I work as a physiotherapist in a municipal health centre in a direct reseption. I assess clients over the age of 18 with a variety of musculoskeletal problems. My work is client-oriented and strongly based on interaction and individual guidance and counselling. I work closely with different health professionals, such as nurses and doctors, in a multidisciplinary team.
In my work, I use a variety of digital applications for client work, communication and administrative tasks. For each client visit, I record an individualised rehabilitation plan in the Mediatri patient information system, which is a tool for managing client data. I also use the system to review clients’ medical histories, monitor laboratory and imaging results and electronic prescriptions to support holistic care planning. To create exercise programmes for clients, I use the Physiotools software, which allows me to create personalised and visual exercise instructions. The Effector system is used for borrowing assistive devices.
The Teams app is the most used tool for daily collaboration with different professionals. It’s used to communicate and exchange information quickly within the work unit and across teams. Teams is also used for remote meetings, training and for storing meeting notes, work instructions and forms needed for customer work. The ESS system is used for personnel management issues such as leave requests, absenteeism and sick leave, and Timecon is used to track working hours. For e-mail communication, Outlook is used, but communication containing customer information is not allowed via e-mail or team applications for security reasons.
The digital approach isn’t yet a major feature of my work, but there have been discussions about developing it. In particular, more remote consultations have been discussed, but their introduction is currently limited by the lack of the necessary tools and equipment. My work phone is a traditional Doro, with which I can only make calls and send traditional text messages, which limits my ability to use digital communication solutions. However, the welfare area has its own social media correspondents who update the organisation’s social media channels, such as the Facebook site. Although digital solutions are still limited in my work, I encourage my clients to use electronic health and wellbeing apps that support self-care, which can also promote rehabilitation and wellbeing beyond office visits.
Opportunities and challenges of social media in healthcare
Social media reaches large audiences and can be used to share informative information and provide preventative guidance. It can be used to inform customers about their health, compare services and provide feedback. Social media also provide avenues for networking and the creation of various health campaigns. However, when using it, it’s important to assess which channels to use. The negative side of social media is that it can be used to spread misinformation. The increase in the volume and ease of access to information can also have negative effects, which I touched on in my previous article. For this reason, everyone should be taught critical media literacy and trained in the responsible use of social media communication.
What new social media tools could I use in my work?
Evernote: If I understand correctly, this is a place to collect and store articles, studies and training materials, for example, so that I have them in one place and easily accessible. These could be stored by topic. It could also be used to share research information within teams.
DeepL: I wasn’t aware of this application before. In my work, I actively monitor international research in the field of rehabilitation, so I could imagine using the app as a language translation tool for files. I also have clients in my practice who speak different languages and I have missed the language interpretation app to help them communicate more challenging vocabulary. I could imagine using this application as a communication aid and as a language translation aid for the texts in training programmes.
Miro: I could use the Miro application mainly for internal development work within the work community, such as creating guidance materials, planning group activities and designing training courses. I could organise ideas for team meetings here and work on them further. You could also make charts and timelines here that we use to monitor our activities. The app also allows you to use AI to edit ideas into text documents. This is the app that inspired me!
Open badges: For this application, I would have to see if my organisation could use this to monitor professional development and identify competences. Indeed, the means of making competences visible should be developed in the health sector.
Youtube: I could learn how to make and share videos on YouTube. In my work, I could use this to share short instructional videos, such as rehabilitation exercises, with my colleagues. At the moment, only paper versions are available for sharing instructions. However, I have been longing for other, more innovative ways of working and sharing guidelines that we could develop in the work community. I could use the rehabilitation guidance videos here for professional development.
Elements for successful use of a digital application
When implementing digital services, the focus should always be on the customer and the benefits to the customer. Successful use of digital applications in healthcare requires attention to accessibility for different user groups. We need to ask, does an application really make things faster or better? A key element of app use is also fluidity. Applications must be easy to use, even for those with lower digital skills. Users also need to have confidence in the security and protection of their applications. Apps should support existing care practices and streamline work and access to services. If their use creates additional workload and burdens professionals’ work, they will not be successful. For this reason, healthcare must also allocate resources to both training professionals and guiding customers in the use of digital tools. With the increase in digital solutions, interaction skills such as self-expression will become more important. While exploring the applications, I also noticed the rapid growth of AI and the expanded potential of its use. If AI is introduced, I believe that its disadvantages for the environment should be raised and discussed more openly and loudly.
Self-assessment
This assignment inspired me to find different applications that I could use to support my work and develop innovative approaches. This assignment has also given me ideas on how social media could be used in healthcare and what should be considered for its successful implementation. It helped me to understand the opportunities and constraints of digital solutions in a more comprehensive way. I learned about many new applications and it was interesting to explore them. At the same time, however, I found myself feeling anxious about how much there was to learn in order to keep up with developments. I also realised that technological advances alone will not solve the challenges of healthcare, but need to be accompanied by effective approaches. While reading other blogs, it was interesting to see how many people already use social media extensively at work, while in my own work community it is not yet used at all. I will take these ideas back to my workplace. I also learned that the concept of social media does not only include interaction platforms, but also tools that can be used to support work. I also think I will introduce some new applications. By adopting these, I believe I will get some much-needed new inspiration and ways to innovate my work.