The EU-healthcare.fi website provides reliable information on using healthcare services – this is how we ensure that the content is up to date

The Contact Point for Cross-Border Healthcare distributes information on the use of health care services in Finland and abroad. In 2015, we launched the EU-healthcare.fi online service, which is our central channel for communicating on these issues. Initially, the service was called Choosehealthcare.fi but, at the end of 2019, we chose a new name in cooperation with customers and partners. On the website, you can find comprehensive information, for example, about the use of healthcare services and patient rights. We are constantly updating EU-healthcare.fi in order to keep its information up to date and make the service as easy as possible to use. In this news item, we have compiled recent changes to this online service that make the site even more useful to our readers.

Changes in cross-border health care keep us busy

When changes are made to international agreements and laws on medical care, up-to-date information on them must be added to the site. For example, Brexit and the new agreements that came with it have required editing work on the EU-healthcare.fi website. Last year we also launched a COVID-19 theme page, where you can find information on guidelines related to the pandemic. In addition, the website now includes a section on example stories, which helps our readers to understand the practical implementation of rights to treatment. Through stories, you can learn how to get medical care in different cross-border situations.

Some of the updating work is continuous and regular. For example, we keep the country-specific information on the site up to date by reviewing and correcting it annually. Price information for private health care services is also updated every spring.

We pay attention to the accessibility of the site

The aim of accessibility is to enable as many people as possible to use the online service smoothly and to take into account, for example, visitors with sensory impairments. As stated in our previous news item, the accessibility of our site is at a good level. For example, in 2020, we updated the site’s colour map to meet accessibility requirements. We also pay constant attention to ensuring that EU-healthcare.fi is easily accessible with a screen reader.

In January, the contact point also published the first part of the redesigned sign language pages on the EU-healthcare.fi website. You can watch the videos in both Finnish and Finland-Swedish sign language. We will continue to redesign the sign-language sections in the autumn.

Towards clear language

In February and March, we made extensive language corrections to the site. The linguistically corrected sections are Health services abroad and Healthcare in Finland. The use of clear language in the online service is also related to accessibility, and we want to communicate in the most understandable language possible.

EU-healthcare.fi joins Your Europe network

Our online service now includes the logo that directs you to the Your Europe website. It is a webpage maintained by the European Commission and currently under development, gathering a wide range of information for EU citizens planning to move or travel to another EU country. EU-healthcare.fi is part of this Europe-wide portal, to which information is linked from our website.

How could we improve our online service?

We are happy to receive comments about our site so that we can improve it further. So give us feedback if you have any ideas or wishes!