My digital world
Digitization in my working life
Over the past few decades, huge steps have been taken in the digital world. When I was born in the late 1970s, few people in my immediate circle had experience with computers. Life back then was technologically simple; news was followed from newspapers, television and radio, the necessary information was looked for in books and contact was kept by landlines. Few had a vision of how digital would change our lives in the next decades. For me, the 3 key digital changes in my childhood and youth were the generalization of computers for home use, the opening of the internet and the evolution of mobile devices from phones to smartphones.
I have worked for most of my working career in health care as a nurse, where digitalization has fundamentally changed the ways of doing work over the years. In a strictly regulated industry, digital development has taken place more moderately than otherwise in society. The biggest change during my own career has been the transition from paper patient information to electronic patient information systems. The first electronic patient information systems were very simple and slow to use, whereas today patient information systems are extensive entities, and many different functionalities are used. With this, the flow of patient information has also changed significantly. In the past, patient information was stored in archives, and nowadays electronic patient information is stored in electronic databases, from which they can be read easily. This has also increased patient safety, when patient information is available to the unit treating the patient. In recent years, digital services, and the introduction of new types of digital services have been the subject of development in several healthcare organizations. This change will also significantly change the social and healthcare sector in Finland. I am currently working on digitization and the development of digital services, where, among other things, digital treatment paths, digital symptom assessments and remote receptions are promoted.
In the future, the digitalization of social and health care will increase, and different digital platforms will become common everywhere. With the help of digitalization, the aim is to shift the focus from local services and phone calls to customers’ self-directed transactions in digital service channels. More digital treatment services will be developed, and digital treatment paths will be more widely offered to customers. Digitalization in social and health care enables better time and place-independent service for customers, as well as more flexible services. Future social and healthcare services will also switch to using mobile applications to manage their own affairs. The role of digital contact channels will also change, and traditional calls may turn into chat services, alongside which chatbot software will play a significant role in customer guidance. In health care, various solutions that utilize remote connections are generally widely used and partially replace home visits in the homes of the elderly. Digitalization also brings more automation and robotic solutions to healthcare that can perform simple tasks. In Finland, the aging of the population increases the need for social and health care services, and various technologies will be increased and utilized for the elderly, such as remote care using a video connection or medication dispensers that assist the elderly in the distribution of medications at home.
In the future, social and healthcare information systems and software will also make use of artificial intelligence, which can be used, for example, for the analysis of patient health data in a secure environment. The utilization of information collected by citizens’ own health technology devices will also increase, and the utilization of this in the promotion of health and well-being on a personal level will be possible within the framework of the law. However, the challenge of the future will also be how national legislation and regulations will keep up with technological development. Research into which services improve the customer’s health and which digital services do not bring benefits is also important in the digitalization of social and health care. In addition to this, it is important to note that guiding citizens to use digital services and guides them to use digital services more. This is not possible for all citizens, and it is important that they are able to use traditional social and healthcare services.
An open digital society
Digitalization has changed society and the whole world significantly. With the opening of the Internet, the world opened globally, and this has brought both positive and negative effects on society. Positive is, among other things, the increase of information, networking, and the possibility of freer trade. The negative effects are various factors that weaken data security and data protection, such as cyber-attacks and phishing scams for personal data. Key elements in the digital world are information security and data protection. Data breaches are every day and society’s cyber security is constantly monitored by the authorities. In personal life, everyone should master the basics of information security and data protection and take care of their own key issues that improve information security, such as changing passwords and maintaining the information security of devices. In my opinion, digital transactions are safe, but require precision to distinguish between phishing companies and scam messages. It is important to know how to protect your own digital identity online with appropriate protection.
