Experiences of the digitalization in my own field 

I have worked for about 25 years in social and health care and for the last few years in the development of digitalization. I have seen how digitalization has changed the industry during this period. Digitalization has been developing in social and health care for a few decades and it has progressed in small steps. Development has accelerated in the last decade and the Covid-19 pandemic clearly also accelerated development.

At the beginning of my career, customer and patient data were recorded on paper before information systems started replacing manual data processing. Healthcare devices and information systems were independent and not connected to public and global network and communication solutions. We were unaware of cyber or other digital threats. This is not the case today, when the environment is global and vulnerable to global cyber threats.

Customers and patients used to be encountered mainly face-to-face. Nowadays they are served using videos and chat services, for example. Some services are also provided without human contact, for example renewal of recipes. The service and treatment are supported by various devices and information systems with robotics and artificial intelligence. They are part of global network and communication solutions. I believe that the private sector is further along in the development of digital services than the public sector.

The IoT has taken over the world in such a way that we may not really understand it, because development has been and is still so rapid, I think so. The European Council (2021) estimates that by 2024 up to 22.3 billion devices will be connected to the Internet of Things around the world. For example, the home of older people is transformed into an actual smart home, where people’s living environment and well-being are monitored by several different sensors. We are already utilizing a wide range of technologies connected to the global network in the services of older people for example medication dispensing service robots, door and bed alarm, electric lock and safety wrist. Some home visits are carried out using technology as virtual home care. There are a lot of possibilities.

The safe use of digital services requires citizens and professionals to be able to use the services and devices correctly and according to instructions. For this reason, organizations should regularly take care of information security and data protection trainings. The fast development of digitalization also requires the development of cybersecurity. The environment for health and social services is part of the critical infrastructure. That is why cybersecurity is subject to specific requirements and threats must be prepared in advance.

Health and social services collect a lot of information and can be utilized better and better. However, I believe that it should be possible to collect and utilize information more efficiently. Data management is quite clumsy and takes a lot of working time. I think that data dictated by doctors or recorded by nurses, for example, should automatically generate reporting and statistical information using artificial intelligence. So that professionals don’t have to spend time on it separately. Only to check and approve the information generated by automation.

The future of digitalization in social and health care

I see the future of digitalization in health and social services as positive, and I think we need it. All in all, the functions of social welfare and health care, including digitalization, are strongly guided by a variety of regulation that emphasizes customer and patient safety. However, extensive and diverse guidance presents its own challenges. Legislation and guidelines are partly open to interpretation and enable a wide range of practices. The fast development of the digital environment and the guidance, which is partly open to interpretation, also makes one wonder whether cyber threats, if they occur in the worst-case scenario, can put customers and the patients even at risk of death.

I still think that, when used correctly, utilizing digitalization, robotization, AI and big data is more of an opportunity than a threat. On the other hand, one might also ask whether we can even manage without them. There is already a significant shortage of labour in social and health care. The industry has positive experiences and benefits from technology-assisted services for example how home visits can be replaced by home care medicine dispensing machines or virtual care.

Is a lot of talk, as is Cukier (2014) as well as Annunziata (2013) in their video presentations, that technological innovations or Big data will take our jobs. I don’t think there’s that fear. In fact, it changes the way we work and complements services. There will always be jobs in social and health care that require humanity and empathy that technology cannot replace.

Risks of the digital society

Digitalization offers a lot of opportunities, but there are also threats involved. When operating in the digital world, both in personal life and in working life, we must always be vigilant to avoid cybercrime. A general understanding of data protection and information security is the responsibility of every citizen. We need to increase our expertise all the time at the company level as well. Companies are responsible for ensuring adequate technical security that protects everyone. Finns have good digital skills and Finland is at the forefront of digital comparisons at EU level. There are and will be people in society who for one or another reason are unable to use digital services. Services must also be provided for them.

The EU’s General Data Protection Regulation of 2016 harmonized data protection practices at national level and strengthened the role and rights of citizens when processing personal data. The regulation has provided security, but do we always understand what we consent to when we accept internet cookies?

