My experience of digitalization in my field

When I was born, I was a small child and lived my youth the world was very different from the perspective of digitalization. During my schooling in primary and elementary school computers were not used, instead all the knowledge and doctrine came from the books. All subjects had their own textbooks, and schools and several homes had different non-fiction books.

After high school, I went to study as a nurse and at this point we used a little computer and created our own email according to the teacher’s instructions. However, using a computer was not a commonplace for us. As I studied to be a nurse, the use of a computer became more familiar, but the study still focused on books and the presence of the teacher and students in classes, there was no distance learning via the computer. Currently I am studying for a master’s degree, computer use is commonplace and without it, studying would be impossible. Especially now, during the exceptional period caused by Covid-19, distance learning has become very familiar and part of everyday life. I have not seen my own classmates many times during my studies, which is quite unfortunate.

Phones and their use have also gone a long way since I was young. I got my first cell phone when I was 17, and it was quite great piece of technology, even though it can’t be compared to modern smartphones. Nowadays, in addition to making calls, smartphones can be used to send messages and e-mails, play games, use the camera, navigation and many other applications such as banking applications. Nowadays, smartphones are often bought for children even before they start school or at the latest when school starts. This helps children and parents stay in touch in their faily lives, but I also think it bring a wide range of threats to children’s lives if they are not taught how to use a smartphone safely. Parents need to be very careful and aware of their children’s use of smartphones.

I work in the oncology department of Kuopio University Hospital. I have been working there for 18 years. During my career, I have seen how tremendously digitalization has developed in hospitals. At the beginning of my career, patient data was recorded in patient papers. Each had their own patient folders that contained patient data from different specialties. Nowadays, patient data is recorded in a patient information system, where it is up-to-date and different people have t opportunity to view it at the same time. Electronic patient information systems increase the safety of nursing work and are also more environmentally friendly. With digitalization, there is an intelligent medicine cart in use in my workplace, which brings more patient safety to drug treatment.

Future

In the future, digitalization will certainly develop in healthcare as well, but it is important to remember that patients and clients need the presence of nurses and doctors, not everything can be treated with digitalization. With digitalization, for example, artificial intelligence and robots can bring more innovations to healthcare and nursing science.

Nowadays, there are also digital clinics for patients, where they tell their expert about their condition and situation. However, I think there is a risk in these that the patient’s overall situation will be taken into account and that the patient will tell the truth about the symptoms, for example.

Risks of the digital society

Digitalization also brings risks to society that we need to take into account in our daily lives. Everyone must take care of data security and their own privacy. Under EU data protection law (GDPR), everyone has the right to decide where and when their personal data is used. We must also teach our children to operate safely in the electronic world and teach them to protect their privacy. With the help of various applications (Family Link), we can make sure that children do not spend too much time on their computer or smartphone.

Self-assesment

The course in this topic is new to me and I still have a lot to learn from this. The orientation materials attached to the course were interesting to me, they tell us a lot about the possibilities of digitalization but also about the threats that digitalization brings to us.

I commented on these blogs: Laura´s site and sonjaju.