My first career was in nursing and I witnessed change how information delivered and stored on paper changed into a digital form. My current field of working is optometry and I work in a digitized environment. Customers or patients path is digitized. Person can make an appointment online. First step is to identify strongly. Person gives permission for personal information processing and storaging. Customer’s personal health data is stored digitally and transferred to Kanta. Sales history and current sales are stored digitally also. Digitalized platform provides organization level communication. Organization communicates to public through different media platforms and its own web pages. Communication with email is decreasing. Customers can give feedback of the service they have got and they give it very often.

In my working environment, the whole organization is lead by knowledge-based information. Every action I do in my workplace, leaves a digital fingerprint. Good in this is that management will get exact online information of sales and even every single employees amount of sales. Knowledge based management helps planning and fast reacting in different situations. On an employees perspective detailed analyse of his work may become a burden. Results and one employees experiences may be positive , if the employees are not forced to be competitive against each other.

In the future the client and the optometrist may physically reside in different locations, even in different countries or continents. An assistant will help the client to visit in an  eye-check up -unit and the optometrist will proceed eye -check up by remote. The client will choose the frame, all the measurements for the right lens adjustment will be taken by taking a picture. Computer will analyse the picture and finally a printer will print the spectacles right away.

The other future scenario is that client will step in an eye examination unit. Units will be located at big shopping malls where hundreds of people visit every day.  AI will proceed the eye exam and delivers the prescription. Client then goes into a shop and purchases the spectacles there.

Digitalization affects currently in every job. In some jobs the effect is greater than the others. In the future, different kind of digital platforms will make everyones work probably easier. We do not have to call or send emails. We can meet the client in a digital enviroment. We can process data more and more efficient way. The productivity will grow. Somehow I feel it may disconnect people. Human basic need is to be interacting and connected to other humas. People may search services where they can interact with other people. I had once a physicians appointement remote: I saw the physician´s face on TV monitor. The nurse proceeded examination for the physician. It was an interesting experience for me.

Who owns my personal data? Data protection reform was made to secure that our personal data won`t be stored, spread and sold uncontrollable. But it doesn`t quarantee it unconditionally. Data protection reforms intentions are good. Here in Finland we have for example Kanta which stores our personal health information did we want it or not. Do I want  all my personal health data to be accessible for every health care providers? No, I do not want to. I want to choose which health information I want to share with other health providers and fortunately it is possible to choose which information I want to share in Omakanta. Data protection reform officially has a control over big organizations. Personally, I think, that this reform does not have any power to prohibit a misuse of persons data. For example who owns your bloodsamples? We think that excess blood will be discharged. What, if someone collects them and analyses them and sells the results to someone, who gets financial advantage?

In my current worklife I cannot handle patients personal health data without patients written permission.  In digital enviroment my work leaves a digital footprint, so patient may see who has accessed his/hers data. Patients health information cannot be processed for example thorough email or phone. It is a good thing.

SELF EVALUATION

This topic reminded me that we have to be careful what we do in digital enviroment. Most important thing is to educate oneself regularly. The most vulnerable people are those, whose digital skills are poor. Elderly people may be the vulnerable ones. We have read of those people who thought they were visiting at Omakanta with their banking application, but they were on a wrong website instead and got robbed, digitally. Every citizen should have a personal ID card for free, so person does not have to use banking application for identification. In my opinion, accessing into different services as Kanta or Omavero with your banking application  should be denied. In Finland lots of services are offered in digital form. I find it very interesting that for example if you want to access your own health data in Terveystalo, the only way is to log in with banking application or mobiilivarmenne. So, you have to pay for services to get to log in another service. It makes me angry, when I think the elderly people, who do not have possibility for that. Maybe in the future every citizen will get a microchip installed and accessing to different services will happen with this chip. This scenario frightens me because someone may know every digital step I take or what I do in my own home. In the future I have to keep up my digital skills. New applications pop up regularly. If a person is interested in what happens in the world and reads news and articles, person will be more safe compared to those who do not. Keeping up a healthy attitude by asking questions in own mind in internet surfing, keeping your computer protected and giving as less information about yourself as possible in digital environment may keep me a little bit safe.

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