Digitalization in home care

I work as a registered nurse in home care in the city of Helsinki. I have witnessed how the digitalization has transformed the field over the years. The most significant change was the introduction of smart phones with electronic health record system (EHR) on them. It was revolutionary in a way that the nurses could then record all the patient information in real time so that all health care professionals also get the information straight away. In home care we use Rower – mobile EHR and in the office we use patient information system Apotti. In home care our primary type of care is remote care. We evaluate if the patients are suitable for remote care and if she is suitable, we then start remote care for her. The aim is to increase remote care to maximize the use of resources and to give patients their needed care by a videocall.

Good quality remote care reduces the need for nurse’s physical home care visits, and it gives patients safety and quality care.  Artificial Intelligence (AI) is not really used in home care now, but I think that in the future many medical devices can use AI. There is so much potential for developing much more effective, clever and accurate medical devices by using AI and by integrate it to the device. I think that in the future we will see more different kind of robots using AI in the health care also in home care. AI driven robots could be used for keeping company, to supervise, entertainment and of course to give medication. There are already Evondos – medication dispenser used widely in home care, but it could be developed to give even better care for the home care patients in the future. I see lot of potential of developing it better with AI.

Risks that digitalization may bring

Open society brings risks especially when thinking about data security. Patient records are very sensitive and if the systems are not well enough secured there is a risk of data breach. In home care settings we use mobile applications and cloud-based solutions so there is always a risk of data breach. Positive thing is that GDPR helps secure patients records and it sets strict requirements for collecting data, to storage data and to sharing it. This gives everyone the right to manage their own information, and it reduces the risks of data breaches.  

Digitalization can bring also other than data breach risks. If the technology doesn’t work for some reason, there is always a risky situation. In home care the patients are mainly elderly people. Most of them are not familiar of using technology, they might not even have smart phones or computers. This may bring difficulties if everything is digital. The patient might have poor eyesight so if the digital screen is not big enough or the font size is not large enough there is a risk that patient cannot use the device at all.

In home care settings various monitoring devices are being used for the patients with dementia to prevent them leaving home alone. For example, GPS wristbands are used. The risk appears where the network is not working properly or if the battery is low for some reason. In that that case the device doesn’t work and the patient suffering from dementia can be in a serious risk.

Chat with Chat GPT

I used Chat GPT to have a conversation with the topics I have been writing this far. I am amazed by how accurate and similar the answers from the ChatGPT were to my own thoughts. This experiment was very interesting.

I asked: what kind of risks digitalization brings to home care?

Chat GPT:

Digitalization in home care introduces risks such as technology failures, data breaches, and reduced human interaction etc. (there was a long list of different risks)

Chat GPT gave me very good answers. It gave a long list of risks that I asked. I must say that the chat gave me thoughts that even I haven’t been thinking about. Of course, with Chat GPT is extremely important to be critical as the Chat GPT seems to invent an idea for an answer if it doesn’t have the exact right answer. There is a risk of using AI, but it can be helpful of giving ideas that needs to be checked true from reliable recourse.

I think there are lots of benefits in using AI. It can really help people in many ways and I’m sure it will be used more in health care technology. As there are shortages of nurses and the people in Finland are growing older there might be problems of solving elderly care. I think that AI can help when better digital health solutions are being developed.

Self-evaluation

This course gave me knowledge and it also gave me new ideas and more questions for the future. It made me to think if AI can replace human. My answer in no and I really hope that also in the future the answer will be no.  AI can never replace human as it cannot give the same empathy than a person can give but AI can benefit human in many ways. I believe that people like me a nurse in the home care will sort of work together with AI and the nurses could be the AI: s supervisors.  The nurses work changes, and the AI has the potential of making the change better for the home care.

I believe that in the future we will have more smart medical devices in home care. I also would like to see more of the use of robots. At the moment there are robots being tested in healthcare, but it can take a long time to get all the tests and legislations ready before getting new robot into the market and for the actual use in home care setting.  

I commented Niina Bastman`s and Katja Hattunen´s blogs.