The definitions of health care and social welfare informatics competencies

Minna Tiainen,Outi Ahonen,Leena Hinkkanen,Elina Rajalahti,Alpo Värri

doi:10.23996/fjhw.100690

Abstract

Digital transformation is changing the ecosystem and at the same time professionals’ competencies worldwide. Minimising health care and social welfare costs while increasing citizens’ health and well-being is challenging. Technology and digital tools play an important role in reaching this goal. However, there are inequalities concerning technology, and this has many impacts. Digitalisation brings challenges not only to health care and social welfare professionals but to citizens, too. Working with or using services in digital environments demands new skills. This has social and ethical impacts, e.g. how is equal access to services ensured. Health and social care professionals should have different competencies to respond to this, such as societal competencies. The purpose of this article is to describe how the definition of competencies in health care and social welfare version 1.0 (developed in the national SotePeda 24/7 project) was finalised as the final version 2.0 for Finnish healthcare and social welfare education by experts’ evaluation. Data was collected through an electronic questionnaire administered to selected experts (N=140) during January 2020. The number of experts who responded to the study was 52. These experts (social and health, business and IT) work or have worked in tasks related to the digitalisation of social and health care. The questionnaire was based on version 1.0 of the definition of digital competencies of health care and social welfare informatics. The questionnaire was mainly quantitative, but it also included open-ended qualitative questions. The experts agreed to a large extent on the version 1.0 definition, but some adjustments were made to the definition based on our study. The resulting definition is intended for use in the planning, implementation and evaluation of health care and social welfare education, but it can also be used for polytechnic education. The aim is to develop the digital skills of educators, degree students and in-service trainees in a multidisciplinary way (social and health, business and IT) to meet the needs of working life.

Highlights

The digital transformation of health care is changing the ecosystem and enhancing professional competencies worldwide [1,2,] Under the pressures of increasing costs and changing demographics, Finland wants to reform its health care and social welfare system [3,4]
Leading the process of developing professionals’ competencies [3] is the European Qualification Framework (EQF), level six [8] which is based on the needs of the health and well-being ecosystem [9]
The purpose of this paper is to present the results of this feedback and present the final version 2.0 of the definitions of health care and social welfare informatics competencies in Finnish healthcare and social welfare education

Summary

Introduction

The digital transformation of health care is changing the ecosystem and enhancing professional competencies worldwide [1,2,] Under the pressures of increasing costs and changing demographics, Finland wants to reform its health care and social welfare system [3,4]. [2,3,4] The increasing digitalisation and transformation of working methods requires new competencies from health and social care professionals These competencies are needed for the use of new information systems [5], and for the development of services in multi-professional cooperation [5,6.] Competence updating will be a precondition to manage working life, and continuous learning is a strategy for that [7]. To reach these objectives, it is important to allocate human resources in a productive way. Leading the process of developing professionals’ competencies [3] is the European Qualification Framework (EQF), level six [8] which is based on the needs of the health and well-being ecosystem [9]

Objectives

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion