How Wellbeing Services County of Vantaa and Kerava adopted a digitalisation platform – key to a successful transition was a fact-based overview

The challenge

The historic social and health care reform was approaching: the Wellbeing Services County of Vantaa and Kerava would start operations at the beginning of 2023. The transfer of social, health, and rescue services, along with their related ICT systems, from municipalities to the new well-being services counties was eagerly anticipated. In autumn 2022, the digital service management for the new wellbeing services county began to be built almost from scratch: only the system contracts were ready.

The solution

The transition started with the wellbeing services county’s basic support services: ICT, human resources, financial management, and real estate services. The wellbeing services county of Vantaa and Kerava built a service management tool on the ServiceNow platform, which was fully set up in just a couple of months. Sofigate acted as the implementation partner, leading the rollout project, defining the functional needs of the wellbeing services cuonty, and developing the system to meet those needs. Sofigate was also responsible for introducing a service management model into the wellbeing services county ecosystem.

The results

The new platform and service management model were implemented quickly, and management stayed fully informed throughout the change. Employees can now access administrative services and the information they need is in one place. Service experience is supported by shared service management processes that define workflows within the ecosystem. Future goals include developing digital services as easy to use as online shopping. The service management model will continue to evolve to further improve the customer experience.

As of January 1, 2023, social and health services as well as rescue services from the cities of Vantaa and Kerava were transferred to the new Wellbeing Services County of Vantaa and Kerava. This area now serves approximately 280,000 residents of Vantaa and Kerava. Rescue services are also provided to the Wellbeing Services County of Central Uusimaa, covering around 470,000 residents in total.

The change offers an opportunity to standardise, streamline, and develop services through digitalisation, as the ICT for the new organisation was built practically from scratch. The wellbeing services county for the development of digital services has decided to centralise onto the ServiceNow digitalisation platform.

The development of digital services was decided to begin with IT management and corporate services, where in the Wellbeing Services County of Vantaa and Keravan services are provided to about 4,800 professionals in social and healthcare as well as rescue services.

Wellbeing services county’s ICT built from scratch

Vantaan ja Preparation for the Wellbeing Services County of Vantaa and Kerava’s ICT environment started practicaaly from zero, with only a few months to implement it.

”We inherited only contracts from the parent municipalities of Vantaa and Kerava. Technology and partners were known, but the service management structure and the planning of the rollout and transition were built from scratch.”

“We recruited the necessary ICT key personnel in time and acquired specific expertise from partners in the right places. We also prevented risks with pre-created scenarios and prepared by practicing. Crises were avoided, but surprises were not.”

Timo Pitkänen, CIO, Wellbeing Services County of Vantaa and Kerava

As the system implementation partner, Sofigate was responsible for leading the implementation project, defining the functional needs of the welfare area and developing the system to meet them.

Sofigate was also responsible for building and implementing service management capabilities in the ecosystem of the wellbeing services county. This included defining the service management model and processes and establishing a service management office. The wellbeing services county’s supplier field is broad, and ecosystem management can only be successful in conjunction with agreed service management processes and the system that enables the processes.

“Without a fact-based overall picture, the transition could not have been managed”

A service management tool was designed and implemented for the well-being area using ServiceNow technology. The Vakka portal was opened to all employees in the well-being area, where employees can find support and help centrally. In the portal, employees can make service requests through an easy-to-use service channel and find answers and instructions for problem situations in the knowledge base.

Thanks to ServiceNow technology, service requests are quickly directed to the right experts and can be resolved automatically. ServiceNow also enables information-based management.

The information produced by the ServiceNow system played a significant role at the turn of the year 2022–2023, when responsibility for social, health and rescue services was transferred from municipalities to the wellbeing services county. The management of the wellbeing services county remained up to date throughout the critical transition, and the use of experts’ time could be prioritised based on factual information when unexpectedly emerging problems had to be resolved.

