Information Centre of Health Services on an Open Data Network
Funded by Euregio Karelia Neighbourhood Programme 2001-2006

Objective of the project

The purpose of the project was to build a cooperation network and create an information centre for heath services which would improve the professional skills of health care workers and communications in the health care organisations of Finland and the Republic of Karelia.

Main activities

• to begin medical consultation work in an open data network between the University Hospital of Oulu and the health care organisations of the Republic of Karelia also in addition to facilitating communications based on a data network within the internal organisations of the Republic of Karelia • to include a distance training and consultation system for health care workers in the portal, enabling information exchange and the distance training of physicians and nursing personnel in various specialist medical issues. • to activate the specialist network and portal which could also help to sell consultation services in special nursing to the areas of the Republic of Karelia and St Petersburg where they are not accessible.

Achievements

The Information Centre of Health Services, EURUSnet – which contains various information, advice and links for health care personnel needed in their daily work – was developed jointly with the representative of the Republic of Karelia. The service includes, among other things, links to Finnish and international medical net libraries and databases. The most essential care instructions suitable for the conditions in Karelia were translated from Finnish to Russian and added to the Russian section of EURUSnet, as a model for care guidance work in Russia. Russian content was also produced with the help of specialists from the Republic of Karelia. Medical consultation was also made possible through the same service in a secure connection, and the consultation was piloted during the project. Surprisingly, the poor command of English of the Russian physicians became an obstacle for the consultation, though the language skills of the younger doctors were said to be better. In any case, actual medical consultation was not carried out during the project. The most concrete results were obtained in the network teaching environment, which was developed into a comprehensive teaching environment considering the requirement of health care. The system was detached from the EURUSnet service both technically and imagewise and named Medieco eLearn. In the teaching environment, the students can choose when to study the training material and complete the related exercises and exams. The results remained in use after the end of the project and are utilised in the daily work in the hospitals of the health care district of North Ostrobothnia. Some of the results of the project have also been adopted to wider use. The Russians mainly use the EURUSnet data service, which operates as a portal to their national services. However, the physicians in the Republic of Karelia are not used to computer technology in their daily work and there are still relatively few computers in use by them. Because of this, the portal has also only been used randomly.