The EU data protection regulation GDPR strengthens everyone’s personal data protection and increases awareness of the purposes for which our personal data is used. This regulation imposes obligations on companies and organizations regarding the collection, storage, and management of personal data. GDPR gives you the right to know what your personal data is collected, how it is processed and to whom it is disclosed. You can also request the deletion or correction of data if necessary. In my opinion, the Data Protection Regulation is necessary and useful for all citizens as individuals and improves the data protection of our personal data. The GDPR has affected my work in such a way that I have had to prepare several data protection statements related to the organization of various trainings and surveys.
ChatGPT
Artificial intelligence is a very interesting and highly debated topic. I have quite a bit of experience with the use of artificial intelligence, and I have become more familiar with the principles of artificial intelligence recently. In terms of utilizing artificial intelligence, it is essential to understand that artificial intelligence creates answers for you by only looking for information from the internet and cannot assess the reliability of the information. The information produced by artificial intelligence can therefore be correct, based on facts, or partially contain incorrect or incomplete information. I asked the artificial intelligence a few questions related to my own work tasks and the answers were varied. When using artificial intelligence, it is also important to learn to give exact questions and commands to the artificial intelligence, so that it can act the way you want and form the answers better. A broad question given to artificial intelligence will produce a broad answer, while it can give a very high-quality answer to a precise question. You must learn to use artificial intelligence or else it will answer your questions like Google. I tried the artificial intelligence in another way and gave it the task of making a summary of a text containing 17800 characters. It was surprising to see how good a summary the AI was able to create the very first time, in a few minutes. I also tried artificial intelligence in producing images, where it was also very useful. I believe that I will learn more about the use of artificial intelligence and look for ways to utilize it both at work and in my free time.
Self-assessment
I have learned more in this part and my perspective on digital has diversified, even though many things from the course are familiar to me. The course once again reminded us of the extent of digitalization and the importance of security. It is very important to be aware of data protection and data security in a digitally developing world, and to understand that also personally, one’s own data protection and data security skills must be constantly maintained. It is also important to guide and advise all citizens in digital matters and to promote digital services, but also to be aware that not everyone is able to use technological solutions or services. In the future, it will be necessary to know how to use various digital solutions extensively at work and in free time. Digitization is continuous learning in a constantly developing, digital world.
I feel it is necessary to learn more about future technologies and the use of artificial intelligence. The spread of artificial intelligence will change working life in all fields, and the aim is to utilize artificial intelligence in many ways. Digitization is continuous, so continuous self-development and learning about digital is also important.
Blogs i comment on:
https://blogi.savonia.fi/jaruto/digi-society/#comment-
Hi Jaana
It was interesting to read what you mentioned about the digitalization of library services from the last few years, which I had partly missed. I use quite a few municipal library services and I admit that these have decreased in recent years. And the perspectives you brought up about the role of libraries as promoters of digitization are interesting and I agree with many of your ideas. The use of smartphones has certainly reduced the popularity of libraries and, unfortunately, reduced the way citizens use library services. And you brought up the effects of social media on concentration, I think it would be really necessary to bring up more. What is the role of social media, for example, in children’s and young people’s mental health challenges and various learning problems?
In your blog, you also discussed the GDPR regulation and the way websites operating on the internet collect information about users. I agree with you that we certainly don’t always know what we are giving permission for when we accept all cookies from the internet. Few certainly understand that the collected data can be passed on with this permission also forward with the same permission. I was also left wondering why we often act this way. If we were asked in an interview about the use of cookies, I think that many of us would deny the use of cookies. Your writing on the subject was interesting.
https://blogi.savonia.fi/maakarit/digi-society/
Hi Kari
It was interesting to read your blog and your thoughts on learning materials. You brought up Finnish social and health care, which is a familiar work environment for me. It is really interesting to follow the development of technology and to see how IoT changes social and healthcare technological devices and software. And as the previous commenter pointed out, ICT technology incurs huge costs for health care throughout the country every year. However, the use of different software and systems is sometimes difficult for users and may require much more work time from the user than before. At the moment, social and health care in the whole of Finland is in serious financial problems, one savings target could be unifying the systems, which could bring significant savings in the long term.
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