My work as a registered nurse
I work as a registered nurse in elderly care. Presence is a very important practice in my working field, but ofcourse I use also some digital equipment. We use patient information system called OMNI-Pegasos. There we can see all the patient information needed: open tasks, risk information and the patient’s daily life. For example, we can check the results of laboratory tests from OMNI-Pegasos and check what the doctor is ordering for the patient.
I also use some digital platforms as Titania, where I plan shifts for our practical nurses, ESS and OSS is used to know our own education and employment info and many more. Daily at work, I also use e-mail Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft Teams. I use these to communicate with colleagues, management and outsiders as my patients family members.
Social media applications in my field
Facebook and Instagram. Many units and wards in my well-being services county (hyvinvointialue) have social media accounts and pages. Our unit does not have an account, even though we have information about publishing via social media. We could share videos and pics for example on Facebook and Instagram pages about our daily life in elderly care units. I think that way we could keep the families in touch with loved ones. We could also reach younger people, especially through Instagram. We could share pictures and short videos about our unit on these platforms, even with a humorous twist. We could also share My Day videos and tell people how Christmas or other times are celebrated in our department.
YouTube. In our unit, we could make videos for YouTube, where we talk about our daily life or our patients could sing. I think our patients would love to watch themselves singing or living summer life. Or nurses doing something funny. We could also share Youtube videos in Facebook and Instagram pages.
WhatsApp. Currently, internal communication at work is done via email or Microsoft Teams. WhatsApp could be on everyone’s phone. The group could be muted during days off, but it could be activated for use during work shifts. There could be several types of groups. Teams and email are not very functional in our work as nurses, because if you are doing patient care, we don’t have computer with us. If someone wanted to approach me with a message but I don’t have my account open, the message wouldn’t reach me quickly. WhatsApp would be more real-time. For example, we could have a group where an employee could tell about staff needed. Then an employee could tell their willingness in the group as soon as they saw the message. The management wouldn’t need to call every employee and ask who would come to work. There is of course some data protection issues with this.
Blogger. In my working unit we could write about our day via Blogger. There could be open posts but also posts about some patient and that could be open only for his family members to read. There we could tell about them and about their daily life and add some pictures of them and the family could comment the posts. Some elderly don’t have family nearby, and this could easily add connection with them.
Positive and negative sides of social media
I am not sure what I think about the use of social media in the workplace, or in general. I am now assessing its importance and impact in the workplace. Updates on Instagram and Facebook could also be informative and this make it easier to know what is done in elderly care and to visit in our unit. However, we need to keep safety in mind when using social media.
Self evaluation
It was nice to write about my own working environment. It was nice to think about and plan how to use social media at my own workplace which I haven’t thought much before. For a while, I even felt inspired by the idea of using social media at my own work. However, I like the idea that we don’t use social media at my workplace. Although the vocabulary was mostly familiar, I also learned new words while writing this post.