Improving the Information Base and Optimising Service Solutions to Support Social Welfare and Healthcare Reform (IMPRO)

Public description of the results at the end of the project

In the IMPRO project, accessibility, quality, and effectiveness of social and healthcare services were investigated, along with service costs, with attention to regional and socioeconomic disparities, and opportunities to optimize service provision to improve accessibility and contain costs. A specific aim was to evaluate the effects of social and healthcare integration, which was examined in the project's pilot areas due to delays in the national reform. Methods were developed in the project to better utilize national registry data for research and service evaluation. Regional and socioeconomic disparities were observed in service accessibility and utilization. The effects of social and healthcare integration were found to be limited, indicating a need for more significant operational integration. When evaluating healthcare costs, consideration should be given not only to healthcare costs but also to other costs, which can be significant due to factors such as distance to services.
Public description of the goals at the beginning of the project

The need to improve information to develop and evaluate health and social care under the ongoing welfare and health care reform in Finland is evident. The aim of this project is by using marker conditions to develop data retrieval systems and analyses to create prototypes to further analyse the health and social care structure, access to services, care pathways, outcomes of care and costs and cost-effectiveness taking into account area level and sociodemographic aspects of clients and population. Marker conditions are selected to represent client groups with different types of common and important health problems, service use needs and patterns. The research team will analyse the situation both before and after the welfare and health care reform to observe the effects of integration. The joint municipal authority for North Karelia social and health services where the integration of services was done already 1st January, 2017 is used as a pilot area for analyses.