightful to read! I found it interesting how familiar you are with KELA services, especially using the EHIC card and Omakanta for your children’s health records. I also liked how you connected your personal experience to your work in healthcare, especially how you guide clients in using Omakanta.
Your thoughts on digitalization and mental overload really stood out to me. I’ve also noticed how people sometimes rely too heavily on online information, which can cause more anxiety than help. Your example about older people feeling protected from harmful online content made me reflect on how digitalization isn’t just about access, it’s also about emotional well-being.
Thanks again for such a meaningful post!
Hei Niina,
Your reflection provides a well-organized overview of your experiences with digital services, the social and health systems in Finland and your developing digital competence. You’ve well explained personal insights with professional viewpoints, particularly in highlighting both role of people, who use the social services and a healthcare professional. The analysis of services such as Kela, Omakanta, and Terveyskylä is very good, and your understanding of digitalization of social services is insightful. totally, your reflection is informative and demonstrates a clear awareness of the role of digitalization in modern healthcare.
It was interesting to read about your experiences using different online services and stores. Digital exclusion can also be a conscious choice. It’s great that you highlighted this aspect in your text as well.
Thank you for the great blog post. I totally agree with your view about the possible not-so-great pension levels in the future and how everyone should try to create their own “pensions” through long-term persistent investing; this way we wouldn’t be dependent of what the pension might or might not be when it is our time to retire.
Thank you for sharing your experiences – your text was truly interesting and very relatable in many ways. Our writings are quite similar in content, and I found myself nodding along to many of the same points. For example, the experiences with Kela’s services, using OmaKanta, and concerns about the challenges brought by digitalization were also reflected in my own reflections.
I also work in the healthcare field, so many of your perspectives on using services and interacting with clients felt very familiar. I use the Booking app as well, precisely for the reasons you mentioned – the discounts and centralized booking make it easy and more affordable.
I found your thoughts on the pension system and investing particularly interesting – they brought a fresh perspective that got me thinking as well. Your approach to online shopping and ethical choices also resonated with me. Thank you again for sharing your experiences so thoroughly and personally!
Hi Niina!
Thank you for the blog post! Insightful thoughts.
I, myself, have really no experience with older people that don’t use digital services so my thought were that they could feel excluded from these services. But it is true that its a slow process turning into digital which does help with this! Don’t know how this will be in the future, maybe it cant be fully digital like you said. We’ll see!
Thank you for your comprehensive and personal blog post! It was interesting to read about your experiences with Kela’s services, as well as your reflections on the pension system and digital development. Your writing clearly highlights how deeply digital services are integrated into both daily life and work – while also addressing the downsides, such as increased mental strain and the risk of inequality. I especially appreciated your insight that older people don’t necessarily feel excluded – that was a fresh and important perspective, bringing much-needed balance to the discussion about digital marginalisation. Your review of Terveyskylä was also useful – the resources it offers deserve more visibility among professionals. It was also interesting to read your thoughts on online shopping and ethical consumption. I value your approach of combining practicality with your values, for example by choosing reliable stores and favouring second-hand options.
Link to my blog: https://blogi.savonia.fi/eveliinakomonen/