Breaking new ground: The Wellbeing Services County of Kymenlaakso uses Medanets in short-term rehabilitation care units

The Wellbeing Services County of Kymenlaakso has extensive experience of using Medanets; the hospitals of the county have used the app since 2015. In December 2022, the use of the app was extended to short-term rehabilitation care units providing social services. The workers feel that the app has made the activities more agile.

The rehabilitative short-term care units of the Wellbeing Services County of Kymenlaakso provide short-term inpatient care for customers mainly over the age of 65 in line with the Social Welfare Act. The objective of the multidisciplinary, rehabilitative short-term care units is to enable the customer to return home, supported by appropriate services. The goal is to find the right means of supporting the customer and promote the various aspects of their functional capacity. With the support of the rehabilitative short-term care unit, the customer can return home and have their necessary services provided at home or transition to supported living unit. The rehabilitative short-term care units have capacity for a total of 128 customers.

Staggered deployment starts with observation values

The deployment of the Medanets app is a staggered process. The first deployment was the basic feature of the app: the Medanets Observation values. ‘Customers often visit the emergency department before being directed to the short-term care units. They often have multiple diagnoses and medications that require more frequent monitoring, but no hospital-level care. Therefore, on average, the short-term care units monitor the vital functions of the customers more than other supported living units,’ says Pauliina Hackman, Chief Nursing Officer of Social Services in the Wellbeing Services County of Kymenlaakso.

The employees of the short-term care units have found it easy to document observation values, and it makes their day-to-day activities more agile.

Pauliina Hackman, Chief Nursing Officer, Social Services, Wellbeing Services County of Kymenlaakso

‘With Medanets, the customers’ measurements can be transferred to the EHR system efficiently and without any extra steps in between. The wristband printer offers an easy way to print out an identification wristband for the customer, which increases the quality and safety of the service and care by authenticating the customer’s identity,’ says Hackman.

The unit supervisors have provided positive feedback on the staggered deployment model.

Risk assessment discovers customer needs

The operations of the short-term care units have been actively developed over the past couple of years. The development started with examining the root causes behind directing the customers to the short-term care units. Customers directed to a short-term care unit often have a diminished physical functional capacity. Various reasons, such as malnutrition, play a role in this. During the summer, the use of the mobile app is intended to be expanded to Medanets Clinical forms for risk assessment.

 ‘It is important to identify the factors impacting the customer’s return home. One of the goals of deploying Medanets is to discover the customer’s needs through the clinical forms for risk assessment and to meet those needs as part of effective and high-quality services,’ says Hackman.

The deployment of the Clinical forms will also be staggered and launched with the FRAT indicator. The next feature to be deployed will be the Risk of Malnutrition indicator. According to Hackman, the clinical forms for risk assessment to be deployed and the alerts from the RAI assessments carried out to assess the need for services will support and supplement each other as part of the customer’s high-quality, effective, comprehensive and timely services.

‘At the moment, we are updating operating models for the different result categories of the clinical forms for risk assessment, as a result of which the measurements and the actions carried out on the basis of the measurement results will produce as much added value to the customer as possible, supporting their rehabilitation. Personally, I find this the most important reason and goal for the deployment of the Medanets solution; to create added value to the customer by means of developing the quality and effectiveness of the services,’ says Hackman.

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