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The scope for using e-services in health care is gradually
moving to everyday matters. The Hospital District of Helsinki
and Uusimaa is aiming to open the first e-services for patients
in 2008.
Finnish health care centres will be transferring to electronic
appointments this year. The pilot tests are being held in
Oulu and Espoo.
Janne Aaltonen, Chief Administrative Physician for
the Hospital District of Helsinki and Uusimaa (HUS), thinks
that the start of electronic appointments is a good beginning
for further e-services in health care.
"Basic health care is naturally ahead of specialist
treatment because information technology has already been
a matter of course there for a long time."
Active patients
The patients of the future will be older, but also technologically
skilled and active. The demand for services will grow as the
population ages, the level of demands rises and with new treatment
technologies. Treatment costs will also go up.
If the health care resources can be released from tasks that
do not require training in the health care sector, they can
be added to where they are needed. For example, the collection
of basic information, registering and distribution of information
can be done relatively simply.
More personal responsibility
Aaltonen thinks there is a great deal of potential in e-services.
In the near future, they will be a matter of everyday course.
"The patients themselves will be able to have an influence
over the things that apply to them. At the same time they
will take more responsibility for themselves and their treatment.
The service can also give the feeling of being of a higher
quality."
E-services have been held back by data security issues and
the usability of technical solutions. "Development has
been hindered most, however, by attitude. It was thought that
patients wouldn't be able to or wouldn't want to use e-services.
This thought has been proved wrong in many countries."
>> E-presciptions in
the way
Health care e-service network
New e-service environment
Ease and freedom in choosing
a suitable way and time for going about their
business are important to people. In the health
care e-service network the interests of service
producers and users meet.
Elisa Corporation has produced
functional and technical definitions and a
utility assessment of a health care e-service
network for the Hospital District of Helsinki
and Uusimaa (HUS).
"Health care has a growing
need for e-service solutions that support
new operating models and their development.
Since consumers' user habits have changed,
there is a clear requirement for e-services,"
says Anna-Mari Ylihurula, a sales manager
at Elisa.
The introduction of e-services
requires the planning to take into account
user-friendliness, safe usage of the services
and their effect on operating processes.
"The health care e-services
network has paid particular attention to these
matters," Ylihurula emphasizes.
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