KELA
Kela, the Social Insurance Institution of Finland, supports people in different life situations. Kela pays benefits for example for conscripts, disability, families, students, rehabilitation and sickness. Now Kela pays my family child benefit. I have previously also got a maternity package, parental allowance, home care allowance and partial parental allowance from Kela. When I studied, I got student financial aid and housing benefits. Kela has also paid me infectious disease and sickness allowance.
In OmaKela, I you can fill out applications or manage things electronically. I ordered for me and my children a European Health Insurance Card (EHIC) from the OmaKela. With EHIC, you should get immediate medical care when traveling in an EU or EEA country, Switzerland, Great Britain or Northern Ireland. With the cart, you should get treatment at the same price as those living in the country and Kela pays the rest of the cost. You can also order by calling the Kela’s telephone service.
MY KANTA PAGES
In My Kanta pages, you can view your own health information and prescriptions, In My Kanta, you can request a renewal of the prescription or save a will for treatment and organ donation. it is possible to print an EU corona certificate from My Kanta.
Log in to My Kanta requires identification. Identification can be done with a certificate card, mobile certificate of online bank service. I use online bank service to log in to My Kanta. After logging, I can view my own health information or manage things on behalf of another person. The guardian has the right to view the minor child’s health information. Acting on behalf of an adult requires a power of attorney.
KEVA
You can also log in to Keva‘s electronic transactions by identifying yourself. In Keva’s electronic service, it is possible to view the employment pension extract, use the pension calculator to estimate the amount of the pension and fill out applications.
My minimum retirement age is currently 68 years and 1 month. My pension has not accumulated much yet, but I still have almost 40 years to accumulate more pension. I compared the estimate of the pension amount if I retire at the age of 68 or 70. Two more years of work would increase my pension by around 300 euros per month.
DIGITAL SHOPS
I visited eBay. There you can find whatever you want to buy. The goods on eBay are cheaper than when bought in local shops. Most of the goods for sale are made in China and shipped from China. When ordering from eBay, you have to pay not only the price of the product but also the delivery fee and possibly the customs. Customs must be paid for all products coming from outside Europe. From the search results, it is possible to limit, for example, where the product is located, in which case it is possible to avoid search results from outside the EU countries.
When ordering from eBay and other similar online stores, you should note that the quality of the product is not necessarily at the same level as what is required for products in Finland. For example, the materials of the food items do not necessarily correspond to the regulations set in Finland.
It is possible to pay for eBay purchases with PayPal, which I consider safe. Even if the goods do not arrive, it is possible to get the payment back more easily than when paying directly to the seller.
LIFECARE
Lifecare is a patient record system that I use at work. Lifecare records all matters and information related to customers on a daily basis. The patient record system is the only place where information about customers can collect. Registering in one system enables easy finding of customer information if necessary. For the sake of data security, you must be careful about what and how things are entered there. Using Lifecare has required learning, as it is intended for several different operators and the system has many different uses that are not used in my work or for which I do not have access rights.
DIGITAL GAP
Many elderly people have been dropped out from digitization. The elderly do not have the necessary skills to work with digital devices, which makes it difficult for them to access digital services
Customer service is moving more and more to digital services all the time. Logging into digital services usually requires strong identification. Many times, those who are left out of digitization do not have online banking credentials that would allow them to log in. They then do not have the opportunity to take care of their own affairs. The elderly are used to, for example, handling banking matters at a bank branch, but today branches no longer have customer service or customer service is chargeable.
In my work, my clients often fall into the digital gap. Because the customers are not capable of managing their own affairs and the trustee does not have the right to deal on their behalf in all channels. For example, My Kanta services are not able used by my customers at all.
Falling into the digital gap may cause people problems in managing their own affairs. Doing things becomes impossible if the tools required to do business digitally are not available.
DIGITAL COMPETENCE TEST
I did a digital competence test. Based on that, I have a good understanding on digital information. especially its storage. I have the most to develop in digital production and automation.
SELF-EVALUATION
The sites under review were already familiar to me. I manage my affairs with Kela to using electronic communication. I check my own and my children’s health information from My Kanta. I have not checked the amount of my pension before, because I believe that my retirement age will be even higher in the future than it is now, or whether there will be a retirement age at all when I’m 68 years old.
I order a lot of goods and clothes from online stores in Finland and abroad. I have learned to recognize safe online stores and pay by invoice or via Paypal, which makes it less likely to get scammed.
I commented on these three articles:
I have noticed the same on eBay that the quality of the products can vary a lot and the product may not correspond to the description given. However, I have always received the products I ordered and there have been no problems with the payment.
You wrote good perspectives on the challenges of strong authentication, some users are in an unequal position if strong authentication is not possible. For example, immigrants may not have a personal identity code and thus bank IDs, and strong identification is not available, which displaces them from using the digital service.
I have same kind of experiences being “Digi-citizen” like you. I also order lot of things from online stores. I´ve been lucky and always got my goods, but still I also pay via credit card or invoice to feel safely 🙂
I agree strongly with you that with the digitalization of customer services, it’s becoming increasingly important to have online credentials for accessing different services. It’s important to ensure that this digital transformation does not leave anyone behind, especially the elderly who may not be as comfortable with technology. And from my experience the digitalization so far have not really been taking elderly people into account
I am in support with your thought on how digitalization can be a big problem to the elderly in the society. The emerging of new technology is not taking into consideration the seniors and can lead to them been frustrated and lonely if nobody is around to assit them.
Hello! You wrote that if you purchase items from online shop like eBay, the products quality may vary and many products have been made in China. I agree. Products may be falsified. Long time ago I purchased a power cable for my computer, because the current one broke. I was lazy to go into a store to ask if I could get a new cable. The cable I bought from eBay caught on fire. What happened taught me that I will not purchase anything from there. Today have to pay an extra attention for web shops. They may be fake shops also or sell fake products.
I agree with you that elderly people are often forgotten when it comes to digitalization. Some elderly people had no choices than to start using the must digital platforms while other prefer to get help from relatives or neighbours when it comes to the use of digital platforms.
The price of the products that are bought online can say something about their quality too. Buying very cheap ones increases the possibility of buying a very bad quality product. On the other hand, buying the most expensive product does not mean that it has the best quality, since some of the brand products are more expensive due to how well the brand is known. The best method to buy a product is due to customers reviews that are posted not only on the platform from where you plan to buy but also from other digital platforms that are selling the exact same product.
It is true that our society is splitting in two where part of society uses digital services and part does not. This leads to inequality in our society, which is a very unfortunate thing.
Hello and thank you for your interesting blog post. Lifecare is an unknown customer information system to me and it was interesting to hear about it. I agree with you that not all customers, regardless of age, have access to digital services. At a national level, it is important to take into account when developing services that everyone has equal access to services.
Ps. Here´s my blog: https://blogi.savonia.fi/riika/
Hi Sanna,
I read your blog with interest. I agree with you that especially the elderly are easily excluded from digitalization. They do not have the same starting points and skills for using the devices. Digitization has not been a natural part of their life cycle, as it is for today’s youth. Therefore, they may be digitally marginalized. This is worrying, because it is the elderly population that needs e.g., more healthcare services and digitalization is one good way to promote, for example, survival at home. Society has moved more and more to digital services, and it can be difficult for the elderly to change their decades-old work habits at the end of life. I think they don’t get enough support and help from society to use devices, applications and service platforms. If they get enough support, some will learn to become proficient digital users.
Hello, thank you for sharing. The write-up is very informative. Regarding the online shopping sites, I used eBay a lot when I was in the United States. Its unfortunate that one has to pay custom fees in Finland when using eBay since its coming from the UK. It is indeed true that its cheaper and easy to use. You also made mention of Lifecare, I haven’t heard of it before now. It seem to be very useful, I will introduce it at my work place as we are into healthcare.
Thanks
Here’s my blog
https://joyceasikele.wordpress.com/
Hello Sanna,
and thanks for your thoughts. Lifecare is familiar to me too and I use it at work. Unfortunately there is still several different patient information systems in Finland which make it difficult to share patient data. Hopefully in the future we can have one common system where all patient data can be gathered. That could be very helpful in many situations and could also improve patient safety in health care.
Best regards,
Ann-Marie ( https://blogi.savonia.fi/annmarieviitamaki/)
Thank you for a nice blog!
I can really relate the the online shopping experiences and many times choose to pay higher price for something even it would be availble on eBay etc just to be sure on the quality and possibility of smooth reclamations. I share your thoughts on hoe elderly people can easily be left out from the digitalized society and this is truly discriminating.