I was born in the early 1990s and grew up in the middle of the development of digitalization. Digitalization has changed a lot in my lifetime. Phones, computers, technology, wellness technology and information management have developed and become more and more important and necessary in life. I work in the health sector and development has been fast there as well, and older colleagues often talk about the past times when patient information was recorded by hand and “everything was better”. However, often, especially in the middle of a rush, one gets the impression that even these more experienced employees are satisfied with quickly entering information or retrieving it. Digitization has enabled information to be available.

In the future, I believe that digitization will continue to develop rapidly. More efficient and versatile devices that can do more and more things at the same time are the future. Well-being technology is developing. At the moment, my two-year-old smartwatch is already old technology and it can even be said to be unreliable in its measurements, even though at the time of purchase, the watch could still be trusted. The properties have not disappeared, but awareness and technology have developed and now with new devices the measurement results are more accurate. On the other hand, does it matter whether the heart rate is 10 beats per minute more or less, if we are talking about everyday life?

As for the future, working life will also develop. In the health sector, robotics and the opportunities it brings along with artificial intelligence, virtuality and remote connections are developing. In terms of physical medical care, robotics and artificial intelligence have already been developed more. There has been less development in psychiatry. In psychiatry, digitalization is still largely limited to the development of information technology and information search and data collection. As the latest experiment, I have heard about the use of VR glasses in psychiatry. One video of the course depicted life in 2020 (the video was made in 2010) and the predictions are still quite far from today, so predicting the future in terms of digitalization must be quite difficult.

The general data protection regulation was published in 2016 and has been applied since 2018. During those years, I was working in the department of psychiatry and I must say that at that time I knew nothing about the entry into force of that regulation. I remember doing some online courses about information security in those days, but I didn’t know about their connection to the entry into force of the GDPR. On the other hand, the hospital where I worked at the time had sensitive information and effective protections and restrictions on patient information, so it may be that the situation did not change in particular. I don’t think this has had much of an impact on my personal life either. I had not been hospitalized or interested in my own patient information before the law came into force, so I have only got to know the role of the patient on a personal level in recent years.

Now later, in a different workplace and in a different life situation, I have thought more about the risks of digitalization. There is more and more news about data breaches and data breaches, and I myself recently became a victim of a data breach because of my work. I have accepted the fact that e.g. Facebook and Google collect huge amounts of personal data. However, I cannot accept that my personal information is leaked within the organization where I work. I believe that GDPR has affected the way companies collect, process and store personal data. Companies are also obliged to act according to these instructions.

Self evaluation

I learned through videos and other texts that digitalization has a lot of good things, but also negative things and risks. People of my own era have often thought of digitalization as only positive, but the much-reported risks and the damages that have occurred have taught me that the situation is not so perfect. I believe that there is always something to learn in digitization, especially on a personal level, you should pay attention to the protection and safe use of your own devices.

I read Miia’s and Sini’s blogs and commented on them.

Digi Society

DIGI SOCIETY

Miia’s blog:

Hey! 

Your work on the lab sounds interesting. I liked your comment where you stated that “Digitalisation is also about changing the way we think, how we can do things more efficiently and more economically by using new technology.”. I agree with this and that’s why I like digital and the development of different work tasks with it. 

Sharing your own information for use by different companies, e.g. via Google Maps, Google or Facebook, seems contradictory. On the one hand, I like the fact that I occasionally receive reports about my own movements or my spending of money, but on the other hand, it even feels scary when, after the conversations I have had, I am offered targeted advertisements and products. The matter has indeed been dealt with by GDPR, but in the middle of everyday life it seems laborious to think about these and limit the use of one’s own data, especially when the limitation also prevents the use of certain functions. 

An open attitude towards digitization is important in order for the world to move forward and things to change. 

Best regards,
Kaisamari Koponen (https://blogi.savonia.fi/kaisamarikoponen/)

Sini’s blog:

Hi Sini!

It’s nice to hear about the development of digitization in your line of work. I work in the health care sector and it seems that we have digitalization and its solutions quite far behind in development, especially in everyday work. Nowadays, we already have more robotics in use, but still quite a small part compared to your work. The development of information technology and software has progressed at a furious pace in both fields, although in nursing work, technology matters are still in its infancy.

The stressful working life and pace of work are certainly a challenge in all fields. On the other hand, with the development of well-being technology and taking care of well-being at work, technology helps e.g. calculating the employee’s workload and how it could be lightened.

Your work and thoughts are interesting. Your thoughts about remote connections and their security also make me wonder if my own organization has taken such matters into account and if so, in what way. In the everyday life of an ordinary employee, instructions for remote connections have not been taken into account, although remote connections are largely limited to remote receptions, where software created for this is used.

Best regards,
Kaisamari Koponen (https://blogi.savonia.fi/kaisamarikoponen/)