Monitoring Digital Healthcare and Social welfare

Monitoring and evaluation of digital healthcare and social welfare includes developments in digital services, information systems and information management. Follow-up data is used to maintain a national situation picture to support development.

The monitoring and evaluation research relates to national strategies to guide the digitalisation of healthcare and social services. Research themes include user experiences with client information systems and patient information systems, health information systems, use of digital services, digital work, Kanta Services, information management, competencies, and conditions for the use of digital services and information systems, and the benefits and harms of using technologies.

The monitoring and evaluation research has been carried out in 'Monitoring and assessment of social welfare and health care information system services' (STePS, STePS 2.0, STePS 3.0) coordinated by the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare (THL). These projects took place between 2013 and 2023 and there have been separate evaluation research projects even earlier.

Objectives

The research evaluates the status of digitalisation and describes the effects of digitalisation on the healthcare and social welfare service system.

The aim is to produce research information on digital healthcare and social services to support evidence-based development of digital work and services.

Information is collected from healthcare and social services professionals, the population, organisations, and welfare services counties through surveys.

The evaluation research will monitor the use of digital services at population level and identify groups excluded from digital services.

Implementation

Surveys are conducted on usability, experienced benefits and challenges of client information systems and health information systems of healthcare and social services professionals. The population's experiences of digital services and digital inclusion are examined as part of the population survey 'Healthy Finland' (TerveSuomi).

Besides the survey data the monitoring and evaluation research use other data sources for example log data from Kanta Services, register based data and open data.

Cooperation to carry out the surveys is performed extensively with experts from different fields. The surveys addressed to healthcare and social care professionals performed with trade unions and interest organisations.

Partners

The research related to healthcare and social welfare professionals and organisations utilizes a collaborative network formed during the STePS project periods, covering leading experts on the topic from the University of Oulu, Lapland and Eastern Finland, the Finnish Medical Association and Aalto University.