Working as a nurse demands lot off digital knowledge. Taking care of elderly people in last few years has been digitalizing rapidly and lot og new ways of working have been taken into use. Remote meetings to evaluate need of care services and contacting doctor starts to be normal method of working. Good and reliable sources of instructions are supporting work. Educating and strengthening knowledge to workers is quite easy done online
In Finland there is lack of educated people working in nursing and digitalization is one way of solving this challenge. Example in elderly people care it is common to have robot dispensing daily drugs an this leaves nurses time to do other tasks. Robots also do not make mistakes on dosing so using them is also safe choice and improving quality of care.
Safe usage of drugs and knowhow is an very important part of elderly people care. Digitalization is making possible to have apps with databases of drugs always available when working with them. AS a nurse I have possibility to check customers drugs dosage from the dose serving pag with qr-code,, so it is easy to check that correct drugs are used. When robot is dispensing drugs it is always recording an video clip when dispensing so it is possible to check later if correct drugs were given to customer. Making sure that drug is safe for customer it is easy to check from database, example Lääke 75+ database has this info available.
https://www.fimea.fi/laakehaut_ja_luettelot/laake75-
Many nursing homes are using activity monitoring watches. These can also be used to call for assistance if needed. Nurses can see from activity data that who have already woken up and who is still sleeping. This information can be then used for correct time nursing of customer. This kind of system is also making nursing home safe place to live and work. Digitalization is making possible to have only one person working in nightshift, since there is data available that are people sleeping or not. Nurses are using data to predict upcoming workload. It will be interesting to see how we can utilize data better in the future.
In elderly care internet of things possibilities and future is in my opinion awesome. Elderly people can live in their own homes for longer when using automatization and IoT solutions. For example automation of light it is possible to make home safer environment and prevent falling down in dimly lit areas. Many safe environment solutions area already available and remote support nursing is also available. I believe that we will see lot more video support services in future.
EU´s GPDR is affecting my work on daily basis, since I’m using data system that contains customer personal information. We do have yearly education about data security in our working place. All the data software’s does have information about data safety and it contains information about data usage in that system. In my opinion this information is good way to inform customers and workers about how data is used and how it´s safety is taken care of.
Tietosuojaseloste, asianhallinta (ylasavonsote.fi)
Tietosuojaseloste, asianhallinta (ylasavonsote.fi)
We are learning new ways of working and ways how to do our jobs better, so that we can offer better care services for our customers. Development of digitalization is making life better at home, at work and at hobbies, however you need to be aware of the risks that is involved. It will be exiting to see how will digitalization will change my way of worki
Tietosuojalaki 1050/2018 – Ajantasainen lainsäädäntö – FINLEX
I commented on these blogs:
The lack of qualified health care staff is getting worse in Finland. It is now evident also to the general public when health care staff has been on strike, demanding not only better salaries but also improvements which would make this field more attractive to young people and others who are considering their career choices. Many health care employers have been recruiting health care professionals from abroad. I have been wondering if this will solve anything in the long run, when practically the whole world faces this same problem. Is digitalization a better answer? It is easy to believe that robots can do better than humans in drug dosage tasks. There’s no possibility of human error. Can we take a nurse’s work and find enough parts that can be better carried out by robots or AI in general? So that the patients and clients will still feel that they are taken care of by human beings, and robots are only a technique that helps them?
Thank you Mirja. You described Finnish health care in an interesting way. A lot of different technology has already been used there, but I strongly believe that it will be more and more in the future. Labor shortages are forcing us to come up with technological solutions that will never completely replace individuals and genuine ones.