The service management office produced by Sofigate also played a key role in creating a situational picture and ensuring the continuity of operations. The service management office defined the so-called minimum viable service integration (Service Integration and Management, SIAM) processes and ground rules for the wellbeing services county’s ecosystem. With the selected SIAM core processes, the necessary level of service management as well as ecosystem management was made possible.

According to Timo Pitkänen, the most surprising thing in the actual transition phase was the relatively small number of service requests: “In the first couple of days, over a thousand requests came in, and we managed to resolve them in the normal way.” Based on the previous similar major ICT change, i.e. the introduction of a customer and patient information system, the number of tickets was expected to increase by up to ten times.

“We were really successful in managing with information. Thanks to a good situational picture, we identified the bottlenecks in the transition and resolved the problems found in the tickets in order of priority. Without a fact-based overall picture, the transition would not have been possible to manage. Based on the feedback, we received information about what the problems actually meant in practice, and their order of priority could be determined.”

“There is still work to be done, but we are constantly on top of the situation and are able to direct resources based on real needs. For example, the number of tickets is a useful metric for reporting to the executive management.”

Timo Pitkänen, CIO, Wellbeing Services County of Vantaa and Kerava

Services and information are now in one place – the development work can begin

”Olemme jo nyt saavuttaneet yhden keskeisen hyödyn: tieto löytyy yhdestä paikasta. Hyvinvointialueella ei ehkä koskaan saavuteta tilannetta, josta aivan kaikki palvelut löytyisivät yhden luukun takaa, mutta iso hyöty saadaan jo siitä, että omat hallinnon palvelut ovat samassa paikassa,” Pitkänen toteaa.

Pitkänen muistuttaa, että käyttöliittymän on oltava helposti lähestyttävä ja aidosti palveleva. ”Iso haaste oli päästä eroon käyttöliittymän IT-jargonista. Käyttäjäthän eivät ole IT-ammattilaisia.”

“We have already achieved one key benefit: information can be found in one place. In the wellbeing services county, a situation where absolutely all services can be found behind a single window may never be achieved, but a big benefit is already obtained from having your own administrative services in the same place,” Pitkänen states.

Pitkänen reminds us that the user interface must be easily approachable and genuinely helpful. “A big challenge was to get rid of the IT jargon in the user interface. After all, users are not IT professionals.”

“We strive to answer the most common questions in the portal’s knowledge articles so that users can quickly find help on their own. Based on the tickets, we get information about what information needs to be provided more or in more depth in the form of training.”

According to Pitkänen, self-service is also the best way to implement services from the employee experience perspective, but self-service must be fast and easy. Self-service must not burden employees.

“Perfect self-service is not about leaving a ticket and someone taking care of it and marking it done. The work of the counterpart providing the service can also be made easier: the goal is to automate as much of the process as possible. That will lead to true self-service. With good automation, cost savings can also be achieved.”

The Wellbeing Services County of Vantaa and Kerava is only at the beginning of its development path, and Pitkänen sees many opportunities in the future.

“For example, with data obtained from tickets and the use of knowledge articles, we can develop our operations and services. The platform and its reporting views allow us to monitor where our own experts spend their time and what is happening in the organisation. It is easier to understand the benefits of our own model processes, because the larger the group of people involved, the more complex the development becomes.”

This is how the value of a comprehensive digitalisation platform for the wellbeing services county is formed, according to Timo Pitkänen:

Information and services in one place. “The end user should not have to search for services. Services must be presented clearly and simply in the portal, so that the tool provides instructions and help. Forms must be intuitive and easy to fill in.”
Monitoring and directing the use of resources. “Information can not only be imported to the portal, but also retrieved from there. More resources can be directed to services that are used a lot. The use of resources always leaves a trace, which at the same time makes it possible to measure our own value creation.”

Pitkänen reminds us that the digitalisation platform does not replace the customer and patient information system, but supports social workers and nurses, for example, in their work.

“Our goal is a genuine service experience, where ICT and process are in the background. Services must be as easy to use as an online store or bank. When self-service online works effectively, we can offer more expert time and presence to those who need face-to-face service. This creates impact: health and wellbeing for citizens at lower costs.”

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