My current job and digital tools
Right now I am a nurse in a private sector ophthalmic hospital and more specifically in surgery unit. Ophthalmic surgery has many different digital tools, which make surgery safer and give us optically precise final results. We use a patient record daily where we document things that we have done to the patient. Company where I work advertises in social media like Facebook and Instagram. Communication between the manager and the employees happens in Whatsapp, email or Teams. Especially Whatsapp is our daily tool for communication.
Next are 5 new social media tools that I could utilize in my work or in my own field:
- LinkedIn. I chose this because I have thought that LinkedIn would be a good tool for recuiting and networking. In healthcare I don’t think many employees use it especially in public healthcare. Now I have moved to private sector and met LinkedIn users for the first time. These people are working in management positions so still there are no nurses in LinkedIn in my opinion. Networking gives you new opportunities and can make you grow as a professional. During nursing school when I worked as an intern in different positions I made good connections to other employees and managers that provided me with many work opportunities. Sadly the connections have now vanished because time has elapsed. It would be precious if all the connections would be in one place like in LinkedIn.
- Tiktok. I think Tiktok is trendy right now and with it we could reach younger customers. Ophtalmic surgery isn’t just for elderly people. We have laser treatments that can fix your vision so you don’t need glasses. We advertise now in Facebook and Instagram. Still I think in Tiktok we could have more visibility with potential customers. Perhaps some kind of co-operation with some influencers would be optimal.
- Blogger. With blogger we could share stories from healthcare so more people would be more familiar what happens if you have to use healthcare services or you get sick. Stories could be from professional perspective or patient’s perspective. This could lead to awareness and remove taboos from rare diseases. I think nowadays awareness of your health is more visible in social media. People share their stories from different perspectives and it is educative. The risk is that it can lead to disinformation. Some kind of professional blog from a doctor or healthcare professinal would be both educational and reliable. We have Terveyskylä which is for patients and professionals and there is pretty specific information, but it is not written like a blog.
- Youtube. In Youtube we could utilize audiovisual material to reach out to patients and customers. Audiovisuality is an effective way to educate people. I have made audiovisuals for professionals and patients. For professionals the material has been instructive and to patients it has been more descriptive, detailing what happens in healthcare. Audiovisual material can also reach different kinds of people, for example people who have difficulties with reading or hearing.
- Evernote. This one is new to me but when I got to know this I found out it could save paper in healthcare. I don’t now if it is just me but I use post-it notes a lot in my nursing work. Especially in acute situtations you just have to put some notes down right away and after the situtation you can improve your notes in the patients record. Also there can be common tasks and calendar in Evernote, so you can share information better between colleagues. Data protection must be noted. Perhaps it is better to not write anything specific to Evernote to protect patient’s information, but we could use it like post-it notes.
Succesful digital application
Succesful digital application is in my opinion distinct and user friendly. Commissioning must be simple so users will continue to use the application. Function should be easy and straightforward to use in daily necessary tasks. It would be interesting to focus more on why some applications are more popular than others like Whatsapp or Facebook. I have noticed that there has been a transition in the popularity of these applications during the last ten or twenty years. Why do some applications come and go? What makes a new application better than the last one? Is there peer pressure to start using new applications? What I mean with peer pressure is that when you notice everybody else is using the application you feel pressured to start using it too. It has happend to me with some new social media applications. If you are not where everyone else is there can be a possibilty that you miss out on something. Overall, I think good application starts with necessity. That makes commitment much easier from the beginning and other elements can build on that.
Self-reflection
Assignments have given me a new perspective for my own field and how we can utilize different digital tools in there. Also it has been demonstrative to see that we have already utilized digitalization pretty well in healthcare sector. Digitalization gives us many opportunities in the future and it is much easier if we comprehensively understand it. That includes the past and the present so we can see the demands that guide our future. Assigment where you should find 5 new social media tools to your own working field was enlighting. At first I couldn’t find apparent choices but after a moment I could see how we could utilize many differents tools in one way or another. It only takes imagination and an open-minded perspective. Successful digital application is something taken for granted by users. I mean when application is successful we don’t think about it we just use it. If there are problems we can nowadays just change to different application (if there is one available) and if it is better we settle for that. In healthcare sector, for example with patient record, it is not easy like that. We have to note the challenges and risks and try to fix potential problems, as changing patients record applications takes a lot of time and money and has to be thorougly considered. With these studies I have seen how I am a part of digital development. Often the users see the problems and they have to report them. It could lead to improvements and make the users more satisfied with the application.