The year 2020 brought a huge digital leap for our organization, as the coronavirus forced us to accelerate the development and deployment of digital services.
In 2020, we boosted the visibility and functionality of our digital patient services and evaluated the financial effectiveness of digital services in the Sapapo and DigiLean projects, which form part of our productivity program.
We delivered 7.6% of effective outpatient appointments with online services (excluding Psychiatry and excluding Emergency Medicine and Services). The number of online appointments increased by 760% on the previous year. Maisa was adopted by 20% of patients, and 12% of patients were cared for using digital treatment paths.
Because of the coronavirus pandemic, we introduced remote appointments for all patient appointments that did not specifically require a physical visit, as of March 27. In the course of the spring, we trained employees to take remote appointments using Maisa (a part of Apotti), the MyPath service in the Health Village, and Teams. An estimated 1,500 HUS employees attended the demo sessions.
We also continued to improve functions in the MyPath and digital treatment path applications. A pilot of the MyPath mobile app was begun at the Jorvi hospital maternity clinic. We also began to update the contents of digital treatment paths intended for some 160 patient groups at HUS, with a view to using them on mobile devices. Our goal is to update all digital treatment paths at HUS for mobile use during 2021.
Increased awareness of the Health Village
Work on building the Health Village on a national basis continued even under the current extraordinary circumstances. Public awareness of the Health Village increased: we have now logged 7.8 million visits to the public website, with 37 million individual page views.
We published the Emergency Help assistant in the Emergency Hub in the Health Village to augment our advisory services for emergency medical care. This service is a CE-certified medical device whose content was devised by experts in emergency medicine and care at Finnish university hospitals.
Health Village PRO is for professionals
The Health Village PRO service for professionals is intended to provide support in digital change. There are e-competence coaching courses in this service for all professionals in social welfare and health care. We entered into several partnerships, for instance with the Finnish Social and Health Informatics Association.
Guideline Databank harmonizes patient and care guidelines
In connection with JCI accreditation, six of our departments adopted the HUS document management program, the Guideline Databank. This provides consistency to the authoring, upkeep and archiving of patient and care guidelines and helps professionals easily find up-to-date guidelines. We aim to transfer all HUS patient and care guidelines to the Guideline Databank during 2021.
Coronavirus pandemic brings new digital services
We developed the HAAVI® Software Service for management of the coronavirus pandemic. Its components are:
- The Sampling Bot and related coronavirus test booking for professionals in outpatient health care.
- Infection monitoring and tracing software for professionals at infectious disease units.
- Coronabot – self-service coronavirus test booking for the general public
In September, we introduced the Coronabot, which allows self-service booking of coronavirus tests in Uusimaa. By the end of 2020, 238,516 coronavirus tests had been booked using the Coronabot. In the same period of time, professionals made 142,539 test bookings for citizens who phoned helplines. This demonstrates that the Coronabot removed a considerable workload from professionals in the municipalities in Uusimaa.
Worrybot for the general public
Psychiatry experts at HUS devised a program to provide psychological support, the Worrybot ,to help private citizens process the anxiety and worries caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
Supportbot to help employees cope
As part of our efforts to help our personnel cope at work, we published the Supportbot, which charts needs for help and refers employees to support services if needed.
HUS Servicebot helps with specialist medical care services
In 2020, we also published the HUS Servicebot, which provides our customers with advice regarding specialist medical care in the extraordinary circumstances caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
Other services related to the coronavirus pandemic
In October, we began designing a referral service for coronavirus testing for passengers arriving from abroad, known as FINENTRY. Design work on a vaccination booking website, koronarokotusaika.fi, was begun in December. This service allows the general public to book a time for a coronavirus vaccination.