Digitalization has significantly transformed the world, and its impact is evident everywhere in our daily lives. We have already become quite well-oriented and have understood the ongoing digital change, learning to live with it. However, in this blog post, I will examine digitalization from the perspective of my work – that is, the impact of digitalization on ICT development in social and healthcare services.
Digitalization in social welfare and health care
Digitalization has changed social welfare and healthcare very much over the past 15 years. I have seen this change during my own career since 2009. Digitalization has replaced many different routine tasks in healthcare, which has saved time for patient work. Digitalization and the change it brings have been visible in the work of professionals, but also in the everyday lives of ordinary people. Many social welfare and health care services are currently available electronically. Various remote services, chats and remote appointments have brought a big change to the otherwise quite traditional face-to-face service. This digital transformation has therefore required learning and a change in operating methods among all citizens. Citizens’ own digital skills have a major impact on how well digital services are suitable for each person.
The digital transformation in social welfare and health care is at very different levels. Citizens’ electronic services are a particularly visible example of this development. On the other hand, various surgical robots and the increase in robotics in nursing have accelerated the operations themselves as well as the healing of patients. In the past, recovery from surgeries was a longer process than it is today, and many surgeries were performed as endoscopic surgeries, which means that the recovery times of patients are significantly faster. This will also contribute to increasing the efficiency of healthcare services and speeding up access to care. This serves as a very good example of how digitalization has had a positive impact on operations. There are also challenges. Digital and health disparities increase if some citizens are unable to use electronic services. Staff training and continuous management change are essential to ensure smooth implementation of new systems. In addition, data security, privacy and system interoperability are critical and often complex issues.
However, digitalization still offers a lot of opportunities in social welfare and health care, as the sector is always a little behind other sectors. Healthcare is a very different environment than other industries, here regulation, information security and data protection play a big role in everything we do and adapting it to digitalization and making the requirements match each other is not always easy. However, the future looks promising in terms of how digitalization can change and develop social welfare and health care. In a short time, artificial intelligence, automation and the utilization of data will change the world in social and health care as well. Then it’s time to look at your routines and processes, as the change can be dramatic.
Based on my experience, I could say that in the future, digitalization will bring both opportunities and challenges, and it will force us to think in a new way, and we must also be encouraged to try new things. Digitalization will continue to come to a few worlds, and especially the opportunities brought by artificial intelligence will affect healthcare for all of us in one way or another in the future.
Risk of open digital society
Openness has certainly brought a lot of opportunities but also risks in today’s world. The risks brought about by digitalization, the weakening of privacy, and the movement and sharing of data increase the risk of private data ending up in the wrong hands. Various cybersecurity threats, i.e. we are increasingly dependent on digital systems, and this creates vulnerabilities and exposes us to crime and attacks. The dissemination and manipulation of false information, i.e. various fake news and manipulation of information, has increased with the open digital society. Financial and ethical risks have also emerged as part of an open digital society, which means that things must be examined from many different perspectives.
The open world of digitalization also forces us to think and examine our digital activities more broadly. Everything we do leaves a trace and is stored somewhere, which makes protecting data and reviewing its use an important responsibility.
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is designed to protect personal data and harmonize data protection legislation in the EU. The key principles here are individual rights, organizational obligations and global impact. The GDPR has brought positive effects to people, such as the ability to control one’s own data, i.e. consent, access and deletion, and with this, increased trust in digital services. This has also partially improved cybersecurity regulations and data processing practices. Especially in social welfare and healthcare, the GDPR has introduced strict regulations related to data security and data protection, and thus to the processing and storage of patient data. Respect for the patient’s privacy has become an increasingly important issue. It can be said that GDPR has brought a lot of responsibility to data processing.
I asked ChatGPT several questions related to my field and its current changes
I quickly noticed that its answers were surprisingly informative, diverse, and thought-provoking. ChatGPT provided a comprehensive overview of Finland’s national situation and the directions being taken in development. The answers were well structured and seemed to be based on relevant sources. However, when it came to more in-depth questions, the responses were not as precise, and their accuracy required further investigation and consideration of whether they were truly correct. Overall, the high-level answers were very good and helped address the questions. Nevertheless, it is important to remember the significance of critical evaluation when engaging in discussion with AI – especially verifying sources.
Self-evaluation
The topic and materials of the course do reinforce the idea of how fast and far digitalization has progressed. In the videos, visions of the future may have sounded wild, but in ten years’ time, they may be quite mundane things. Smartwatches and self-driving cars sounded the same way as today, for example, 15 years ago.
This course has greatly raised awareness and understanding of how digitalization truly surrounds us everywhere and how its pace of development has been remarkable – and will likely accelerate even further. On the other hand, digitalization also brings many concerns and people need to examine the compatibility between their activities and digitalization, finding the right ways to make use of it.
The blocks of other students also showed how the challenges of digitalization are everywhere and how they affect all of us, regardless of our work tasks. Artificial intelligence, its use and the possible possibilities of the future are a topic of discussion and concern for all of us.
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There are several excellent withdrawals on the blog that make the text both knowledgeable and interesting: The blog had highlighted personal experience of one’s own career path, which brought credibility and concreteness to the effects of digitalization. Concrete examples such as surgical robots, remote receptions and other electronic services illustrated well how digitalization is reflected in practical work and the everyday lives of citizens. The issues of data security and GDPR have been well highlighted, such as risks and regulations, and not just the benefit aspect. The text was written in a versatile and content-realistic manner, highlighting both the benefits of digitalization and the risks it entails. The blog manages to combine a personal perspective, concrete examples and critical review. The withdrawals, which describe the effects of digitalization on patient work, the daily lives of citizens and data protection, are particularly valuable. The text gives the reader both information and something to think about. Reading this blog made me happy!