This blog post reports on work-in-progress within the DfG course! The post is written by group 2 dealing with Kela, the Social Insurance Institution of Finland’s brief on ‘Continuity of Knowledge’ in healthcare reform. The group includes ChinYing Chu from International Design Business Management program, Ronja Chydenius from Collaborative and Industrial Design program, Marta Ligaj from Collaborative and Industrial Design program, Yuchen Tang from Collaborative and Industrial Design program and Yue Yu from Creative Sustainability program.
Written by: Ronja Chydenius
While the Finnish healthcare system excels in treating severe medical conditions, it often doesn’t have capacity for the quieter and lower-priority care needs of patients, especially the older adults. Individuals who live alone and have limited social contact typically fall through the cracks of care, leaving them unnoticed by care professionals until there’s a need for a more severe medical intervention. Our project investigates how Kanta, the national digital health data repository and services provider, could evolve from being a passive archive into a proactive care tool for early intervention in elderly care.
Aging Out of Reach
Our project began by asking: How can the care system identify and support older adults in maintaining their functional abilities as they age? This question guided our approach throughout the course. We began our team work engaging in extensive field research, including almost twenty interviews with older adults, their families, and care professionals, a field trip to Raasepori Hospital and secondary research. These encounters helped us look beyond medical definitions of care and instead see how social isolation can accumulate over time, often invisibly.
Finland’s aging population is growing, and many older adults live alone with minimal daily interaction. While almost half of those aged 75 and above live alone (Statistics Finland, 2020), only about a quarter regularly receive elderly services or subsidies (Sosiaali- ja Terveysministeriö, 2020). The third sector, which traditionally played a role in social engagement among older adults, has experienced reduced financial support (Yle, 2024), challenging its ability to address the social needs of the increasing number of independently living older adults. This combination of living alone, limited social engagement, and infrequent contact with care services elevates the risk of serious, unnoticed health issues among older adults. The isolation can delay the recognition of these issues, potentially until hospitalization or other significant medical intervention becomes necessary.
As we found out through interviews and secondary research, socially isolated older adults are not necessarily active users of health services, which makes them less visible to care providers under the current healthcare model. There is a need for connecting and checking in with the older adults in a way the current healthcare system is not built to do. The Ministry of Social Affairs and Health (2020) emphasizes the importance of proactive outreach, such as “outreach elderly work”, to identify and support lonely older adults before their needs escalate. This reinforced for us that data systems like Kanta, already trusted and widespread, might be uniquely positioned to support this kind of earlier detection, if only they were designed with that goal in mind.
From Reactive to Proactive Care
Our collaborator, Kanta, is Finland’s central digital health data platform. Currently, it functions primarily as a documentation archive, storing information but not actively using it to support care beyond that. It is valuable, but not dynamic. We wanted to ask: What if Kanta could do more?
Early in the project, we assumed Kanta was too techno centric of a tool to have influence in prevention, but as we immersed ourselves in its structure and capabilities, our thinking shifted. We began to see that its comprehensive access to data from all service providers across Finland gives it a unique systemic vantage point. What if this information could be used not just to look back, but to look ahead?
Our team believes that Kanta holds untapped potential to support preventative care. But we had to rethink what “prevention” even means. It’s more than just check-ups or screenings. It is about sustained relationships, responsive systems, and a visible presence of care. We imagine a system that would be able to notice early signs of social isolation, deliver targeted health education, or prompt a caregiver to check in before a condition escalates into a medical event.
Figure 1. Kanta can function as a care tool to broaden preventative care beyond medical prevention.
We realized that we didn’t need to redesign Kanta itself, we needed to reimagine how it could be used and what its role in healthcare could be. Kanta’s established and well-liked services (Kujala, 2022) already offer secure, centralized access to health records. With careful development, this infrastructure could be extended to support preventative workflows. At the same time, we were careful not to overpromise what data alone can do. Technology is not a replacement for care, it is merely a bridge. The purpose of these tools is not to automate concern, but to enable earlier action by the right people. Our vision for Kanta is not a predictive machine, but a quiet, trustworthy companion that helps care professionals recognize when someone may need attention.
Conclusion
Throughout the DfG course, our team set out to understand not only how the healthcare system functions, but how people experience aging and care. One insight quickly stood out: social engagement is a form of preventative care. What we often see as “nonmedical” needs, like companionship and daily interaction, play a crucial role in wellbeing. When those connections are lost, health can decline, even before any medical issue arises.
This realization shifted how we viewed Kanta. We began to see Kanta not just as a data archive, but as a potential tool to support early, human-centered interventions. Could it help surface signs of isolation? Prompt gentle check-ins? Support collaboration between families, municipalities, and third-sector actors? This approach reframes prevention. It’s not just about spotting illness early, it’s about sustaining wellbeing through relationships. As our project ends, we hope this perspective encourages new thinking about care, where supporting wellbeing starts with recognizing the importance of connection.
Looking ahead, we imagine a future where care begins earlier, more gently and more socially. A future where prevention is not only clinical, but also emotional and relational. In this vision, Kanta doesn’t replace care; it helps people notice, respond, and stay connected. With the right framing, Kanta could become a quiet companion in care: supporting awareness, fostering continuity, and helping people stay connected longer.
The DfG course gave us space to explore this future: one where data is a means for supporting dialogue, and systems become more human. As our project ends, our hope is that these insights continue to spark conversations, among policymakers, designers, and care professionals alike. How can digital systems support care before a medical event? What does truly preventative care look like? Can loneliness be treated as a public health issue?
References
Kangas, L. (2024). Sote-järjestöt menettävät avustuksistaan jopa viidesosan ensi vuonna. Yle. https://yle.fi/a/74-20109654
Kujala, S., Hörhammer, I., Väyrynen, A., Holmroos, M., Nättiaho-Rönnholm, M., Hägglund, M., & Johansen, M. A. (2022). Patients’ Experiences of Web-Based Access to Electronic Health Records in Finland: Cross-sectional Survey. Journal of medical Internet research, 24(6), e37438. https://doi.org/10.2196/37438
Sosiaali- ja Terveysministeriö. (2020). Kansallinen ikäohjelma vuoteen 2030: Tavoitteena ikäkyvykäs Suomi. https://julkaisut.valtioneuvosto.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/162462/STM_2020_31_j.pdf
Statistics Finland. (2020). Dwellings and Housing Conditions 2020. https://stat.fi/til/asas/2020/asas_2020_2021-05-20_en.pdf
The DfG course runs for 14 weeks each spring – the 2025 course has now started and runs from 24th Feb to 27th May. It’s an advanced studio course in which students work in multidisciplinary teams to address project briefs commissioned by governmental ministries in Finland. The course proceeds through the spring as a series of teaching modules in which various research and design methods are applied to address the project briefs. Blog posts are written by student groups, in which they share news, experiences and insights from within the course activities and their project development. More information here about the DfG 2025 project briefs.