My work and digital tools

I work at Kuopio University Hospital as a project coordinator. I work in electronic services. I help hospital units to create electronic services for them and their patients. My main task is to support the use and increase of Terveykylä.fi services in our region.

Before my current job, I worked as a midwife for 19 years. Back then, digital tools were very much related to patient care. Examples of these include patient information system Miranda, patient check in and check out Oberon, blood order Verkis and birth information Haikara.

In my current job, of course, I use Terveykylä’s digital tools, such as Omapolku and Kuopio University Hospital’s OmaKYS service. Microsoft Office tools are widely used, as are various tools related to technical support. Below I will focus on presenting more digital tools from my work that are related to social media or communicating with colleagues or patients.

• Terveykylä has its own Facebook and Instagram accounts. The purpose of the accounts is to increase awareness of Terveykylä’s services and inform both professionals and other citizens about new content. I make publications myself and publish publications written by others. KYS also has its own Facebook and Instagram accounts. Sometimes I also make publications for them in cooperation with KYS’s communication unit.
• KYS has its own YouTube channel, where we can record videos made for patients or professionals. There are, for example, how-to videos where we can put links to digital services.
• The Planet eStream service is often used to record and edit videos.
• For communication with colleagues, we use Teams the most. With people outside the organization, e-mail (Outlook) and occasionally Skype are used the most. Teams has almost completely replaced the use of Skype. We haven’t used Teams to communicate directly with patients yet, data protection issues still require clarification.
• Miro is great online whiteboard for online meetings. It is visual and is helping us when we want to create new ideas.
• With close colleagues, we also use the Whatsapp application. We don’t actually deal with work matters in it, but we agree on vacations, inform each other about sick leave and keep in touch informally.
• We use the Video Visit platform to maintain video contact with patients. The same platform is used, even if the video connection is taken via Omapolku.

Five new tools to use

• TikTok is a video-sharing app, that allows users to create and share short videos. At the training days, I saw a presentation where two social workers talked about the TikTok account they had. In it, they tell young people what social workers do and where they can help young people. Social workers said at the training days that young people ask them a lot of questions on TikTok. It is important to provide the service at the time when the young people are available and where the young people are. This made me wonder if TikTok could be suitable in some form for spreading information about, for example, the use and safety of digital services.
• Todoist is task manager and to-do list app. We have talked at work that we would very much need some kind of work management tool. We get work from many different places. Some of the jobs are short and quick to do, some are larger entities. Sometimes the work is left waiting for another party or a better time. There are so many things to remember that it doesn’t make sense to burden your own memory unnecessarily. Todoist could be a tool worth trying.
• Twitter is an online social networking site, where you can communicate in short messages. People can share their thoughts. My organization don’t have account, you must share your thoughts in your own name. So it is important that the employer has agreed on what kind of things related to the work are appropriate to tweet about.
• Doodle is an online scheduling gool. With it, it is possible to easily search, for example, for a common meeting time for several participants. In the tool, participants can be sent different suggestions about the time, and the respondent can indicate which ones suit him. With the help of the program, after the participants have answered, it is easy to find a common time suitable for everyone.
• LinkedIn is professional network on the internet. It can be used to present your skills, create networks, search for work or find an employee. I’ve heard of LinkedIn but haven’t used it yet.

Social media and Elements of successful digital applications

Social media makes it easy and cheap to keep in touch with friends and relatives. For example, my brother lives outside of Finland, so an easy and free method of communication ensures the preservation of family relationships. You can also make new friends on social media. This also brings risks. You can’t always be sure who is behind the profile. Children are especially a risk group. Several services are not intended for them, but their use is common among children. Children don’t always understand the risks, so parents have a big responsibility to be aware of what their children are doing on social media.

Social media makes it possible to make negative comments without meeting the other person face to face. I have seen people, even children, use really harsh language to scold others. For example, on TikTok, my grandchildren have shown young people urging others to kill themselves because they are fat, ugly, etc. If similar things had to be said face to face, it could be more difficult.

Social media also brings benefits to working life. Employees also hope to share information other than through official channels. Social media is a quick way to tell about new things. It’s not easy. Social media is constantly changing. You have to constantly invent new ways of telling things and using new platforms. Suddenly, the success of information is measured by likes. Just as my grandchildren measure their own popularity among their friends by the number of likes.

When using the application, it is essential that it is used safely. You have to be sure not to share too much information about yourself. You should be particularly careful when sharing sensitive information. The application should therefore be sufficiently easy to use and secure. But the user is also responsible for the correctness of the use. Too often, for example, people do not use recommended secure passwords.

Self evaluation

At first I thought that this part was completely familiar to me. I was surprised at how many apps exist that I had never heard of. With interest, I will continue to get to know those strangers to me in the future. At least LinkedIn is the first one I’m going to join. The task also raised the idea that since there are so many applications, it is impossible to manage them all. It is important to keep up with what is available and what channels our customers use, for example.