© Kansaneläkelaitos (Kela, the Social Insurance Institution of Finland), 2024
The glossary is available:
- in the TEPA Term Bank
- in the Terminologies tool on the Interoperability Platform
Languages of the glossary:
- Terms: Finnish, Swedish
- Concept descriptions: Finnish, Swedish (partly)
Kela’s Terminological Glossary – Benefit-related Concepts, version 6.1 published in 2023 has been supplemented and updated. The subjects covered in the publication are the benefits provided and tasks undertaken by Kela (the Social Insurance Institution of Finland), e.g. sickness allowances and reimbursements for medical expenses under the Health Insurance Act, medical treatment in international situations, occupational health care, disability benefits and interpreter service for the disabled, rehabilitation organized and reimbursed by Kela, pensions paid by Kela, housing benefits, financial aid for students, conscript's allowance, benefits for families with children, unemployment allowances and basic social assistance.
In the version 6.2 published in June 2024 e.g. subject fields of medicine, medical treatment in international situations, occupational health care and rehabilitation have been updated. In addition, references to vakuutettu (insured) and kuntoutuja (rehabilitation client) have been checked and changed to refer to customers to reflect Kela’s current communication practises.
An update to all the Swedish translations of the glossary has also been made. The previously used expression “han eller hon” (he or she) has been given up, and instead a gender-neutral personal pronoun hen (they) has been applied.
Kela’s Terminological Glossary contains information on 571 concepts in term records and concept diagrams. The concepts have been defined and given term recommendations in Finnish and Swedish. The relations between the concepts are illustrated with the help of concept diagrams. The new concepts in version 6.2 of the glossary do not have Swedish translations, and if Finnish concept descriptions have been updated, the Swedish descriptions do not always correspond to the updated Finnish ones. The Swedish concept descriptions will be updated in later versions.
Kela’s Terminological Glossary describes the Finnish social security system from the point of view of legislation. The glossary is aimed at experts on social security, law drafters, PR officers, editors, translators and all who need to know the recommended social security terms used in connection with Kela and their meaning. The glossary also supports data management and helps to develop retrieval, transmission, archiving and modelling of data.
Kela and the Finnish Terminology Centre started to define concepts already in 2007. The aim was to harmonize, establish and clarify the terminology related to social security provided by Kela and to improve communication between Kela and its partners with the help of systematic terminology work. The previous editions of Kela’s Terminological Glossary (previously called the terminological vocabularies of Kela) were published in 2010, 2012, 2014, 2017, 2018, 2021 and 2023. Until 2021 the editions were also published as PDF files. Versions 6.1 and 6.2 are published only in the TEPA Term Bank and the Terminologies tool.