{"id":19,"date":"2025-02-12T13:45:51","date_gmt":"2025-02-12T11:45:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogi.savonia.fi\/niinaaimasmaki\/?page_id=19"},"modified":"2025-03-11T11:19:17","modified_gmt":"2025-03-11T09:19:17","slug":"digi-citizen","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/blogi.savonia.fi\/niinaaimasmaki\/digi-citizen\/","title":{"rendered":"DIGI CITIZEN"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Experiences of the Finnish social and health systems<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have been familiar with KELA<\/strong>‘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\u2019s automatically renewed every two years. I haven\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I can log in to Omakanta<\/strong> via strong authentication. I\u2019m 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I logged on to the Keva<\/strong> 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\u2019s important to invest and save for the future, as I don\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Online shopping<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

My online purchases are mainly clothes, shoes, travel and hotel bookings, both 1\u20134 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\u2019t had any bad experiences. The service allows you to read reviews from users, which makes it even more reliable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Social and health application<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the social and health sector, I chose Terveyskyl\u00e4<\/strong> (Health Village) website for a closer look. Terveyskyl\u00e4 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 (Terveykyl\u00e4). The service has been recommended by a public organisation for customer use, so I consider it reliable. What I find useful in Terveyskyl\u00e4 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Digitalisation and the digital divide<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In my work, I encounter older people who do not use digital services. However, conversations with them have shown that they don\u2019t feel excluded from the health system. The pace of digitalisation in healthcare has been so slow that they don\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Digital competence<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

My results of the Digital Competence Wheel were:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Information 81 %<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Communication 69 %<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Production 54 %<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Safety 78 %<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Self-assessment<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Blogs I comment on:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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DIGI CITIZEN<\/a><\/blockquote>