Due to the regulation, information systems were corrected in social and health care. And new obligations were added to the organization’s data protection tasks for the processing of personal data. The field has already been strongly guided by data protection legislation in the past, the GDPR further strengthened the protection of customer and patient personal data and data protection regulation. How the regulation has been applied in Finland to social and health care is not necessarily in the best interests of the client and the patient in all respects. You can read more about this in the On the processing of patient and customer data in the light of the general data protection regulation (Warma-Lehtinen & Parviainen 2021).   

Self Evaluation

I have worked in social and health care for a long time and have felt that digitalization is changing the industry. But there’s never too much information about it. The world around technology and digitalization is changing all the time. Every time you stop to look at a topic, you learn something new. TED videos were a new interesting acquaintance for me. As well as the WordPress platform and blog writing. I was also interested in reading blogs for other students. I also wondered what kind of user of digital services I am in my personal life, compared to the practices of working life. This course is a great way to learn digital things.

Blogs I commented

Mari`s site – https://blogi.savonia.fi/marihartikainen/

Huttunen Roosa. Roosa`s site – https://blogi.savonia.fi/roosahuttunen/digi-society-2/

REFERENCES

Annunziata Marco 2013. Welcome to the age of the industrial internet. Video. Julkaistu lokakuu 2013, San Francisco. https://www.ted.com/talks/marco_annunziata_welcome_to_the_age_of_the_industrial_internet. Viitattu 6.6.2022.   

Cukier Kenneth 2014. Big data is better data. Video. Julkaistu kesäkuu 2014, Berlin. https://www.ted.com/talks/kenneth_cukier_big_data_is_better_data/transcript. Viitattu 6.6.2022.    

Eurooppa-neuvosto 2021. Kyberturvallisuus: miten EU torjuu kyberuhkia? EU:n neuvoston ja Eu-rooppa-neuvoston virallinen verkkosivusto. Politiikat. 19.8.2021. https://www.consilium.europa.eu/fi/policies/cybersecurity/. Viitattu 6.6.2022.

Euroopan parlamentin ja neuvoston yleinen tietosuoja-asetus (EU) 2016/679. Annettu 27 päivänä huhtikuuta 2016, luonnollisten henkilöiden suojelusta henkilötietojen käsittelyssä sekä näiden tietojen vapaasta liikkuvuudesta ja direktiivin 95/46/EY kumoamisesta (yleinen tietosuoja-asetus). https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/FI/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32016R0679&from=FI. Viitattu 6.6.2022.

Kaasalainen, Karoliina & Neittaanmäki, Pekka 2018. Terveys- ja hyvinvointiteknologian sovelluksia ikääntyneiden terveyden edistämisessä ja kustannusvaikuttavien palvelujen kehittämisessä. Infor-maatioteknologian tiedekunnan julkaisuja No. 63/2018. Jyväskylän yliopisto. Verkkojulkaisu. Saata-vissa: https://www.jyu.fi/it/fi/tutkimus/julkaisut/tekes-raportteja/terveys_ja_hyvinvointiteknologian_mahdollisuudet_verkkoversio.pdf. Viitattu 6.6.2022.

Pöyhönen, Jouni 2020. Kyberturvallisuuden johtaminen ja kehittäminen osana kriittisen infrastruk-tuurin organisaation toimintaa – Systeemiajattelu. Väitöskirja. Informaatioteknologian tiedekunta. Jyväskylän yliopisto. http://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-951-39-8258-4. Viitattu 6.6.2022.

VM 2021. Suomi jälleen EU:n digivertailun kärkisijoille. Valtiovarainministeriön tiedote. Julkaistu 12.11.2021. https://vm.fi/-/suomi-jalleen-eu-n-digivertailun-karkisijoille. Viitattu 6.6.2022

Warma-Lehtinen, Eija & Parviainen, Kim 2021. Potilas- ja asiakastietojen käsittely yleisen tietosuojasääntelyn valossa. Nykytila, ongelmakohdat ja kehittämismahdollisuuksia. Kuntaliitto. https://www.kuntaliitto.fi/sites/default/files/media/file/Potilas-ja-asiakastietojen-kasittely-web_0.pdf. Viitattu 6.6.2022.