Knowledge creation for the future of integrated health and social services: Vague visions or an expansion of activity?

Abstract

This article analyses multi-professional knowledge creation in relation to the future of health and social services in Finland. The empirical data were collected from a workshop and it was carried out in cooperation between the representatives of higher education and working life. Workshop gave to its participants the possibility for multi-professional knowledge creation exercise to expand on future integrated health and social services. Participants saw digitalisation as enabling clients to use services and as offering more holistic help in incorporating clients' service histories and needs. The analytical framework is based on the cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT) and the knowledge creation approach, which directs attention to creation of the future object of client-centred services and knowledge artefacts by means of which future visions are collectively imagined and concretised. The activity-theoretical analysis of the elements of the envisioned service activity brought into daylight contradictions between the present and the future, as well as the possibility of overcoming the siloed services, and acknowledge the diversity of the clients' situations. These challenges may be difficult to grasp by means of a knowledge creation exercise alone. However, the realization of future activity requires solving the contradictions of the present service and care.