My current job

I work as a nurse in primary healthcare. My work includes assessing the need for care over the phone, via chat, and in person, non-urgent nurse appointments, urgent care visits, and assisting with minor procedures. The main digital tool we use is the health information system OMNI, which is relatively new in our workplace and is gradually being expanded for use by everyone in the Pirkanmaa Wellbeing Services County.

The second most used digital tool is Digiklinikka, where patients can contact the healthcare system and get treatment online, or be directed to their local healthcare station or urgent care. Digiklinikka has been a great improvement in digital access to healthcare, and since its launch in May 2024, it has successfully reached a good number of patients.

Smaller digital tools we use include Hoituki, Terveysportti, Forsante, WebFimlab, and PACS. We use Hoituki to help assess the need for care and to find out the treatment protocols used in Pirkanmaa. Mainly doctors use Terveysportti to check prescriptions or to find the correct process for starting patient examinations, like referrals for blood tests, but nurses can also find useful support there when making decisions. In Forsante, we check patients’ Marevan cards and send new dosages. WebFimlab is used to view all laboratory results and to book appointments for certain tests like spirometry. PACS is a tool for uploading images of patients’ skin issues, wounds, or moles so that professionals from specialized healthcare can view them as well.

We use Teams and Outlook to communicate with colleagues or external partners. We also have a Signal group with colleagues where we can arrange free-time activities.

Social media – both positive and negative sides

Social media has a lot of both good and bad sides. A lot of information can be found there, we can interact more easily, companies can advertise and reach a wide audience, we can share and collect memories, and we can express our thoughts and discuss important topics online.

But if you look at those positives again—don’t they also have a flip side?

Information overload is real and affects all of us. Every app you open shows news, ads, random information, and the daily lives of others. The constant need to stay alert and reachable overstimulates us and steals time from being truly present. Especially among young people, information overload can lead to anxiety, depression, confusion, or fear of missing out. Much of the content today’s teens (or even children) are exposed to is not something they should need to worry about.

Online interaction has made life easier—it’s hard to imagine living without it. It helps us maintain friendships, support young people in feeling included, and makes long-distance relationships and daily life easier. But sadly, it’s also taken time away from face-to-face interactions. It’s especially concerning to see younger and younger people disappearing into the virtual world even when they’re physically present with others.

Advertising has of course existed long before social media. But nowadays, it’s become a huge part of companies’ marketing strategies online. I think there are many benefits—for small businesses it can be more affordable, and if you’ve followed a certain influencer for a long time, you may trust their recommendations. Advertising can also be targeted to your preferences.On the downside, there’s a risk of privacy violations, false or misleading advertising (which is easier on social media than in traditional media), and pressure to maintain a certainlifestyle, especially if you’re comparing yourself to influencers.

Politics is also increasingly done on social media. Parties share their views on their own accounts, and comment sections are full of debate. Compared to before, more people seem to keep up with politics and what’s happening in parliament—which is a good thing. But as we know, social media makes it easy to take things out of context. Short videos can strongly influence people, even if they don’t have much background information. Social media also tends to create division, which can easily put different groups against each other.

Tools

ChatGPT
I’ve written about ChatGPT in my previous posts and reflected on the possibilities of ChatGPT and AI in my own work. One new thought came to mind because there’s often a lot of confusion among patients about where they should seek help.

People regularly contact us about dental issues, parents of young children come to us instead of the maternity and child health clinic, and people involved with school healthcare often ask us for help too. It feels like we (and possibly also Digiklinikka) have become the go-to place for health information—even when the issue doesn’t belong to us. These unnecessary contacts burden our communication channels quite a bit.

So, based on these experiences, I started thinking about a chat service that would know the care pathways of the Pirkanmaa Wellbeing Services County really well. Based on a short description from the patient, it could guide them to the right place. If the chat can’t provide the answer, the customer would at least get the contact details for their local healthcare provider.

Instagram and Facebook
Instagram is nowadays part of almost every company’s strategy to promote their services. It’s more essential for profit-driven businesses, but public services also use social media to share important information.

In the Pirkanmaa Wellbeing Services County, there is one shared Instagram account for all services, and in addition, some specific departments have created their own. Since primaryhealthcare is such a large part of the whole system, I believe it would make sense to create its own account.

The account could focus on sharing information about services, example updates about seasonal vaccinations, or changes in availability. Maybe it would help clarify what primary healthcare is responsible for—and how long things usually take.

Instagram is mostly used by younger people, so adding Facebook could help reach a broader audience—including adults and older people. You can post the same content to both platforms at once, so it wouldn’t even mean more work.

Miro
In my workplace, we have 20 nurses and 16 doctors. We have weekly nurses’ meetings and once a month a bigger meeting with doctors, physiotherapists, psychiatric nurses, and others. In these meetings, we try to improve our work and find better ways to do things that aren’t functioning well.

Right now, we use PowerPoint to collect topics discussed in meetings. There’s a new feature that allows us to suggest topics in advance, but in my opinion, PowerPoint is not the most flexible tool to do so.

I think Miro could be more helpful here. We’re often in a rush, and any thoughts about improvement might disappear in seconds. With Miro, we could just jot down a few words and come back later to expand on them. That way, everyone might feel it’s easier to share ideas, and maybe we’d actually remember what we wanted to say in the meeting!

Vimeo
Some patient contacts in primary care are about issues that could be treated at home—or at least monitored for a while. Also, some issues treated during appointments still require care at home afterwards.

That’s why I thought it might be useful if we created short videos for patients. We could share links to these videos during chat conversations, for example. Topics could include:

  • how to care for a viral infection at home
  • wound care instructions for simple wounds
  • short explanations about common illnesses
  • how to clean ears safely at home

This kind of content could really help patients take care of themselves more confidently—and ease the pressure on healthcare services too.

Elements of successful use of digital application

There can be different opinions about the topic depending on where you work or why you use the application or tool. In my opinion, the digital application needs to be easy, fast, and reliable to use. While you work, you don’t want to spend time figuring out how to use it — or even worse, how to fix it. I admit, we are nowadays maybe too impatient with digital tools, but while working, I think it’s still important that they are quick to use. In our free time, we should sometimes be more patient with digital tools and with life in general — everything doesn’t need to happen in a second.

The second important thing with a digital tool is that it should make your work easier. Sometimes, if the tool, application, or form is complicated, it doesn’t make your work easier and it doesn’t motivate you to learn how to use it. And of course, data security and privacy are the foundation of any digital application or tool.

Self-evaluation

This section made me think about how many different digital tools we use nowadays. And to be honest, while I believe digitalization is really needed, I’ve also started to notice the negative sides too. The hardest part was thinking about how to actually utilize some of the new tools in my own work.
When you work in healthcare, the first question that comes to mind when considering a new solution is data security and privacy. Also, we have a lot of older people in primary care, and we can’t make everything happen digitally, at least yet.