Nordic eHealth 2016 The 21st Finnish National Conference on Telemedicine and eHealth

Posted on 26 April, 2016 by Heidi

The participants of Scandinavian Nordic eHealth 2016 conference and the seminar of Finnish Society of Telemedicine and Health cruised onboard of M/S Mariella on the Baltic Sea at 14th to 16th of April 2016.

Finnish Society of Telemedicine and eHealth has been promoting the use of information and communication technology in health care since 1995. This year’s conference theme was digitalisation and experimentation culture that describes quite well ongoing

transformation where digitalisation is challenging health services.

The conference lectures covered topics from EU’s eHealth strategy, and presents the Nordic case studies on the development of digital services.

Head of Unit Tapani Piha, Cross-Border Healthcare & eHealth, EU

The future of Finnish My Kanta and personal health record were introduced.

Delegates of Iceland and Norway enlightened us about the eHealth services and telehealth development in these countries. From the researchers perspective it was also a pleasure to hear about examples of the research done relating to the topic.

Example of the research done at Norway.

In Sweden a large study had been conducted relating to attitudes and opinions on the electronic health record for citizens.

Nordic countries are not alone in struggling with the challenges of eHealth and telemedicine. The seminar participants were told about the eHealth group, established by The Nordic Council of Ministers (NCM), in 2010 for knowledge transfer between the Nordic countries and Faroe Islands, Greenland and Åland, to strengthen the Nordic global leadership position in the eHealth area and to raise awareness of eHealth as an instrument for modernisation of the health care systems. In 2012, the eHealth group established a subgroup – The Nordic eHealth Research Network (NeRN) – to develop, test and access a common set of indicators for monitoring eHealth in the region to be used by policy makers and scientific communities in supporting development of Nordic Welfare. The Finnish National Institute for Health and Welfare (THL) was selected as a coordinator of the network.

Hannele Hyppönen from THL

On the second day of the conference Finnish healthcare projects and companies had their change to present themselves. The conference also included poster sessions, time for social interaction and healthcare-related site visits at Stockholm.

In the poster session also posters of the GASEL-project were presented.

At the conference several awards were delivered. The Finnish National eHealth award was given to PhD Teija Norri-Sederholm for her doctoral thesis “On top of the situation! From information needs to shared knowledge – Emergency response centre operator’s and paramedic field supervisor’s situational awareness”. The work has received a lot of positive media coverage, but it also works well as a reference material for example in the training of emergency response centre operators.

Link to the conference book!

eServices for healthy ageing – GASEL study: final seminar

Posted on 11 February, 2016 by Heidi

I have been working as a researcher in multidisciplinary GASEL study (http://www.oulu.fi/gasel/gasel) funded by Tekes in 2014-2016. The project is ending and its final seminar was organized at 9th Feb 2016 in Oulu, Finland. The topic was eServices for healthy ageing.

In the beginning of the seminar the vice leader of GASEL Timo Jämsä and responsible leader Raija Korpelainen introduced the GASEL project and also other research activities among older people in Oulu. At GASEL, information on e.g., special needs of older people and aspects relating to their health have been mapped from existing knowledge (collected at http://www.oulu.fi/gasel/esiselvitys) and by a population-based questionnaire survey. The questionnaire was posted to 1500 people aged 65 or more, living in Oulu area and being home dwellers. The return rate was 61 percent (n=918).

The questionnaire included questions relating to attitudes towards health information, health information literacy, personality, life satisfaction, use of exercise technology, fracture and fall history, medications, sleep, social environment, nature relationship, use of information technology, gaming etc. One important issue was physical activity. It is generally known that physical activity has positive effect on health, wellness, ability for independent living, and physical functioning.

At the seminar, project manager Maarit Kangas told us about factors and actors associated with wellbeing of senior citizens. For example, 50 percent of the survey respondents stated that they were moving around more than 2 h/day. From them 45 percent stated being in at least good health and 79 percent stated feeling happy or quite happy.

Researcher Niina Keränen spoke about ICT use and gaming of older people. According to the GASEL survey seniors play games, including digital games. Stigma against gaming in older age was not a major issue for the seniors of GASEL study.

