Browsing by Subject "Ikäteknologia"

Aims of the study: In the last couple of decades a central problem in the Finnish society has been an aging of the population. The aging of population is a big challenge for a Finnish welfare society, which creates pressure for the economy as well as for the health care and public services. Therefore, the search for solutions that will be able to meet the growing demand of elderly services has started. A central subject in these solutions has been a larger integration of technology. Technology has enormous potential to help to meet the care needs of the elderly and in its own part ease the labor shortage of the elderly services. Previous research about the technologies in the Finnish elderly care and the factors affecting the use of the technology has mainly focused on surveys and interviews. However, research concerning the factors and phenomena affecting technology has remained very limited. The aim of this study is to analyze an extensive Finnish cross-sectional data and examine what factors affect the use of technology in the Finnish elderly care. In addition, the aim of this study is to also examine how technology and the phenomena related to technology affect the adequacy of staff of the elderly services. Methods: A cross-sectional data from Finnish elderly care units was used in this study (N=2950). The data was collected as a part of the larger Vanpal-project that is carried out by Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare (THL). Concerning the use of technology, a sum variable was formed. The sum variable expressed how many technologies or how many applications of technology there were at the care unit. Associations between the use of technology and the factors examined were analyzed with the independent samples t-tests and with analyses of variance. Associations between technology-related phenomena and adequacy of staff were also analyzed with t-tests and with analyses of variance. In addition, for a couple of variables the use of technology was analyzed by examining variables’ frequency distributions. Results and conclusions: In this study it was observed that several factors have an association with the use of technology. The use of technology was higher on average if the unit had undergone structural changes in recent years. The use of technology was lower if a person in charge of the equipment was assigned in the unit. The use of technology was also affected by the form of service the unit provided, while technology was used the most in domiciliary care. The more clients of the unit were allowed to participate in the planning of their own care, the more technology was used in the unit. The units where the adequacy of staff was perceived to be better, technology was used less. Utilization of remote connections was not used that much, but ERP-systems were in use, and they were perceived useful. The staff’s competence in technology-related matters as well as clients’ competence and attitudes towards technology were associated with the adequacy of staff in the units. This study added information concerning use of technology in Finnish elderly care, and how the technology-related phenomena affect the operations of the elderly care units. In the future if the use of technology in the elderly care is researched more, this study can be of use when planning the research or while delimiting the phenomena and factors affecting the use of technology.