KELA, OmaKanta and Keva
Since I am currently unemployed, I get an unemployment benefit from Kela. In addition to that our household (that includes me and my partner) receive a housing allowance. The amount of it depends on the costs of living and if you get any other benefits or other income. I also am on a medication that I take every day, and Kela pays a part of the cost of this medicine. I got the European health care card a few years ago, the process was very simple and I got the card pretty quickly in the mail straight to my house. Kela’s digital services are easy to use and they’ve made an effort to make all the different application processes as easy as possible. I access OmaKanta through my bank service, OP. I usually visit OmaKanta when I’ve had a doctors appointment or some tests done to see what the healthcare professionals have written about it there. I also renew recipes through OmaKanta.
When I logged in to Keva, the website shows me a pop-up saying that I am not Keva’s customer. I went to tyoelake.fi and logged in there, and it redirected me to Ilmarinen, so I guess that is where my retirement information is. I checked out an estimate of my retirement age, and it seems like the earliest I can retire is when I’m 68 years and 1 month old. It’s a bit of a depressing thought that I will be almost 70 when I can retire.
Ordering food online
I decided to look up the prices of fast food items and compare whether it’s more expensive if you order it through an app (Wolt) or if you go to the restaurant and pick it up or eat it there. I have definitely noticed that food delivery apps raise the prices a lot, even if there is no delivery fee. I compared the price of my favourite meal, the Cheesy Gordita Crunch meal, from Taco Bell on their website versus on the Wolt app. On Taco Bell’s website, the price of the meal was 8,95 euros. This would be the price if you order it from their app or website to go, or if you go eat in at the restaurant. The price for the same meal in the Wolt app is a staggering 13,95 euros! Depending on how far you live from the restaurant, there will be an added delivery fee and also a service fee on top of that price. So it is significantly more expensive to order the food delivered.
The difference in price might be different when looking at other restaurants. I sometimes use these food delivery services even if they’re a bit more expensive than just going in the restaurant, because sometimes you just don’t want to leave the house. The 2 main food delivery companies in finland are Wolt and Foodora, and they’re both pretty reliable.
Pohde Digitaalinen Sote-keskus
My local wellbeing services county Pohde has a digital services centre, in which you can log in and chat with a nurse, go on a remote doctors appointment or book an appointment. I have found the service useful and also very easy to use. I have used the chat a few times to talk to a healthcare professional and they have then booked a doctors appointment for me to further investigate the issue I’ve had. I personally prefer these kinds of online chats and booking calendars to traditional phone calls when it comes to any kind of appointment scheduling.
Digitalisation and digital gap
When thinking about digital services like the one I mentioned before (Pohde digital services) I always think about the people who might find these kinds of services hard to approach and use. Since I have grown up with mobile devices and computers, navigating different digital services has always been easy for me. But for people that have been introduced to the internet and computers and mobile devices later in life, using these services might be really difficult or even impossible. When developing digital services it is very important to keep in mind all the different user groups and their possible obstacles when it comes to using these services. Accessibility should be a big factor in the planning of new digital products. There is a risk that people who have “fallen off the internet wagon” have a harder time finding information on how to book appointments or contact healthcare professionals. Also if you are very unaware of the digital world, you are more vulnerable to different kinds of scams.
Digital Competence Test and self evaluation
I did the Digital Competence Test and you can see the results below. I was surprised how “low” my percentage was, but on the other hand if the answer has to be presented on a scale of 0-5 (0 being “I don’t know anything about this” and 5 being “I know everything about this”) I find it difficult to answer with a 5, even if I really am well versed with the topic.
Overall though I find my digital competence to be very good. I am able to easily search information and check it’s reliability, I can use different kinds of digital services from shopping to healthcare pretty easily and I also use the computer and internet for different kinds of entertainment regularly.
It was fun to see which services and applications other students chose to explore and compare and also what their thoughts about their own digital competences are. These assignments made me think about how lucky I am to have grown up at a time where I learned to use different kinds of digital services from a young age. It makes it easier to adjust to future innovations and to learn to use any new services.
My comments can be found in the following blogs:
https://blogi.savonia.fi/hetak/digi-citizen/
For future readers:
Unfortunately I had to close the comments because of a spam attack, I got almost 70 emails about unapproved comments waiting for moderation and they were all spam… 😀
Thank you for sharing such a clear and relatable post!
I especially liked how you pointed out the major price differences between ordering food through apps like Wolt and eating at the restaurant — your example made the cost gap very tangible. I also appreciated your thoughts on the digital gap: it’s easy to forget how many people might struggle with using digital healthcare or other essential services. Your reflection on accessibility was very well put. It’s inspiring to see you value both the convenience of digitalization and the importance of inclusiveness!