In elderly service counselling in Päijät-Häme, the goal is to make high-quality, timely decisions based on the client’s actual functional abilities. A key objective is to allocate services appropriately – supporting living at home when it is safe and purposeful, and identifying, in a timely manner, situations where 24-hour assisted living in a care unit is the best option. In this work, MariCare’s Elma and eLsa activity monitoring systems have become significant decision-support tools and represent a new application area within the assessment work of elderly service counselling in Päijät-Häme.


Giving objective insight into daily life in the home environment

Elma/eLsa solution provides objective, continuous, and measurable data on an elderly person’s everyday life in their own home. Monitoring is typically carried out over an assessment period of approximately three weeks, during which the client’s functional ability is evaluated in their real living environment, rather than through individual visits, momentary observations, or costly assessment periods in a care unit.

“Without MariCare’s system, a service counselling professional, conducting a service needing assessment, would rely solely on information from a single assessment visit and the client’s situation at that moment. The Elma/eLsa system provides a different perspective on the client’s functional ability It is unobtrusive and discreet, while respecting the client’s privacy.”
- Riikka Leppäkorpi, home assessment team, Päijät-Häme Wellbeing Services County, Finland

The solution is based on radio waves and intelligent software and does not use cameras. This ensures a high level of privacy and reduces ethical concerns. An Elma sensor is installed in the bedroom to monitor time spent in bed, and eLsa sensors are installed in different rooms at home. Data is securely transmitted via a gateway to MariCare’s cloud service. Client accounts are created anonymously in the cloud service, ensuring data protection. Door sensors can also be added, for example to a refrigerator or microwave, providing information on daily activities and eating habits.

Elma/eLsa solution provides information on, among other things:

• overall movement and activity or inactivity
• the logical patterns of movement
• daily rhythm and nighttime activity
• number and timing of toilet visits
• time spent in bed
• kitchen activity, such as refrigerator or microwave use
• times spent outside the home
• fall alerts (not in use in service counselling in Päijät-Häme, but available for services such as home care)

The data is updated daily and presented in clear graphs that professionals can utilize as part of a comprehensive assessment.

“A home care client was often unusually tired during the morning visits. When Elma sensors were installed, it became clear that the client went to bed later than previously assessed. Based on this information, morning visits were scheduled later so that the client could get a sufficient amount of valuable nighttime sleep.”
- Anniina Koskinen, home assessment team, Päijät-Häme Wellbeing Services County, Finland

Supporting service needs assessment and decisions on 24-hour assisted living

In Päijät-Häme, Elma/eLsa system is primarily used for home assessment periods, arranged as part of service needs assessment processes. Remote monitoring provides a broader and more reliable overall picture of a client’s functional ability rather than individual home visits or subjective evaluations.

Elderly service counselling team examines, for example:

• whether movement is purposeful or aimless
• whether the client is inactive, restless, or wanders around
• how much time the client spends in bed
• how is the client doing at nighttime in general
• how daily activity reflects the client’s overall functional capacity

Long-term, measured data supports well-founded, careful decisions also when assessing the need for 24-hour assisted living in a care unit. With Elma/eLsa system, decision-making is based on documented data, increasing transparency and consistency in the process.

“We utilize MariCare’s system in service counselling. The sensors are easy to install in the client’s home by our home assessment team, allowing us to provide the professionals with valuable information in a clear and easily understandable format to support decision-making.”
- Riikka Leppäkorpi, home assessment team, Päijät-Häme Wellbeing Services County, Finland

A shared understanding of the client’s situation – and also with those close to them

The reliable and visual information produced by the Elma/eLsa system has proven to be valuable in cooperation with those close to the client as well. The graphical presentation facilitates a shared understanding of the client’s daily life and functional ability. Concrete data reduces conflicting interpretations and increases trust in the decisions made.

An easy-to-install solution designed for care work

Elma/eLsa system has been designed to meet the practical demands of care work:

• the system is safe and reliable
• the devices have a long lifespan
• service counselling professionals can independently install the devices and create or remove client accounts

The MariCare Home software intelligently interprets sensor observations and transforms them into clear, decision-supporting information.

Päijät-Häme home assessment team and the MariCare Home user interface.

Towards more impactful and data-driven service counselling

The goal of elderly service counselling in Päijät-Häme is to improve the quality of decision-making and better align services with clients’ actual needs. Elma/eLsa system supports this goal by providing continuous, reliable, and ethically sustainable data on the everyday lives of elderly people in their home environments.

With MariCare’s solution, service counselling has gained a new perspective on clients’ functional ability, enabling services to be targeted in a timely and client-centred manner and supporting more impactful decisions in elderly care services.

Cooperation with Päijät-Häme has progressed in a long-term and results-driven manner. I introduced the eLsa activity monitoring system to the region’s Services and Rehabilitation team in February 2020, and in March 2021 a pilot scheme was launched in five elderly clients’ homes, demonstrating that the solution provides genuine decision-supporting data. Based on the pilot scheme, cooperation has expanded and become a fundamental part of their home assessment practices.

In Päijät-Häme, making well-founded decisions is now based on measured and documented data, and services are more accurately targeted, according to clients’ functional ability. We achieve concrete well-being impacts in clients’ daily lives, and the need for round-the-clock care is identified earlier. The leadership and elderly service counselling services in Päijät-Häme have set an example of modern, data-driven management, by promoting the effectiveness of services through a technology-positive approach.

The achieved benefits suggest that the advanced home assessment operating model developed in Päijät-Häme provides a scalable and impactful example that would be worthwhile reviewing and benchmarking elsewhere in Finland and internationally as well.

– Mervi Peltonen, Business Development Manager, MariCare Oy

Mervi Peltonen and Kert Moring of MariCare with Riikka Leppäkorpi and the Päijät-Häme home assessment team.