Pirkko is the first genuine ERP system for reforming mental health services. When nursing is organised differently with the help of Pirkko, it becomes easier and better able to meet recommendations. Pirkko also helps curb cost increases.
Developed by Solutos Oy, Pirkko is an application that can help improve mental health services using existing resources. It has been developed to meet a real need, because in Finland mental health patients often receive treatment too rarely, and the treatment sometimes takes too long.
Pirkko is already in use in the Central Ostrobothnia Joint Municipal Authority for Social and Health Care (Soite), where its use will be expanded in 2019 from adult psychiatry to substance abuse services and youth psychiatry. From the beginning of April 2019, Solutos doctors and Pirkko have also been chosen by Savonlinna and East Savo Hospital District (Sosteri).
With the help of Pirkko, the services can be organised in a more structured and efficient way, without hiring new people.
It is an effective tool for management, to increase transparency of work and costs, and to enable grassroots work.
Pirkko is used to create structured information that includes the duration and intensity of treatment, as well as the goals and indicators used to evaluate the treatment.
Pirkko also analyses and complements existing customer and patient data. This enables statistics, tracking and comparison, as well as restructuring of operations and change management.
In specialised nursing, structured information can identify patient meetings that are unlikely to have an impact on treatment outcomes – and guide those patients towards other, more effective services.
In addition, some visits can be replaced by electronic monitoring that can also monitor the effectiveness of treatment.
“When restructuring operations with Pirkko, the treatment system will have more time for acute and new patients and enable staff to treat patients better. The treatments can thus be more intense, freeing time for development measures,” summarises Veijo Nevalainen, a psychiatrist from Solutos who has worked in the public sector for decades.
The status of patients improves
The application is based on rehabilitative thinking. The programme improves the status of the client or patient, for example by providing treatments or services that are sufficiently intensive in the acute stages. According to current research, new mental health patients should be treated with sufficient intensity.
In addition, the Pirkko application is in line with the latest national plan on mental health and substance abuse services. With the help of Pirkko’s electronic surveys, clients or patients are also easily involved in real-time in the planning and evaluation of their treatment.
Pirkko is also suitable for social and educational services and for the treatment of somatic long-term illnesses.
Comprehensively used, Pirkko acts as a multi-professional family network that brings together the customer, their family, and the employees who help them in provinces, future centres of social and health care, various organisations and private companies.
In addition, Pirkko is a tool of systematic approach in child protection, which has recently gained a foothold in Finland through the programme to address reform in child and family services (LAPE).
For more information:
CEO Kalle Horjamo, Solutos, tel. +358 40 569 2840, kalle.horjamo@solutos.wp.agendahelsinki.fi
Presentation at Digital Health Nordic 2019: