My experiences so far of the digitalization in my private life and also in my own field of expertise:
I was born in mid the 1970’s and therefore my memories and images are fairly poor regarding any digital tools. Surely we did have a landline phone and I bought my fist cell phone at the end of 1990’s when I was already around 25 years old. Nowadays it’s not unusual to have your first cell phone even before school age. My first mind blowing wow moment was we we got VCR. It was amazing when you could record with the timer e.g. MacGyver, Dynasty or Knight Rider.
Obviously nowadays I use a different digital tools both at home and at work. In section ePlatforms I have brought up how I use different tools at daily work or what we could utilize more in the future.
The work of physiotherapist on acute ward is very practical and we rarely use any digital tools as part of our daily practices when we are working with the patients. It’s widely recognized that the adaption of digital health tools in physiotherapy is still rather low and the potential is underexploited. In the future I believe this will change.
In the coming years healthcare technology will combine data on a patient’s medical history, real-time health and all the other necessary information to support professionals’ decision-making, to improve patient health and also to reduce costs. Marco Annunziata’s brought up in his TED talk how technology is creating machines that can see, feel and sense so that they could be operated more efficiently. In physiotherapy this all could mean e.g. that we could upload biometric data from wearable device or use virtual reality as part of the rehabilitation and training or even using therapy robots. For example Lokomat is a robot-assisted gait training device where patients are supported in a harness above a treadmill while this device moves their legs. I believe that in the near future these robots will become more human like. Some of these above mentioned practices are already in place, but it will take time until these innovations will reach the public health care sector.
GDPR & the risks of open digital society:
As of May 2018 GDPR (general data protection regulation) was set up which means that there are set of data protection rules for all companies operating in the EU, where ever they are based. For us (general population) this means that we have more control over our personal data collected.
Rapid technological development all over the world has brought new challenges for the protection of personal data. The data sharing and collection has grown hugely, and also individuals themselves are increasingly making personal information publicly available. This all has lead to a need to ensure a high level of protection of personal data, while at the same time allowing for the free movement of such data.
We physiotherapists as health care professionals should be aware and know all these regulations and laws governing the processing of patient data in order to act properly. All our patients have to be asked for permission to process and transfer any of their data.
As all kind of data sharing and digitalization has increased and spread all over the world, cyber attacks and computer viruses have become more and more common in both organizational and individual level. James Lyne’s TED talk regarding cybercrime and professional cybercriminals was very eye opening. Based on all that information it’s almost too scary to go online or hang out on social media! More we hang out on social media and websites, the more information we share. We all should be aware of that at all times while navigating websites.
Self-evaluation:
One of the best things of this course has been that I have learnt to build a blog and navigate through different options and prepare content. Also it has been quite interesting and fun to read other students’ blogs and thoughts about digitalization.
I found myself more interested in different digitalized future options in the field of rehabilitation as there are already a lot of things I didn’t even know existed. I believe that in the near future it will be health care sector that will take the biggest step towards a new digitalization. For example the huge shortage of nurses globally will accelerate the development of humanoid robots. That’s interesting, isn’t it?
My comments to the following blogs:
DIGI SOCIETY – Roosa’s site (savonia.fi)
DIGI SOCIETY – Laura’s site (savonia.fi)
Nice to find out that you have similar memories from the childhood, when VCR was the major thing that changed our lives. 🙂
I think that mobile patient information systems and using those on physiotherapists job could be one major change in near future.
Hello!
In the field of physiotherapy, the utilization of virtual technology is certainly the future, as it is certainly in other areas of healthcare. Virtual technology could address some of the growing labor shortages. On the other hand, at least in the public sector, it seems that these innovations are lagging behind, as you mentioned. Digital technology pays off, but often in the longer term, its benefits pay for themselves. The development of technology also requires healthcare to invest in guiding and motivating staff. I haven’t heard of a Logomat robot before, so I watched a video on Youtube about this walking-supporting robot that seemed like a very promising tool for neurological rehabilitation.
Hi,
It was interesting to read about a field that is practical and where it not common yet to use digitalization so much and what are your thought towards digitalization coming and that you see a real possibilities in there!
Thanks for your text! I have been thinking alot about the use of robotics in the social and health care. I definitely think people should not be replaced by robots. However, the fact is, that the population is aging and the workforce is shrinking. We should see robots as human helpers and as promoters of work ergonomics. Often the work done in the care industry is very physical. For example, working in the hospital ward involves a lot of lifting and assistance. In these, robot-assisted devices could, over time replace humans. I know this has already been done especially in the private sector. But as we know, developing and acquiring technology is expensive and public sector resources are scarce. In public health care, the acquisition and maintenance of such equipment is still too expensive.