OneClinic supplies technical solution for pilot project
The South Karelia Social and Healthcare District (Eksote) has started to pilot the application of new kinds of service packages in practical social and healthcare work. The packages are a tool for the management of social and healthcare services developed by Sitra. The objective of the packages is to categorise social and healthcare services into rational modules. The packages also allow for a better comparison between the quality and costs of services provided in various parts of the country.
Pentti Itkonen, Managing Director of Eksote, emphasises that the service packages are a new tool, but not the only one to manage social and healthcare services. He thinks that now is the time for Finland to choose which tool to use.
“I’m sure there is still room for improvement in the service package model, but it would be worth considering. After all, it has been developed by Sitra and the Finnish Ministry of Social Affairs and Health,” he says.
Project Manager Katja Klemola from Eksote says that the first pilot phase in the Social and Healthcare District ended at the end of last summer. A total of 11 service packages were piloted. Services were categorised in various modules within the service packages.
The second phase of the pilot project has now been launched.
“The service packages were mainly used by our management to plan, report and analyse operations, as well as to monitor costs during the first stage that ended at the end of last summer. In the second phase, service packages are deployed at the level of individual employees. Nurses can retrieve information on their clients and see what kinds of service packages they have used,” Project Manager Klemola says.
OneClinic participates in the ongoing second phase of the project. The company participates in the cooperation project by creating technology to transfer service packages to employees. The solution is based on Microsoft’s Dynamics AX technology, which OneClinic has used as a platform for its OneClinic Care system, which will be utilised as part of the overall solution.
“We want to test how this kind of solution works as a tool for resource planning,” Ms Klemola concludes.
Better efficiency in social and healthcare services through resource planning
CEO Veli-Matti Pietilä of OneClinic points out that one of the objectives of the pilot is to confirm that social and healthcare services can be made more efficient by using resource planning. It also allows the combination of information on a citizen’s use of social and healthcare services, such as outputs and costs, with process management, which is one of the goals of the social welfare and healthcare reform.
“Our objective is to use the pilot to demonstrate that the service package model together with our solution enable the implementation of the principles of the social welfare and healthcare reform, namely, the client’s freedom to choose and that the money follows the person. This kind of system will be rolled out in all areas of the social and healthcare sector and among private and public service providers in the next couple of years,” says CEO Pietilä.
The social welfare and healthcare reform is expected to have a great impact on healthcare IT systems. OneClinic wishes to utilise the results of the project and build a kind of technical solution that does not require an immediate change to the existing patient record systems. An open modular solution allows various different systems to be joined together into a well-functioning entity.
Further information:
South Karelia Social and Healthcare District
CEO Pentti Itkonen
050 387 7600
OneClinic Oy
CEO Veli-Matti Pietilä
050 543 4192
