{"id":4,"date":"2025-07-06T10:06:04","date_gmt":"2025-07-06T07:06:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogi.savonia.fi\/tuulioinonen\/?page_id=4"},"modified":"2025-07-24T22:05:27","modified_gmt":"2025-07-24T19:05:27","slug":"digi-society","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/blogi.savonia.fi\/tuulioinonen\/digi-society\/","title":{"rendered":"DIGI SOCIETY"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Digitalization in IT system services for social and health care<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m working right at the heart of social and health care digitalization as a team coach and leader in an in-house company that maintains and develops electronic client and patient information system. My team collaborates closely with our customers to provide and promote innovative digital solutions for their needs. Our goal is also to help standardize customers\u2019 operational routines, improve service efficiency and control costs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have witnessed significant, effective changes in our customers\u2019 operations after they began using a unified system across wider regions. For example, reporting and medication management have improved notably. By using a shared system, it\u2019s easier to analyze care processes and patients\u2019 behavior, which enables preventive actions and better service planning. The system can alert end users if a procedure has been missed and can flag high-risk hospital patients using analytics and risk indicators.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We are continuously developing our e-portal (mobile app and online service). Recently, we had great success with the municipality\u2019s dental care with a feature called \u201cFast Pass,\u201d which notifies patients when earlier appointment times become available. This significantly reduced the number of unused appointments. Previously, it was difficult to efficiently fill canceled time slots, but now the system can do it automatically. Features like this are crucial for optimizing the use of health and social care staff, especially during times of resource scarcity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Artificial intelligence (AI) is, of course, the next major development being applied in customer and patient information systems. We\u2019re already seeing applications like automatically generated draft messages for patients and summaries of patient data. In the future, AI agents could contact patients proactively, help schedule necessary tests and summarize relevant information for both patients and healthcare professionals. However, as we know, these advanced features are currently expensive, and time will tell which of them will be financially feasible within public sector budgets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a team leader, I use digitalization and AI tools to help me create quick presentation drafts, brainstorm ideas, and summarize information. Our company also has its own secure AI tool, a Copilot integrated into our environment, which I use to search and retrieve information from our intranet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Future with digitalization<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was interesting (and little funny) to watch videos about how life was expected to be in 2025. Clearly, digital development has not yet fully integrated into our everyday lives \u2014 and I must admit, luckily. These videos made me reflect on the idea of a \u201csaturation point\u201d \u2014 a stage where we might feel digitalization has reached its full or acceptable potential. I hope that in the future,digital solutions will be used to tackle large-scale global challenges, such as the shortage of healthcare professionals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, videos made me anxious about the future of privacy. Today\u2019s younger generations are accustomed to sharing everything online. How might this affect our values and boundaries in the long run? How can data privacy legislation keep up with innovation without holding back progress? In the future, everyone will need to have strong basic digital skills \u2014 not just for work, but also to navigate online spaces safely and responsibly. We must be able to recognize fake news, avoid unreliable sources, and understand digital risks. Digitalization won\u2019t make everything faster and easier \u2014 it will also require us to be more cautious, aware, and adaptable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) came at a critical time. I remember when it became enforceable in 2018 as many companies were busy updating their data policies to obey with the new regulations. I was volunteering in an association, and GDPR provided much-needed guidance for me to how and when we should collect, store, and process our members\u2019 personal data, such as names and contact details e.g. when organizing events for them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other positive perspectives with the GDPR are increased transparency, especially regarding how our data is used for marketing. GDPR gave individuals more control over their personal information and raised overall awareness of data privacy. A common, practical example of changes after GdPR is the cookie consent pop-up that appears almost every time you visit a website, giving you options to manage how your data is collected and used. Though the majority I guess won\u2019t give it a second thought and just accepts everything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a downside, companies, especially tech firms, have found ways to maintain their ad-based revenue models despite GDPR. For instance, if I want to use a major social media platform without sharing my personal data, I have to pay a subscription fee, agree to share data, or stop using the application entirely. So, the idea that access to my data would default only to me is not fully accomplished.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An open digital society brings great benefits, such as global connectivity and information access, but it also carries risks like targeted advertising and data breaches. Digital services develops continuously so regulation needs to follow as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chat GPT<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like I wrote earlier, I often use our company\u2019s private artificial intelligence (AI) which uses the same language model version GPT-4. So, I have asked many questions from AI already but let\u2019s figure out something new. My questions and Chat GPT\u2019s answers were:<\/p>\n\n\n\n