I work in a nuclear medicine unit were we do various studies with radioactive tracers. Radioactive tracers are manufactured and administered to patients in different sections of the unit. Communication between different sections is handled with the message board application. One technologist is administering patient doses in the cleanroom for most of the day. For example, the message board tells the patient’s weight to the technologist so that they can give the patient the right dose. The message board is open on the desktop, and when a new message appears, it pops up. This message board application is old, but it works very well.  

The time of Covid-19 remarkably promoted remote working opportunities. Teams has become an everyday tool. I don´t work remotely but the possibility to have meetings remotely is a nice addition. Working remotely full-time is not necessarily a good thing. I think it’s important to be able to talk about things face-to-face as well. 

New apps  

Instagram or Facebook could be used to post about our work. There could be many benefits to it. Nuclear medicine field is not a well-known area. Media coverage could be beneficial in recruitment. Patients would also be able to see our units work and it could ease the patients tension.  

In Jodel you could ask for example anonymous questions about things inside a large hospital. Different groups where you use your own name are operating at HUS, but it might be nice opportunity to ask about some things anonymously. For example, if you are applying for a new job, then Jodel could be a good place to ask about the atmosphere in the unit.   

The Todoist app could be a good place to put things down. I have far too many things written on post-it notes. I have a lot of post-it notes in my locker that take a lot of time to go through. Also small notes get lost easily. It is about a time to move to the modern world! 

With WhatsApp I could for example communicate with my boss. She’s so busy that I wouldn’t always  want to call her on the phone and the email feels kind of stiff. In my unit at the hospital, we don’t have separate work phones. It makes it difficult to use useful applications for work. You cannot assume that employees use their own phones for work but I could use mine at least for WhatsApp messaging.  

Skype or Teams could be used when dealing with an interpreter remotely. Often there is only a telephone number where to call for the interpreter. Video in addition to speech would be a great improvement. The problem here is that there are no tablet computers or smartphones in use at our workplace. 

In my opinion the most important elements of successful use of digital application is that there should be an actual need for a digital application and it should be easy to use.  

After this task I got really excited about the possibilities of Instagram at work. In my own life, I’m not an enthusiastic social media poster, but at work it could be a good tool for the future. The nursing home where my mother with Alzheimers lives has an Instagram account. It’s really nice to see the posts about the nursing home’s activities.