Helsinki and Uusimaa Hospital District (HUS) coordinates and co-funds – with the other hospital districts in Finland and with the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health – a 12 million euro project that provides digital health services to all Finnish citizens. This project is called the Virtual Hospital project 2.0. The project is already online, though it is continuously developing. It aims at translating research findings into practice and hence have impact! The outcome of the Virtual Hospital project 2.0 is the Health Village (Terveyskylä in Finnish) and it can be found at www.terveyskylä.fi.
DePsy leader, academy professor Katri Räikkönen, and a long-term collaborator, docent Eero Kajantie, are actively involved in two of the Virtual Hospital projects at the Health Village Women’s hub. There are multiple different hubs at the Virtual Hospital Health Village, e.g. Brain hub, Weight management hub, the Helsinki Biobank. Again, these can be found at www.terveyskylä.fi:
The first one of the eHealth solutions that Räikkönen and Kajantie co-create and co-design with the other HUS actors of the Virtual Hospital project relates to promoting growth, development and health of preemies after discharge from the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). It also aims at providing support and identify parent(s) who would benefit from enhanced support while the preterm baby is still at the NICU and shortly after discharge. The second one of these eHealth solutions relates to mental health promotion of women during the perinatal period.
Kajantie says: “Participation in these Virtual Hospital projects is very important and very exiting – this will provide us an avenue to translate our almost twenty-years of research into practice to benefit preemies and their families. This avenue can also be exploited to provide evidence-based information to all professionals, not only in the healthcare sector, who work with preemies in their future lives, including teachers in the daycare centers or at schools.” A significant number of the Finnish population is born preterm, nearly 3000 babies each year, reminds Kajantie. Räikkönen continues:
“Promoting maternal mental well-being is important and not only provides benefits for the mother during the perinatal period, but has great benefits for the unborn child as well. I am very happy that this opportunity has opened for us and we can contribute to promoting to the health and well-being of our present as well as next generations.”
DePsy will continue to post blogs about the progress of these two Virtual Hospital eHealth projects.