Improving safety at home in situations where the care of elderly people moves from more strongly controlled institutional environments to homes, where conditions vary and the location in relation to services varies, is at the centre focus of the KAT3 project. Safety must be able to be produced in varying situations, and to respond to the need, multioperator cooperation in the KAT3 project is used to produce information on the safety risks at home and the mechanisms that form them, and a cooperation model corresponding to the information is developed, which aims to prevent risks as early on as possible. The information is also used to develop contents for rescue, social and health care education to meet the requirements set out by a changing operating environment in a more topical manner.education contents The responsible implementers of the project are South Karelia's Rescue Department, which also operates as the project's head coordinator, Eksote, Lappeenranta University of Technology (LUT) and the Emergency Services College. The project’s operating period is 10/2017 - 09/2019 and it is funded by the Fire Safety Fund that operates under the Ministry of the Interior.
In the KAT3 project, risks at home are reviewed through fires and accidents as well as the user and distribution interruptions of electricity. The implementation of the project has been divided in to three work phases, where the first one focuses on producing a material-driven scientific analysis on the risks affecting safety at home and the causal connections of their formation. Lappeenranta University of Technology is responsible for the implementation of the first work phase.
n the second work phase, the current state of South Karelia's Rescue Department’s and Eksote’s readiness and development needs in observing and responding to safety risks at home are mapped. The implementation of the second work phase is based on the experience-based information of the organisations’ key specialists that is collected by means of themed interviews. Eksote operates as the organisation responsible for the implementation of the second work phase.
The third work phase uses previous work packages to form an overview of the significant safety risks at home and adapts the information together to develop a network-like cooperation model which aims to prevent safety risks at home as early on as possible. The network-like cooperation model is made part of the organisations’ operations with the network strategy created during the project. South Karelia's Rescue Department operates as the organisation responsible for the implementation of the third work phase.
Achieving the objectives of the KAT3 project is subject to successful and multi-levelled cooperation with operators that produce safety at home in different ways. Various operators operate as developer partners in the KAT3 project in this respect, and the majority come from the provincial area of South Karelia and part come from elsewhere. The following entities are involved in provincial development, e.g. the Association of South Karelia and Saimaa University of Applied Sciences, and on a nationwide basis, the rescue department of the Ministry of the Interior and the partner network of rescue departments. In the KAT3 project, companies are represented by companies in the safety and electricity industry and organisation operators are represented by Etelä-Karjalan Martat ry. In development, residents operate as the specialists of experience-based information concerning safety at home, and their needs in terms of the produced development is raised by means of interviews and participatory working methods, such as workshops.
South Karelia's Rescue Department, Project Manager Heidi Huuskonen, heidi.huuskonen@ekpelastuslaitos.fi, tel. 040 358 0168
Eksote, Kristiina Kapulainen, kristiina.kapulainen@eksote.fi, 040 651 1791
Emergency Services College, Research Director Esa Kokki, esa.kokki@pelastusopisto.fi, tel. 0295 453 409
Lappeenranta University of Technology, Research Lecturer Jouni Koivuniemi, jouni.koivuniemi@lut.fi, tel. 0400 580 683