DIGI CITIZEN

Kela services

Kela (The Social Insurance Institution of Finland) is an independent, publicly governed institution that manages the basic security of people living in Finland in different life situations. Kela’s customers include all persons living in Finland and those covered by Finnish social security living abroad. Kela’s task is to secure the basic livelihood of the population, promote health and support independent coping in different life situations.

I visited Kela’s pages to remind myself of the different services Kela provides. At this time in my life, the only service I receive is child allowance. In the past when I was studying for the first time I of course have received student allowance and some housing benefits for rent.

Luckily, I and my family have been healthy and have had work so I can support myself ourselves independently. I’m of course very glad that there is such an institution like Kela to support those who need help and support in their different life situations.

Kela, with other agencies provides Kanta services. Kanta services provides a national digital database for social and health care data. The services are particularly related to the archiving and transmission of customer and patient data in healthcare and social welfare between different healthcare providers, as well as to prescriptions for medicines. The services are very familiar to me through work. In my personal life I rarely visit OmaKanta, where I can see my patient data. But I think this is a brilliant service to have. I know that my health care data is safe and well preserved. Kanta services are well regulated with legislation and provisions at the national level. I do see some challenges for some people, for example the elderly or other disadvantaged people who cannot or don’t know how to use the internet for example. If a person wants to log into Kanta services, they need to use strong identification. Suomi.fi e-identification is a strong identification service which allows a person to log in to Finnish e-services of public administration. This is difficult when a person does not have the capabilities (e.g knowledge) or means (eg. Does not own computer, self-phone or have access to them etc.) to use these services. It is easy to login to Kanta.

Keva. This was the first time for me to login to Keva.. And what a shock it was. I have never paid too much attention to the paper mail I get yearly from Keva. First thing that depressed me was my earliest pension age.. 67 years. The pension I get is half of my current sallary.. Won’t be travelling the world as a elderly pensioner .. I did not find the calculator to calculate my pension for different ages

Digital Shop

I visited Amazon. This was the first time I visited their page. I rarely visit any digital shops, I hate shopping.  I don’t like to scroll there “just for the fun”. If I need to buy something, I need to know exactly what I want, find it quickly and make a purchase. It is important that the search engine is good. Even for this task, I started to feel overwhelmed by it all. I looked at some electronics and I couldn’t say that they were any cheaper than in “regular stores”.. Then I looked at some hair products. In those items there might be some cheaper options. I tried to look for information about shipping rates or about any additional fees, but they were so confusing, mostly about how the rates are in the USA. There was also other information, for example about security, but the information was quite well hidden behind multiple headings, I wonder if anyone reads them. I certainly didn’t. For this excursion, the conclusion is that I wont’t make an account to amazon. There are other digital shops that have an easier accessibility.

Service from my own field.

The service that I tried out was Omaolo. Omaolo is a national social and health care web-based service. Digi Finland maintains the service. Its goal is to promote the health and welfare of the citizens of Finland. It also wants to promote selfcare and participation.  It is a medical device, and it has a CE-certification. Anyone can use the services A person can do an evaluation of his/her need of care. For example if a person has symptoms of a cold, he/she can do the preliminary evaluation. The service provides self-care advice or directs the person to a health care professional.

I chose this service because it is available to all, and it has a purpose to promote public health. Many healthcare apps are either for personal use or available only through service providers services, so they are a bit limited.

I hope people will use different virtual healthcare apps and services in the future. Fortunately, there is a national goal to bring a citizen and service providers closer together thought the Kanta services. If a person uses a health care app and produces information about their health, this information can be transferred to health care professional though Kanta services.

This of course brings the question of what about those who cannot use virtual services. For example, the elderly or other disabled groups. It is necessary to preserve traditional services for these groups. Nevertheless, this might result in a gap between individuals who can use wider range of services to those who cannot.

Digital competence test.

I did the test for myself. In the results I got +70% in information, communication and safety. Production was 60%. I can relate to that. I’m bad at creating any digital content. I prefer to search and consume information that to create it myself. I am quite interested in the new technology, but more in a knowledge level. I use different apps and tools and gadgets when needed (and usually find them useful), but I don’t seek them actively for personal use.

Self-reflection

The part about Kanta services was familiar to me since my work is related to health care services. At least in Finland this area (digital health care) is well regulated so that the information in these services are quite well protected. In the other areas the field is huge. There are services and apps to shop, play, socialise, educate etc. This brings to mind the previous assigment on digi society and how important data protection is when utilizing these different services in order to protect people’s safety and privacy.