Palvelutarjotin helping at Kainuu

Kainuu’s joint municipal authority for social services and healthcare has started the test use of the online service Palvelutarjotin (The Service Tray) http://sote.kainuu.fi/palvelutarjotin. This service can be used to obtain information about private welfare service providers operating in the area, compare these providers and pick a suitable one.

During the testing stage, the services included in Palvelutarjotin are intensive assisted housing and short-term care. Family caregivers can easily find available short-term care places through Palvelutarjotin.

The development manager of the joint municipal authority Marita Pikkarainen said that this is a case of a new kind of operating model. She hopes that the selection provided by Palvelutarjotin will extend to cover a wide range of welfare services.

”Solutions like Palvelutarjotin are the way of the future. They give all local residents who are seeking services the opportunity to be active customers – to compare and to choose. This kind of competition will make the quality of these services even better,” she said.

Pikkarainen also stated that Palvelutarjotin also enables smaller companies to have a handy way for highlighting their services and to be included in the competition over customers.

The technical solution of Palvelutarjotin was delivered by OneClinic Oy. The company has made similar services elsewhere in Finland as well – for example in Tampere and the southern region of Oulu. According to the CEO of the company Veli-Matti Pietilä, the goal of all of these services is to make it easier to find and compare information regarding welfare services.

”With our software service, the management of service vouchers also becomes electronic, which makes their processing more efficient for everyone involved,” he pointed out.

One of the private service providers included in Palvelutarjotin is the foundation Betanian lastenkodin säätiö, which maintains, for example, Aamurusko, a care unit for the elderly, in addition to a unit for child protection; both of which are situated at Suomussalmi.

The service administrator Armi Anttonen believes that Palvelutarjotin will be of great use to Betania. Above all, she hopes that new customers can now find the foundation’s services online.

”Hopefully we can now tell more people about our operations – outside of Suomussalmi, as well,” she said.