World Expo: Welcome to the future of healthcare and social care

For the last three months Nordic and international design students at Aalto University and Umeå Institute of Design have been working hard trying to illustrate how the future of healthcare and social care will look like by 2030. Their work is an important part of the Nordic collaboration project “integrated Healthcare and Care through Distance-spanning Solutions” (iVOPD/iHAC). The project is arranged by The Nordic Welfare Centre and Centre for Rural Medicine - Region Västerbotten, funded by The Nordic Council of Ministers and now brought to World Expo as a flagship example of Nordic cooperation within digital healthcare and social care.  

- In order to become the world most social sustainable region by 2030 we need a digital transition – and it must be a just transition where people from remote area together with everyone else is onboard. iVOPD  contribute to this and to our Vision 2030 - especially when it comes to be a social responsible and competitive North, says Paula Lehtomäki, Secretary General of the Nordic Council of Ministers.

There is a change in demography in some part of our region and some people in the North lives in sparsely and even remote areas with limited access to healthcare and social care. That is why the Swedish Chairmanship at The Nordic Council of Ministers in 2018 launched iVOPD.

- In this project we have been trying to speed up the digital shift of healthcare and social care in remote and rural areas by sharing best practices, provide inspiration and support service integration between healthcare and care, tells Niclas Forsling, project manager from Centre for Rural Medicine - Region Västerbotten.
 

Aiming to communicate the best practices examples from iVOPD in a different way a cooperation with the Aalto University were made. The outcome of this are brought to Expo at the finish Pavilion today.

- I believe that the project outcome can inspire, propose questions, and concretize areas of the problem space, say Severi Uusitalo, professor of industrial design at Aalto University. He continues:
- The student assignment was to provide a conceptual proposal addressing a selected topic, from within the theme. As a result, they produced concepts that tackle challenges of the Nordic healthcare system with a vision in 2030. The proposed concepts range from supporting mental wellbeing and alleviating cognitive impairment caused by dementia, to the use of mobile and accessible MRI imaging. Central in them is the theme of distance-spanning, for example for paediatric diagnotics and being connected to the healthcare staff and family members through technology.  

Healthcare and Care through Distance-spanning Solutions (iVOPD) are the Nordic flagship at this year’s Expo. Today it was part og the Finish pavilion. On February 1, it will be part debate in the Swedish pavilion were Niclas Forsling, project manager from Centre for Rural Medicine - Region Västerbotten will be debating future of health with other global experts. The debate will be LIVE streamed at February 1, 12:45-13:30 at our Nordic Facebook Channel.