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Web Posted on: August 4, 1998


|TIDE 98 Papers |

The Problem Phone:
Simple technology assisting 24-hour telephone services for the elderly.

 

Merja Ranta-aho
Helsinki University of Technology
Communications Lab.
P.O.box 9400, 02015 TKK
tel. +358-9-4512355
fax +358-9-451235
email:merja.ranta-aho@hut.fi

Ulla Jutila
Helsinki University of Technology
Communications Lab.
P.O.box 9400, 02015 TKK
tel. +358-9-4514906
fax +358-9-4512359
email: ulla.jutila@hut.fi

 

1. Summary

A local telephone service trial is described, the service being meant for supporting home help services for elderly and handicapped people. Locality, personal service and contacts to municipal home help and other services were important in giving the service. Simple technology was used to create a successful service.



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2. Introduction

How to support independent living of elderly or handicapped persons, instead of institutionalisation, is a critical question, affecting both life quality of people concerned and cost of care. In Finland, problems in care services provided to elderly people include (Vaarama, 1992):

  • low availability of services outside office hours
  • insecurity especially at nights, weekends and holidays.
  • low freedom of choice and independence.

A great part of daily life support services requires someone going to the customer to do some work there. But there are also cases when just a telephone call might help. The basic reason for introducing telephone services to elderly care can not be to replace human contact and presence with telecommunication. Instead, telephone services can be an addition to other services. They can help in providing services for which there would be no resources otherwise, or timing the personal contact to those times when it is really needed.

Ranta-aho and Leppinen (1996) proposed a telephone service designed especially to meet the needs of elderly and handicapped people, for supporting independent life as an addition to home help services. Special features of the service, called the Service market, were

  • accessibility all day, all night, through one telephone number
  • personal assistance independent of the organisation of the service provider
  • staff that are professional and experienced workers in elderly and/ or handicapped people’s care and social work
  • good knowledge of the staff on local circumstances.
  • design according to local needs, possibilities and circumstances.
  • contacts to and knowledge on municipal care (and other) services

The approach described is an alternative for wide-area service centers, especially as an small-size, local, low-investment solution that adds to existing human-to human services. An implementation of this service was tried out in Hämeenkyrö, a small finnish town located in the neighbourhood of Tampere, during 1997 to test its feasibility.



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3. The Problem Phone of Hämeenkyrö community - a Service Market trial

3.1. Implementation and resulting calls

The Problem Phone was launched in March 1997, and it was meant "to solve any problems the caller might have, and where s/he can’t find help elsewhere".The practical implementation of the Problem Phone telephone service was the following:

  • One telephone number that answers 24 hours a day.
  • The customer is charged for a local call only.
  • During office hours the number is answered by the community social service center, for other times the call is transferred to a community worker carrying a mobile phone. The number is answered always with "Problem Phone" and the worker's name.
  • The workers were community social care professionals, such as home care personnel, elderly home workers, etc. The workers were volunteers, who received one day off from their normal work for one week on duty.

During a follow-up period starting from March 1997 to November 1997 the Problem Phone received 59 calls, that have been classified in the Figure 1.

Figure 1: Types of calls to the Problem Phone.

The calls to the Problem Phone varied from just talking with the customer to more practical help, e.g. problems with a water pump. In Figure 1 the calls classified as discussion were calls that did not require further measures, but the customer was helped by just having opportunity to share his/her worries with someone. Also calls classified as information were easily handled by giving information such as a phone number. Three calls classified as organization were calls from another community worker who needed assistance or advice - the Problem Phone was in those cases used as an organizational tool. In three calls classified as active, the phone worker actively contacted an elderly that was lonely and needed care. In two calls the more correct phone number would have been the emergency center. In many of the calls counseling only was not enough to help the customer but someone had to go to meet the customer, the phone worker herself or e.g. a home care worker. In three calls an appointment with a social worker was made.

It was not always possible to offer concrete help to the customer. The service respected customers’ privacy and the customer did not have to accept help. Thus this kind of calls were also classified as discussion in Figure 1. The service was not anonymous, the number of the caller could be seen and was recorded by the mobile phone. That was helpful if the connection broke - the worker could call back to the customer. In principe, the customer could have called the phone anonymously from a secret phone number or dialling *31* before the phone number. This was, though, not utilised, and many callers also presented themselves.

3.2. Characteristics of the Service Market model

As the Problem Phone was an implementation of the Service Market model, it was analysed, how well the essential characteristics of the model were realised or if these characteristics turned out to be useful in helping the customers. Figure 2 summarises the utilization of three main Service Market characteristics (local information, contact to municipal services and customer knowledge) in helping the customers - those three characteristics described the 'Problem solving strategies' in a substantial amount of the calls.

Figure 2: Utilization of local information, contact to community services and customer in helping Problem Phone customers.

For example, the phone workers that were home care professionals knew many of the customers, community services such as a social workers were contacted, and local information was helpful in finding out who could fix a water pump. Furthermore, if the service had not been local it would not have been possible for the phone worker oneself to go to meet the customer, if needed. According to the follow-up study and the opinions of the workers, the customers were also succesfully helped by the service. Thus it was verified that the Service Market model describes the characteristics of a succesful telephone service for the elderly, and that the model can be implemented in practise. The customer knowledge was not fully realized, as the workers were on duty only one week at a time and about two weeks per year. According to the workers, this was not a disadvantage, as the customers were also changing.

3.3. Implementing a telephone service with a mobile phone

A mobile phone was used for the service during nights and weekends. The workers felt that the mobile phone left them the freedom to carry out their normal tasks as during their week on duty they still had to take care of their normal day work. But on the other side, they felt that the freedom to roam around while on duty had its disadvantages as well. Some workers restricted voluntarily their whereabouts because they were afraid the phone would ring at an inconvenient moment. Furthermore, the technical quality of a mobile phone is not the same as that of a fixed telephone line.



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4. Conclusions

The Problem Phone will continue its operation and broaden its scope to more active services and to support of the emergency phone service offered by the municipality. Small technology investmets and the great service spirit of the personnel have resulted in a successful service. This shows, that services utilising technology do not always need to use complicated technology - sometimes only small help from technology is needed. Not glorious projects for technology developpers, ome might say, but the more important for actual service providers, as they are easily implemented and carry only small financial risks.

Designing local services for local needs is an antithese for intelligent telephone technology, that can hide the fact that a service is answered from different locations at different times even though the customer calls to one number. But locality and familiar people giving the telephone service add security for the elderly customer. Only local services can provide as flexible solutions to the problems that the Hämeenkyrö people gave, utilising fully their local networks and, maybe in long term, being able to support the formation of neighbour support networks for their frequent customers.

This kind of a service can be taken into usage as a part of home help services provided by the municipality or a private service provider. It should, though, be seen as a safety-increasing addition, not as an additional source of income. For the professionals working with the service, it was seen as a welcomed addition to their work, that made it possible to broaden their professional skills.



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5. Literature

Ranta-aho, M. and Leppinen, A (1996): Telephone services as addition to home help services helping elderly people. Gerontechnology, Second International Conference, 15-17 October, 1996, Helsinki

Vaarama, M. 1992. Vanhusten palvelujen tavoitteet ja todellisuus. Katsaus vanhusväestön elinoloihin, palvelutarpeisiin ja sosiaali- ja terveyspalveluihin. Sosiaali- ja terveyshallituksen raportteja 48/1992. Helsinki: VAPK-kustannus.



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