Before and Now

I have worked in neonatal intensive care unit for almost 20 years. When I started as a newly qualified nurse, many things were different from today. Nursing practices have come a long way and the advances in digitalization are clearly visible. In the early 2000s, the patient’s medical records were recorded on paper by hand. Lab results were printed on a telefax recorder, whose voice could be heard throughout the ward. The patient information system for intensive care came into use at the end of 2008. The recording of patient data was greatly facilitated by the automatic entry of data from monitors and ventilators into the patient information system.

Today, neonatal intensive care takes place in family rooms and baby monitor alarms ring on the nurse’s phone. X-rays are taken faster because the image does not need to be developed separately, but goes directly into the information system. In the future, wireless will become more and more common and perhaps one day we will be able to get vital signs from the baby without having to hook him up to a lot of wires and tubes. The development of digitalization has brought a lot of good things to our lives, but it also has its drawbacks. With or because of digitalization, there is a constant drive to make work more efficient, people are multitasking and we are always available and accessible. In the quest for efficiency, everything is measured. Nowadays, sleep is also measured, performance is measured at work and in leisure time, and measurement is already coming to sleep, literally.

The Risks of open digital society

Open digitalization creates a wide range of security risks for society and individuals. The biggest of these are data breaches and hacking. Societal information security has become even more important since Russia invaded Ukraine and Finland joined NATO. The main fear is of Russian-led cyber-attacks on state infrastructure such as electricity and water supply, the defence forces and healthcare. Hacking into infrastructure affects people’s daily lives and security. This needs to be taken into account and prepared for with strong security measures. Fuel companies are also targets of hacking.

A private person can be a victim of identity theft. In this case, an outsider has access to and misuses a person’s personal data and bank details. They use the victim’s details to impersonate them on social media and digital platforms such as online shops. Identity theft adversely affects the victim’s reputation and financial well-being. Identity theft is a punishable offence in Finland. Data leaks, for example in the healthcare sector, can cause a wide range of distress. An example of this is the psychotherapy center Vastaamo data breach, where over a period of a couple of years, personal and patient data of customers were stolen and leaked to the Tor network. What made the data leak public was the scale of the data leak and when the perpetrator tried to extort money from Vastaamo and the victims.

GDPR

GDPR, or General Data Protection Regulation, gives people more control over the use of their personal data. The GDPR applies to businesses operating in the EU, which means they have a data protection framework that obliges companies to comply with the regulation.This regulation will guarantee individuals’ fundamental right to protection of their personal data, develop the digital economy and fight crime and terrorism more effectively. The GDPR protects individuals when their data is being processed by the private sector and most of the public sector. The company must provide individuals with clear information about who processes their personal data and why. At a minimum, the following information must be provided: who processes the data, why the personal data are processed, the legal basis for the processing and who receives the data. Special rules apply to children and the company must ask the child’s guardians for their consent. The healthcare sector already had strict data protection policies for personal data, but nowadays, with the advent of data protection, there is more talk about data protection and everyone must complete data protection training every couple of years. Computers are locked to prevent outsiders from reading patient data, and anyone handling patient data must log on to the computer with a professional card. Patient data must not be visible on any tabs where outsiders could read it. Each family is asked at the beginning of the treatment period for consent to the release of data and is given information on what this means.

ChatGPT

I asked Chat GPT a few questions related to my work and made some observations about the answers. The answers were quite generic and I asked several more specific questions on the topic. It is good to know the topic so that you can ask more specific questions and be critical of the answers given. Some of the terms were incorrect and at times the answers were not easy to read. Some of the information was also incorrect. You have to ask the right question and use the right term. The answer can be quite the opposite, depending on the term and form of the question.

The Chat GPT offers possibilities and can help you find information when you are completely lost in thought, but you should not rely on AI alone, but mainly on other reliable sources. The information provided by ChatGPT may not be the most up-to-date, and there is no way to identify the source of the information.

Self-evaluation

Some years ago, I used to have a blog about my dogs and how to spend time with them. Now, for the first time, I am writing a blog in English and I admit that it is a challenge. Digitization as a topic is also quite foreign, although very interesting. Orientation materials were very interesting to watch. Specially “The Big Data” and “Everyday Cybercrime”.  They gave me a lot to think about and reminded me how big thing information security really is and how we should all take it into account in our daily lives!

I commented on the blog posts of Anna’s Blog and Sanna Widgren.