Palveluohjain for improved everyday life and services

Challenge: How can we bring social and healthcare services into the digital era?

The Finnish social welfare and healthcare sector is facing exceptional changes; the social and healthcare reform, freedom of choice, and digitalisation are forcing the operators in the sector to modernise their services and systems at a fast pace. As part of the state’s project for digitalising public administration services, new solutions were sought for the booking and service management systems in the social welfare and healthcare sector. 2M-IT, Finland’s largest publicly owned provider of IT services in the social welfare and healthcare sector, collaborated with Solita to build a new, national booking and service management system. From the start of the project, Palveluohjain has been developed in close, nationwide collaboration with the end users. As an in-house entity, 2M-IT Oy is responsible for the collaboration.

Due to the size of the social welfare and healthcare sector and the various areas of specialisation within the sector, the list of requirements set for the solution was long. It was clear from the start that the system would have three primary user groups: citizens, professionals, and service providers. It was necessary to consider the needs of each group.

The solution was intended to promote Finnish citizens’ freedom of choice and initiative, reduce the need for administrative work, and to enhance the use of resources.

The goal was to build a national solution allowing organisation at the municipal level and capable of serving entire hospital districts across functions. It was also clear that the new booking and service management solution would need to communicate seamlessly with the existing systems, and it could not be dependent on any specific platforms. Solita set out to tackle this challenge together with 2M-IT, other project partners, and expert resources from the hospital districts.

Palveluohjain – a comprehensive solution to support Finnish citizens and professionals

Years of hard work, active participation by various stakeholder groups, and many smaller related projects resulted in the development of Palveluohjain, a new national social welfare and healthcare booking solution serving Finnish citizens, professionals, and service providers. Palveluohjain enables online booking for social and healthcare services around the clock. At the same time, the system supports other professionals in the field with service coordination, enhancing productivity, and the use of resources. Over 2.3 million Finns are already covered by operators using Palveluohjain.

The system can be seamlessly linked with all widely used patient information systems.

Enabling initiative and freedom of choice

Palveluohjain enables the use of online services around the clock, regardless of time and place. Instead of queueing on the phone to book a doctor’s appointment, you can now book an appointment online with a professional of your choice, at a time that best suits you. With Palveluohjain, you can also review and change your existing appointments for social and healthcare services.

Uniquely, Palveluohjain also allows users to manage social and healthcare service matters on another adult person’s behalf. This option has previously been limited to dependent minors. This new feature is a significant improvement for many family members’ and caregivers’ management of social welfare and healthcare matters on behalf of loved ones struggling with serious illness or disabilities impairing the ability to use technology.

In Tampere, a freedom of choice trial was also implemented using Palveluohjain. In this trial, citizens had the option of easily choosing their service provider and clinic in an online environment.

Development work also takes place through collaborative projects, such as the implementation of functionalities arising from the practical needs of social service providers. In this project, experts from the City of Espoo, South Karelia’s EKSOTE, and Päijät-Häme’s PHHYKY worked in direct collaboration with Solita’s service designers and application developers and 2M-IT’s experts.

Better service, improved efficiency

In addition to providing better and more accessible services for Finnish citizens, Palveluohjain is an important tool for social welfare and healthcare professionals. The solution features its own internal resource calendar and integrations with backend systems, which allow users to view various resources such as individual professionals and facilities in a single view. For example, the system can be used to view the available and booked appointments and day-to-day workload of a social worker.

Above all, Palveluohjain allows the management of individual clients’ service paths. For example, after confirming pregnancy, a first-time mother can be directed to the correct clinical pathway, and as the pregnancy progresses, they can be granted booking rights for their first ultrasound appointment and antenatal classes. In this way, the client is always aware of the next step in the clinical pathway, and can independently book the necessary appointments online.

Efficient use of resources

Palveluohjain has been designed to help service providers manage their resources and define the various pathways available to their clients. All clinical pathways can be customised according to the resources available, and rules can be defined for the progression of individual pathways. Thanks to this, service providers in many areas of social welfare and healthcare all across Finland have already adopted the new system.

For example, a unique pathway can be created for a flu vaccination campaign with a set number of appointments and facilities reserved for the campaign.

“Palveluohjain helps us save millions of euros. The reminder messages alone have reduced the number of missed appointments, helping service providers use their resources more efficiently.” – Henna Mäki, Product Owner, Solita