Digitalization in my own field of expertise

I have been working over fifteen years as a radiographer. On my field of expertise in diagnostic imaging lot have changed. In the early 21st century x-ray images were taken to the film and now all the imaging equipment’s are fully digitalized. Working has become more efficient and radiation doses has decreased while image quality has improved dramatically. Electronic medical system has improved patient safety when paper folders are not anymore, the form where patient data is stored. Healthcare professionals who participate in patient care can access patient file on their own laptops or PC: s at the same time. Hopefully some day we will have uniform electronic medical system throughout Finland so that collaboration between different healthcare units could be even more flexible.

Now a days hospital physicists can observe and develop procedures effectively when all data from imaging devices transfers to their information systems. Consultation has become fast and easy when all patient data including images can be transferred in a second on the other side of Finland. For example, it is typical to ask University hospitals neurosurgeons consultation on patients CT or MRI scans that are taken in Central hospital. Digitalization has helped radiologists work faster while speech recognition is widely used. After Covid pandemia we can also take part of almost every congress online which saves time and money.

In the future I assume that radiologists work will change more than radiographer’s work. AI will impact at least on early diagnosis and hopefully help also general practitioner’s work. I think that in the future AI will impact positively on radiographers and radiologist’s workload so that we can offer better healthcare services to the patients.

Risks of open digital society and GPDR

I think that in healthcare general data protection regulation is positive thing. Practically all patient data is classified as sensitive and all actions to prevent misuse of that data is improvement. In healthcare patient gives his or her permission on data processing and for example data transfer between different healthcare service providers. Though practically every patient must give permission to healthcare provider process their data if they use hospitals services so that service is possible to provide. Patient can do some restrictions on what is permissible to view on their patient data. Because of GDPR legislation healthcare workers must declare what is the reason for opening patients’ medical file and organizations observes that no misuse of patient data occurs. Patients has right and possibility to check their personal data. I think that for radiology department it was easy step when GDPR law entered into force because it is so clear what patient data we need to process and what we do not need to process. Our patients have given their permission to process their data before they use our services.

I think that risk is that older patients and healthcare workers finds it difficult to use digital solutions. For younger generation it is easier to learn new and start using different kind of applications, but information security awareness might not be as clear as it should be. I afraid that financial problems of wellbeing services county prevent to development of digitalized working environments and information security. In Finland there has been lately few severe data leakage cases and I hope that the next one does not involve healthcare.

Chat GPT

I asked from Chat GPT how can radiographer benefit from AI in the future and answers sounds quite credible. Some of those predictions has already become reality in real work life. If AI could create personalized imaging protocols and predictive analytics based on patient data that would be interesting and beneficial. Potential benefit on AI is possibility to optimize workflow and I believe that it is the next step to utilize AI in real work life. About enhancing information safety in healthcare Chat GPT´s answers were bit far from real life, but I assume reason is my quite inaccurate question. In general Chat GPT`s answers are not mainly so practical. Third question I made was more accurate and I wanted to test if Chat GPT could give practical answers too. So, I asked what to take in consideration when administering Fentanyl to the patient? Chat GPT`s answer was directed for doctors and answer were a bit more practical than those for my previous questions.  Chat GPT tells that by carefully considering factors that it gave; healthcare providers can minimize the risks associated with Fentanyl administration and provide effective pain management for their patients. On my mind it would be important that AI would highlight on its answers that medication safety requires lot of knowledge, and these kinds of procedures should not be based on AI´s information. Chat GPT gave factors to consider and it´s text sound very professional. That might be problem if reader is not ready to check the facts before using Chat GPT´s advice in real life, especially in healthcare. I think that artificial intelligence is good tool for developing healthcare practices.

What I learn and what I should know more about.

I learn that I need to know more about cyber security and potential threads and risks that includes in digital world. Potential of artificial intelligence is interesting field and has multiple possibilities to offer for diagnostic imaging.