Transactions in the Social Insurance Institution of Finland (KELA) are familiar for me as through work and in family matters. At work I have handled employees matters with KELA, matters such as sickness benefits and maternity leaves. To our family belongs two childs, and after they were born I have seen the other side KELA’s services. At this moment we get child support from both kids from KELA, and earlier we got also disability allowance for our older kid. Other KELA services we haven’t used much. All in our family have had European health card for several years because of travelling abroad on holidays. For now we haven’t had a need to use them but every time going on trip we make sure that they are with us. Especially abroad it would be nice to get into treatments easily.
My own online health care data base (OmaKanta) I have visited only few times, and first time was during past year. I knew that such data base existed, but I never had need to use such service. The day my cancer diagnosis got confirmed last winter I visited first time my health care data base. It was very confusing moment. I was surprised how fast information is recorded there, beacause cancer diagnosis was all ready there, on top of the list. I used my banking login to acces OmaKanta and it was very easy. After that first login I have visited OmaKanta few times, mainly to check my laboratory test results.
About my pension I was not so interested, but with this Assignment I got good reason to check it. I logged in to KEVA web site and mostly I was shocked because of the pension age. The thing, how long we are supposed to work, so that society keeps on rolling. This of course is logical because of modern life expectancy. On the other hand checking your own pension and retirement age was a bit ankward, I won’t be retiring then. A long with a week ago diagnosed chronic disease, my retirement age will be irrelevant and my life expectancy will be shorter than those predicted on työeläke.fi web site. It can be said that both KELA and KEVA web sites are good and handy tools for many Finnish for planning the future.
Online shops have been part of my everyday life for several years. I order online: clothes, shoes, small goods and cosmetics. Hotels and trips are booked online, because the price comparison is easy. While booking hotels I have used for example Trivago and hotels.com web sites. Quite rarely, I have made booking through hotel’s own web site. Flights, on the other hand, I have booked through company’s own web site. From the closest people I have learned that cancelling, changes and rebating of flights are often easier if bookings are made with flight companies own online shops.
Buying cosmetics I use mostly eBay, and when buying clothes I use trusted and well known online shops, because of refunds/returns are fluent. I use both domestic and foreign online shops. Because of Finnish taxes and tarifs I rarely order anything from US. While shopping clothes my favourite online shops are shops wich include “cat walk” videos and pictures from products. Nowdays many online shops also include measures (height and maybe weight) of models and size worn by model to picture. This information makes decision much easier. Clothes with just product pictures, without worn by model, I won’t buy. Or in that case I either know product or I have fitted in store. Price comparison is so easy and fast today so that you can do comparison while shopping from retail store to another. If you find some nice piece of clothing you can make price comparison instantly and maybe find some sale from online shops. Of course urgency of need for product affects to buying decision, if you need it right away you might take it from retail store allthough it would be cheaper in online shop. Waiting for products is negative side of online shopping, you have to wait for goods often quite long time. Especially eBay, Amazon and Alibaba might have very long delivery times. But I have seen often that delivery time has been much shorter than promised. Online shops seem to overestimate delivery times so that they have good leeway to delivery product. This is a good thing because delays on deliveries are dissaponting and lead to negative feedback. Also feedback is well and straight given in online shops. When you don’t have to give it face to face it’s often more direct and braver, unfotunately sometimes even rude and arrogant. Online etiquette should be in mind in all situations like this. Feedback is important for online shops as it is for brick and mortal retail stores, sometimes even more important. Feedback given in retail stores gets usually les puplicity than feedback written for online shops. Personally I read feedbacks about goods and deliveries quality. Feedback given by other customers influences to my own opinion and buying decision. If some online shop seems suspicious, I do two things, I read online feedback and look shop from Google. I look for both, user experiences of onlineshop and also feedback given from goods. I have become exact in this matter, one time I got scammed in online shopping. Amount was not big and purchase was made with Visa-credit card. Bank refunded fully and for me it was just educational memory to carry.
Public services and transactions going online and digitalized more and more is one thing that worries me on behalf of older people. Some of senior citizens have aqcuired web and it’s possibilities as daily routines and life. Espousal of internet usage and online services is coming from one’s own interests, earlier experiences with technical solutions and closest people’s help and guidance. If help and guidance aren’t available starting to use internet can be difficult for seniors. Handing over your personal information shouldn’t be made without exact agreement. And relative or trustee should monitor that the agreement is followed, and misconducts are not made. Even in Finland we have had cases that trustees have made great transactions from senior’s bank acounts to their own before anyone has noticed anything. When these matters were handled in banks, this kind of misconducts were more rare, and not so easily executed. I’m concerned that who will take care of them, who will help those who cannot or don’t know how to use digital services. Bringing digital services available for everyone doesn’t mean that they are available for everyone.
I did Digital Competence Self-Diagnosis test and the resalt you can see below. It seems that I should improve especially my digital security and problem solving skills.
A list of blogs I commented:
https://minna1301.wordpress.com/2018/09/15/the-journey-begins/comment-page-1/#comment-3
https://satunasr.wordpress.com/2017/04/09/first-blog-post/comment-page-1/#comment-6
Elina in Digitalized Working Environment 