DIGI SOCIETY

I´m studying to become a Master of Social Services and Health Care and i have been working for some time in municipal sector as a welfare coordinator. Based on my initial education i´m a nurse and i have previously worked among various patient and customers groups, on both social services and health care. In this assignment I reflect the themes against this backround.

Digitalisation in my feald of expertise

When i started working as a nurse, many things were still done “traditionally”, although there were signs of digitalization in the air already. For example medical reports were held down on paper but soon electronic patient information systems started to conquer the field. Today all the patient and customer data is saved in digital information systems.

Digital platforms are handy and structured data filling secures that all the necessary information is saved in the right places. All though electronic data has many advantages, it also has it´s challenges. For instance communication outcages can be caused by blackouts, system errors or device defaults. In these situations you might hope for papery booking, whether you work in social or healt sector.

Data protection has been well-known matter in the social and health services always and has already been brought up during the studies. It´s important to ensure that personal data is handled and maintained suitably. I believe that despite of the risks in the digital world, it´s safer to mantain the information in electric systmes instead of papery archives: papers have to be held behind secure physical locks and documents can easily be forgotten somewhere they shouldn´t be left at. In the digital surroundings every professional has personal a username and a password for every system used and every time customer information is being processed the user leaves a distinctive mark. Regular supervision is been kept in the systems and the consequenses of illicit actions are substantial. In comparison to digital systems, it´s easy to look papery data without a legitimate reason without leaving a trace. However it´s important to be careful with usernames and passwords aswell and keep them in secret. Signing-out must be remembered after every session held in a system. Antivirussafety and consideration are important things as well, when operating on internet. When handlig critical information by e-mail, you have to be extremely careful and use secure e-mail transmission.

Future prospects of digitalisation

I believe technology development has so far influenced more on the health care than the social services. In health care many procedures are often performed by utilizing different kinds of highly developed technical and digital solutions. In my experience, when working e.g. as a supervisor in the child protection servives in alternative care, you mainly spend your time in intense interaction with customers. Therefore the most important toll used is personality and social skills. Allthough live communication cannot be replaced digitally, i ponder if the digital world could offer somekinds of additions, for instance training social and emotional skills virtually. Unfortunately i have heard lots of stories from the elderly care, where digital solutions have replaced the human contacts allmost fully. Savings in the personnel resources at the expence of the customers needs are not a sustainable or ethical way to gain financial savings.

In expertise work digital develpoment is going to enable many useful alternatives which will save time and input. By using AI large amount of information can be handled effectively and pictures, summaries and contents can be created conveniently. Using AI doesn´t however eliminate the employees resbonsibility for content of the final result. Different kinds of digital platforms already enable even worldwide interaction between people without having to move from your own office. This saves not only time, but also financial and natural resources. The downsides of virtual working are the lack of live human contacts and the risk of multitasking. “Multipasking”, the finnish equivalent for the concept, brings out all the worst possible outcomes of doing too many things simultaneously: in the end nothing gets properly done. Whenever live meetings can be held, i think their value will be reconized in a different way in the future.

GDPR

What it comes to GDPR, it reassures that you get to control your own information: you have the access in your data, it cannot be used without your permission and you also get to deside how it´s used. If your personal data is the target of any offence, you must be informed. In addition you also have the possibility to stay incognito online. How ever, GDPR doesn´t eliminate the individuals responsibilty for secure and cautious action on internet: every time you feed your infomation on the internet, the risk of data theft and abuse is possible. Pictures you post online are easily spread all over the world and in the worse-case scenario it´s impossible to get the data removed permanantly. The offenders are acting world wide and it decreases the possibility of them getting held accountable for their actions.

Chat GPT

I used Chat GPT for the first time in this assignement. Even though i didn´t have to give the rest part of my social security number when registering to the service, i didn´t feel comfortable giving my date of birth either. The first sigth of finnish content in the guide was little bit awkward and gave me shivers. The use of chat GPT itself was surprisingly fluent. I asked what are the future prospects in working as a welfare coordinator and what are the challenges in this occupation. I was positively surprised how relevant, accurate and versatile the answers were: in advance i thougth my questions were too vague for the service. Although chat GPT informed the sources the information was collected from, the user of AI is accountable evaluating their reliability and responsible for the content created by using AI. The use of reason is unconditional whether you seek information yourself or by using AI.

Self evaluation

I have known the risks of the digital world to some extent before this course and i have been quite careful in my actions what it comes to internet. It´s possible that my occupation gives some kind of basis for this, even though i´m not a professional on information technology. Practice is always a benefit, especially because of the vast development of digitalization. This assignment was a great recap but also offered new information and a lot think about.

Technological advantages contains plenty of good things in the eyes of social and health services: for example disabled persons can have support and possibilites through digital and technological solutions, as long as they are also provided all the help and guidance they need. The sources in this assignment gave me lots of interesting information concerning the latest innovations that can be utilized in health care. However, as a professional in social and health care, i contemplate that the advancements of technology and digitalization can also mantain ethical issues. Is every individual equal infront of the benefits of advanced science or are they only intended for wealthy and privileged people?

I commented on thes two post:

https://blogi.savonia.fi/turusentiina/digi-society/

https://blogi.savonia.fi/terhiannikki/digi-society/?unapproved=8&moderation-hash=5b4890e32fdf61709e168d9142666dbb#comment-8