A costumer focus approach, with a holistic view on the citizen, where they are not patients but customers with complex needs. For this, Päijät-Häme-region has developed an ecosystem with a customer centric approach within the home care services.
In Finland there is currently ongoing a historic change in the welfare model via the
Health and social services reform. Päijät-Häme region has already for several years established integrated health and social care, moving from municipal and hospital district services towards service provision through wellbeing services counties, according to the Health Care Reform 2023.
The KOHTI-project is in the region of Päijät-Häme in the southern eastern part of Finland with 23 home care units. KOHTI – Technology supporting care and living at home, is a part of the governmental KATI-program - Technology supporting smart ageing and care at home which the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health in Finland published in autumn 2020 to support the good health and functional capacity of older people. The overall focus in the KATI-program and the related projects like KOHTI is to understand the needs of the customer and how the health and social care can support these needs.
It is important to mention that the KOHTI model has been developed especially for home care services and is a part of social welfare and that is why services users are called customers and not patients.
The KOHTI will pilot various technologies in the home care services and strengthen customer involvement and improve staff wellbeing and skills. KOHTI will support the implementation of technology by using an inclusive model for the use of technology as part of home care services for the elderly. The main target of the model is to study and define what are the functions and needs of the stakeholders in the ecosystem during the whole lifespan of the technology in use.
Project background
There is a lack of nursing resources, and the wellbeing of the healthcare professionals has declined. At the same time the increasing cost of the care is alarming, and the huge national health and social services reform brings its own requirements for change. Therefore, the deployment of technologies and managing the full lifecycle requires more centralized control. This includes also better technology portfolio management and clearer understanding of the roles and responsibilities of different stakeholders.
As a starting point to develop the KOHTI Ecosystem model the project used an existing framework called IkäOTe-model developed by the University of Eastern Finland, which includes the whole lifespan of the technology:
before and during the technology deployment, during the use of the technology, and after the use of the technology
four stakeholders: health care organization, elderly and their next-of-kin, nurses, and technology organization.
Based on IkäOTe-model, the project has developed the KOHTI Ecosystem model which is looking at the whole life span of the technology from prototype to ‘out of use’ from a user perspective and with a customer centric approach within the home care services.