My experiences of digitalisation
For me digitalized world open in year 2000 when my parent bought me a computer which had 56kbps internet connection. The CRT-monitor was huge cubicle and it’s screen was 17”. Keyboard is only thing novadays which is the same, for me anyways. I had mechanical keyboard then and I have one now. It makes typical clicking sound when typing. Everything else have changed in computing world. First contact with AI I had with video games and that was ground zero for me in that field of study.
Today my banking services, bookings, library loans and etc. are digitalized. I’m paying my groceries with my phone which was in 2010 thing from utopistic films for me. Though I tend to keep myself prepared for system malfunctions and I have backup plans if digital enviroment collapses. Digitalized enviroment sure helps people who can access to it, but what happens when energy crisis hits us hard and we are unable to access it. How does world go on today without access to internet? I don’t know.
when I was health care student in 2010 it was a blasphemy when I suggested that one course which was pure self learning could use remote connection. Teacher said that is impossible and I wouldn’t learn anything. Sure it was a pleasure to drive 280 kilometres to a class in the mornings after night shift to read how much fiber is in Fazer Real-bread. And 280 kilometres back to work on a another nightshift. I hope digitalization has deleted this from our education culture. Systems and connections we’re ready at that time but culture was wrong and it didn’t notice impact on climate.
I have been healthcare professional since 2009 and in sixteen years amount of digitalisation have been huge. When I began my career in healthcare patient records were on paper and drug prescriptions were also on paper. It was 2009! Computers were invented in the 1940’s and first personal computers came around 1970’s. And that was hospital life, not remote work in ambulance or homecare.
Kanta is a digital patient record storage that started working in finland 2014. Most public healthcare patient records are stored in there and are available only for social- and healthcare professionals during care or service. (Kanta 2024)
Kanta brought digital revolution to my field of expertise in healthcare. No more paperwork and I was thrilled for this! I have horrible handwriting and I had corrective feed time to time for this. Problem went away instant when digital patient documentation started at my employers service in 2020. Six years sounds a lot of time for getting a writing pad does it? Yes it is. But waiting was worthy. New digital field operating system provided Kanta-services nationwide for paramedics. Helped me and my colleagues a lot.
Future
In future I think artificial intelligence can bring new revolution to digitalized working enviroment in healthcare. I Think my work as a paramedic is not boosted with AI. Maybe some navigation system provides me options to move one place to another, but mostly I do this by knowing my enviroment very well.
Some AR boosted glasses would be nice touch to a paramedics work. AR Glasses which can provide information about resuscitation process, i.e. compression depth. If this is too low glasses inform you and suggest that you guide the executor or change the person if possible due to fatique. Without help this is one person’s job to supervise and lead the resuscitation process. Excellent clinical eye is needed.
Open digital society
In public health care the GDPR has not affected my working life. Personally I feel more secure knowing that my privacy is protected by law and I have a right to delete my data from registers if I choose so.
Thinking outside my bubble about GDRP.
Positive effects
Better and improved data protecion overall. Law fortifies significantly privacy by demanding organisations to handle private information safely and responsibly.
Negative effects
Impact on small businesses with increased demands on data protection and management costs of GDPR may lead to inability upholding company’s core fuctions. Bigger company with resources and expertise has infrastructure ready for managing GDPR’s demands. Smaller businesses may have to increase their prizes for customers to keep up with rising costs. It’s about seven years when GDPR entered into force and due to inflation I can’t tell now how GDPR is influence smaller businesses novadays.
ChatGTP
I presented two question to ChatGTP about my occupation. I refrained to ask further more questions about the topic from AI due to climate impact that AI produces every time it’s used.
I asked first what does a paramedic do and the machine’s answer was quite accurate from paramedic student’s point of view. It tells me how I am highly trained medical professional who provides emergency medical care in pre-hospital enviroment. I can agree with ChatGTP about that.
Second question was about my present role in emergency medical service. I asked what is emergency medical service field supervisor. Machine told me that EMS field supervisor is a senior paramedic who is responsible for overseeing and coordinating emergency medical response operations in the field. I was pretty impressed how accurate the answer was. Here in Finland Ministry of Social affairs and Health has set a decree of the emergency medical services. Decrees tenth section is about emergency field supervisors job description and it is equal with ChatGTP’s answer.
I fear that my question were too simple for AI and i didn’s notice any flaws in the answers. One thing ChatGTP is not very reliable in my opinion cause it does not provide the source of it’s answers.
I think artificial intelligence is human brain’s walking cane. It surely makes things easy. I think people should use it when it’s nessesary like a walking cane. No one uses walking cane unless needed. I’m not comfortable using AI for any research in my studies.
Self evalution
In Finland I’m not conserned about data protection in public health care. OmaKanta database is well secured and controlled. Laws and regulations guide the patient records storage very well. Kanta service has high standards for patient record platforms that could be linked to it.
One big flaw was pointed out couple of years ago, when private healtcare provider had a major data breach. Concequenses of the data breaches were devastating: 21 000 persons private patient records we’re leaked to a perpetrator who used them to blackmail money from individuals and then ended up to uploading all to dark web forum to showcase his skills as cyberterrorist. Individual got caught, tried and sentenced afterwards.
This event raised my conserns about my personal information on being online. I had my social media accounts deleted in January 2020 partly of this event and Facebook’s Cambridge analytica scandal for leaking users personal information to a third party was major reason to leave social media platforms behind. I never give permission to any web pages to locate me and today I actually read privacy statements before clicking and approving.
Development of AI for good purposes is acceptable, but there is always parties that try to exploit progress for their own benefit. Disinformation campaings with deepfake videos in social media platforms. AI used for bankfraud and fraud, especially elder populations are victims in these and shame is the barrier for reporting these crimes.
I have learned that industrial internet have been around since 1990s and it have developed fast pretty much every where but in the public health care in finland. I am still waiting proper and reliable devices for homecare patients that monitor their basic organ functions like heartbeat, blood oxygen levels and body temperature. I am pretty sure that a single ring can do this today or bracelet. When anomaly is detected it sends a notification to homecare to check the patient status. I have seen door alarms so far in homecare that signal door openings. In my employer digital strategy AR, AI and IoT are main instrest in future development, so maybe there is light at the end of the tunnel for public healthcare. It remains to be seen.
Comments
Carlottas blog: https://cheerful-carlottarainbow26.wordpress.com
Soyhan’s blog: https://soyhanblog.wordpress.com/