An information office for elderly people called Kotitori

Status: Ongoing

Evaluated

Tampere Finland

Print this page City population: 22040924% over 60Practice started in 2009

Summary

An information office for elderly people called Kotitori (Market Place) gathers services from both public and private sources to a one-stop shop. This multiple-provider model provides services for home care and also supports independent living at home. The one-stop shop means information being available via multiple channels: a physical location at the city hall open for visits, a call center to answer calls, and an Internet portal. The Kotitori concept is a new way of organising services supporting aging-in-place as a joint venture between the public and the private sector. It offers the citizens an integrated channel to information and services from both public and private providers. Kotitori service integrator (Mawell Care Ltd and Nordic Healthcare Group) outsources care services from its producer network. The tasks include managing the regular home care services for 300 home care clients and managing the supporting services for the entire municipality (~2600 clients). Supporting services comprise issues such as safety and security, shopping, and short-term home care. Kotitori also manages client guidance and advisory services together with the municipality’s own service units and develops home care processes and operations as well as IT systems together with the municipality and service producers. Kotitori has operated since autumn 2009. New services to be added in September 2015 include wellbeing-technology rental-shop and options e.g. information service to all citizens at all age and temporary homecare for families. The initiative was initially funded by the Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation (Tekes). The City of Tampere currently covers costs related to the integrator services (needs assessment and advice & service planning) provided by the Kotitori case managers. The service users pay for personal and household services apart from services funded by the municipality under specific criteria.

Key facts

Main target group: Older people in general

Other target group(s): family members, relatives

Sector(s): Health

Desired outcome for older people:
Meet their basic needs

Other issues the Age-friendly practice aims to address:

Accessibility
Technologies

Contact details

Name: Palomäki, Virva

Email address: virva.palomaki@tampere.fi

Preferred language(s): Suomi, English

Age-friendly practice in detail (click to expand):

Engaging the wider community

Project lead: Local authorities

Older people’s involvement: Older people were consulted during the planning process

Details on older people’s involvement: Older people’s council was consulted during the planning and implementation of Kotitori.

Moving forward

Has the impact of this age-friendly practice been analysed: Yes

Please share with us what you found in detail:
Impact was assessed using: annual customer satisfaction survey, individual customer feedback and reclamations; monitoring of guidance given (phone calls, answered calls, guidance given at the drop-in centre). An audit on cost-effectiveness was also conducted in 2014.Findings:Service users: • Access to service is considered faster and more customer-friendly • High customer satisfaction – Annually measured customer satisfaction results are good: 4.8 (1=worst; 5=best)• Fixed and predictable costs of home care • Number of older people living at home with high need for services has increased Their families:• Access to service and information from one-stop shop (both physical and on-line) where information (at the point of old person’s ability living at home is impairing) is given. • Comparing of services is easy for a clientProfessionals: lower costs and higher productivity • Synergies in service providers network • Sharing best practices between the city and service providers • Price negotiations between Kotitori and service providers • Effectiveness of care, more time per client• Home service enterprises are typically small or medium-sized, with limited resources for developing their operationsOrganisations: cost savings & less work for the local authority • Only one public procurement; • One provider to deal with; • Lower transaction costs in purchasing services and adapting to changes • Cost savings in home care services purchased by integrator vs. other homecare in the cityo Special health care costs 48 % lowero Short term hospital care 4 % more• More privately funded services used • Slowing down increase of demand for services paid by the city

Feedback:
Positive:All services at one place. More personal options. Information for elderly peoples’ family members.Negative: All people haven’t found Kotitori despite the marketing. People also find it ‘bouncing’ if they don’t get all information at once; only information where to contact next. The web-site isn’t functioning properly.

Expansion plans:
Starting this autumn, there will be a wellbeing-technology rental-shop at Kotitori. There will be different technological solutions and devices for elderly to get to know and to rent. User support will be available by Kotitori staff.Kotitori expands to districts: Lähitori –local service stops, collect together at one place different operators and service providers of the local area, in a local charasteristic way.Service concept is possible to execute also at local, regional, national and/or international level. Other cities have already been interested.There are also options e.g. information service to all citizens at all age and temporary homecare for families, that are being looked into in the 4-year contract starting this autumn.