Tavoite

Delivery of social and health care education and practice is facing low funding, scarcity of students and staff, and overloaded demand for services. This has impacted the way of educating. There is a need for more cost-effective methods, e.g., more technological-driven opportunities. It is not clear what kinds of technologies can be adopted in practice to enhance professional praxis. This is worse in rural areas which face long distances, and with a few educational institutions to educate professionals. 

The aim of this preparatory prject RemoTED is to build a novel view regarding how technologies can enhance professional delivery and education of social and health care. This project enables us to reach relevant stakeholders using bottom-up and data-driven approaches. Outputs are key insights regarding all the relevant stakeholders, which will be used to identify the teaching strategies and the technologies with the most potential in the NPA. Also, this strengthens the consortium to apply for a full project.

Tulokset

This RemoTED project has offered a valuable time for the partners to collaborate, complete the jointtasks towards the aims, including the main project design. Our collaboration holds mutualunderstanding, respect and trust among all partners: leading partner Lapland University of AppliedSciences (Lapland UAS), Karelia University of Applied Sciences (Karelia UAS), and AtlanticTechnology University (ATU).Our collaboration resulted in the creation and submission of the main project proposal, and we got anew partner into our consortium: University of Iceland (UI). The main project creation started closecollaboration in this new consortium. Additionally, the consortium includes five associate partnersfrom the field of social, health and rehabilitation work. In the developed work, all partners’, incl.associate partners’, perspectives and needs have been taken into account and included into the mainproject aims maintaining practice-based work.Moreover, this RemoTED project has provided more comprehensive knowledge, but also confidenceamong partners in the field of digitization and technology in social an health care. This was not onlyachieved in the main project design, but important and essential work has been conducted in creatingPage 3 of 16the deliverables: literature review, stakeholder report, and technology reports. These deliverablesprovided us with an opportunity to learn from the literature deeply, and collaborate with social andhealth care stakeholders, and technology organizations. This component, the literature and practicework, provided an essential platform for RemoTED partners to deepen our knowledge as well asenhanced our transnational co-operation skills. It also created an opportunity to comprehensivelyunderstand the current situation of practice regarding this topic, and this knowledge was utilized inthe development work of the main project. The gathered information throughout the joint work, butalso through the creation of the deliverables using a bottom-up approach, provided an opportunity tocreate a main project that is practice-oriented, i.e. a needs-led project.RemoTED meetings were efficient, collaborative, and we achieved great, effective co-operation.Moreover, we got to know each others well during the completion of the RemoTED tasks and wholeproject. Results of the deliverables indicate that there is a lack of staffing, lack of financial resourcesto implement new technology in social and health work, lack of time during work days to learn newtechnology and solutions, and the ability to use technology. Also, it appears, that digitization skillsvary among professionals and stakeholders.Keeping in mind this need the main project was created. RemoTED got advocacy for our project ideafrom stakeholders, they thought our idea was important, up-to-date and will empower their servicedelivery in the long run. There must be new solutions to promote more hands on training of tech anddigitization to implement innovations. However, the skill and competence expectations andrequirements for digitization and technology of social and health care professionals are different insparsely populated areas than in densely populated areas. This is very important issue to consider,especially in remote areas, such as in Finland and Ireland.Still, the basic computing skills are essential to know first before applying specialized applications orequipment. We noticed there is a need for our preparatory project and this content was considered inthe design of the main project, which has been built to meet the needs of practice in remote areas.The data collection and background surveys in RemoTED supported the overall need for developingthe services in social and health care in sparsely populated areas in the name of training and gainingmore knowledge.Additionally, RemoTED project has been presented in webpages, social media and events in Finlandand Ireland that reached out social and health care professionals, educators, and stakeholders.Moreover, we have met several potential partners and RemoTED project has been widelycommunicated.

Tulosten hyödynnettävyys

Sosiaali- ja terveysalan asiantuntijat, joiden digitaalinen osaaminen vahvistuu.