Digitalisation in occupational healthcare

I work as an occupational health nurse. The data we have about our customers is in digital form in patient information system. We also use connection to the national archive of patient information. All our work is highly dependent on our information systems.

In occupational healthcare we also use electronic surveys and services, which enables services despite of your location. For our employer customers we gather data such as the amount of sick leaves or the costs of services from our reporting tools. As a result, digitalization has already changed my job description. I meet fewer people face to face. A big part of my work is drawing different reports for the employers or going through a bunch on electronic surveys in order to target our services to those who need it most.

The future in occupational healthcare

I believe in the future the services will be more digital, and we will have even less face to face contacts. I am sure there will be more digital systems evaluating patient’s symptoms and assisting in decision making. The information from you own device such as smartwatch will transfer automatically to the patient information systems if you allow it to.

How will the digitalization change life and work in the future?

I think in near future we will have more realistic meetings in virtual world. Instead of Teams-meetings we have a meeting in a three-dimensional virtual environment similar to real life. In ecological view, the development of virtual world would be more sustainable than transporting people across the world. All in all, the boundary between virtual and real life will fade. Artificial intelligence will assist us in decision making. Computers will do all the routine work and calculations.

What I worry, is how will we adapt to this accelerating change? The change that has already happened in work life is causing symptoms of burn out. We are multitasking and communicating simultaneously in many information channels, when actually we can focus only in on thing at a time. In addition, the requirement of an immediate response on all these channels can be burdensome.

GDPRS and open digital society

In healthcare data protection is taken seriously. As an individual worker, I am responsible for following my employees’ instructions. Patients can access their data via national archive of patient information. Patients can also contact and rectify their data. To be honest, I am surprised how rarely patients ask for it.

I am sure that the GDPRS was created for a need and is highly necessary. I have heard of it, and even read something about it, just to know what it means. Still, it is difficult for me to pinpoint how it has affected my life. I guess it is partially because of my filed of work, where these things had to be considered long before GDPRS. In my personal life though, I believe it works in the background, protecting my information without me even realizing it.

Self-evaluation

For me, it was interesting and a new experience creating a blog. I was surprised that it was not more difficult. It is also a challenge for me, that this course in English. Finding the words to express my thoughts takes more time. I hope I will be understood.

I enjoyed the TED talks. It is inspirational to see the specialists and how they come up with their inventions. I guess that these specialists often have the ability to see the world in a different perspective, like Pranav Mistry with the SixthSence technology.

I think it is important to keep an open mind, though there may be obstacles. This is also something I need to practice. There are days when I wish I could return to the time of letters and wall-attached telephones.