Researcher Milla Immonen shared preliminary results relating to falls and nutrition. Falls are a major problem in western societies and the reasons behind falls are multifactorial. Nutrition is not commonly taken into account in fall prevention (e.g., in interventions), even though naturally nutrition (e.g., malnutrition) affects our wellbeing. However, according to the results of GASEL study there is a clear connection between falls and nutrition.

Posters presenting results from GASEL study

GASEL is a funded by Tekes and therefore erterprises are involved. At the seminar researcher Heidi Similä told about the participatory testing of enterprises products and services. Testing had been done by conducting workshops, focus group evaluation, testing events and expert evaluation. By the means of testing, information about the target groups’ needs and attitudes towards technology, and about issues related to usability and acceptability of new technologies has been collected.

At the seminar my presentation focused on how tailoring can be used in eHealth services and on what kind of results were found in GASEL survey relating to older people´s health information behaviour and attitudes towards health information. Information content of eHealth services and also interface and elements of service can be tailored. Through (computer) tailoring different kind of individuals are provided with different kind of content or elements. E.g., person´s health information literacy level, measured with a short questionaire while logging to the eHealth service, could be used as a basis for tailoring. It would impact on what kind of information, and in what form, would the service provide to the person. The preliminary result of GASEL survey indicate, for example, that men are more likely to consider that health related stories and articles are too long and that Individuals in the oldest age group (80 years or older) are most likely to avoid thinking about exercise.

We had a privilege to hear also two presentations from the collaborators of GASEL study. Professor Lars Nyberg and Margareta Lilja from Luleå University of Technology, Sweden, gave a presentation titled ”Active and safe in old age: postural control and home and social environment issues”. And we ended with a presentation by Mika Luimula from Turku University of Applied Sciences. He told us about their interesting Tekes-funded Gamified Solutions in Healthcare –project.

Lars Nyberg, Margareta Lilja and Raija Korpelainen

Mika Luimula

HIBA continues the work done in GASEL study focusing on users of eHealth services from the viewpoint of Information Studies.

Blog post by Heidi Enwald, researcher in GASEL study and in HIBA project.

About HIBA

Posted on 12 October, 2015 by Isto

Hälsoinformationsbeteende i e-hälsokontext : inverkan av ett negligerat element i framgångsrik implementering av konsumentinriktade hälsoteknologier för äldre vuxna

Ett stigande antal äldre medborgare och en ökande förekomst av långtidssjukdomar tillsammans med betydande samhällsförändringar utmanar hälsovårdssystem i hela världen. Trots optimistiska prognoser har många e-hälsotjänster inte varit framgångsrika i att lansera hållbara innovationer. Utmärkande har varit att skapa e-hälsosystem under antagandet att användaren är medveten om sina hälsorelaterade behov samt är kapabel och intresserad av att möta dessa. För att bli effektiva borde e-hälsotjänsterna skräddarsys och riktas så att de beaktar användarnas hälsoinformationsbeteende i sin helhet med hänsyn till intressen, förmågor och sociokulturell bakgrund. Syftet med projektet HIBA är att forska i hur medborgarnas hälsoinformationsbeteende påverkar användning av konsumentinriktade hälsoteknologier och hur dessa teknologier effektivt kan skräddarsys för äldre vuxna som lider av typ 2 diabetes för att skapa individuellt och samhälleligt mervärde till traditionella hälsovårdstjänster.

HIBA-projektet finansieras av Finlands Akademi.

Taking Health Information Behaviour into Account: implications of a neglected element for successful implementation of consumer health technologies on older adults

The increase in the number of older adults and the incidence of long-term conditions like diabetes coupled with major societal changes are challenging conventional health care around the world. In spite of the promises, many e-health services have not been successful in bringing sustainable innovations. E-health systems have extensively been created assuming that consumers can identify their health needs and have the ability to meet them without taking into account the complexity of everyday life health information behaviour. To be really effective, health information should be tailored to the health information behaviour, including interests, literacy and background, of its users. The aim of HIBA is to study how citizens’ health information behaviour influences the use of consumer health technologies and how these technologies can be effectively tailored for a growing ageing population suffering from a chronic condition (type 2 diabetes) to add value to traditional health services.

HIBA project is funded by the Academy of Finland in 2015-2019.