In a recent article, the effectiveness of enhanced service housing and issues around customers’ quality of life were studied. According to the study, enhanced serviced housing worked well, increasing service users’ quality of life, particularly when effectiveness was measured using the ASCOT quality of life and effectiveness measure. In terms of the various dimensions of quality of life measured, safety ranked highest while social interactions, participation and meaningful activities were less impressive.
Enhanced service housing is a good example of the type of social and health care integration that has been pursued in Finland for several decades. Over the past twenty years, the national coverage in respect of enhanced service housing has also expanded significantly.
This study investigated the effectiveness of enhanced service housing, where the measure of effectiveness used relates to the customer’s quality of life. According to the results, enhanced service housing works well, increasing service users’ quality of life. In addition, their quality of life – related to the social service measured with the ASCOT meter (adult social care outcomes toolkit) – and the effectiveness of the service were found to be connected to various service quality factors, such as how much time the employees have to devote to the residents’ needs and how satisfied residents are with the level of service they receive. These results are useful for the decision makers responsible for planning and resourcing services for the elderly.
One of the aims of the study was to investigate how well the ASCOT-INT4-meter had developed as an interview tool while assessing whether it can be used to measure the effectiveness of enhanced service housing. The results of the study confirmed, as expected, that the measure developed for interviewing service users is not suitable as the only measure of the effectiveness of enhanced service housing as it was only possible to use the interview tool with a small number of clients due to limitations in respect of their cognitive functioning.
The article is based on Terhi Auvinen’s (2020) master’s thesis in health administration.
Read the article (in Finnish)
Auvinen, T., Kaarakainen, M., Linnosmaa, I. & Reijula, J. (2021). Tehostetun palveluasumisen vaikuttavuus ja asiakkaiden elämänlaatu. Hallinnon Tutkimus. https://doi.org/10.37450/ht.98156
The authors of the article, Terhi Auvinen, Minna Kaarakainen and Ismo Linnosmaa, work in the SustAgeable project’s Social and healthcare expenditure work package which examines, among other things, the effects of population ageing on social and healthcare expenditure, regionally and at the national level in Finland.
