My Experiences with Digitalization in my work
I have been working in various jobs in social care and education sectors since 2007. That is a long time, nearly 20 years! During that time our society has taken huge steps in terms of digitalization. Back when I landed my first longer contract in early childhood education in 2008, there were very little digital tools in use. I remember using the administration system which almost everyone in the daycare viewed as” necessary evil” and even ” the time consuming monster.”
My view on the digital tools in social care changed when I started to work at the municipal social work. This work included meeting with clients and handling of their income support applications. All of this was documented and partly executed with social care client information system. I learned the use of the system fast but at the time I didn’t see it as anything special. To me, the system was just an application – a tool to help me do my work and help the clients. Back then I sometimes used to think that all I did with the system, I could do with pen and paper as well.
Little did I know that at the time of writing this article I would be working as a system specialist in a company which produces a client and patient information system to be used as part of the social and health care work of multiple wellbeing service countys in Finland. Now, I am looking the digitalization from the other side of the table. I see how professionals in social and health care use our information system and try to develope it in co-operation for their future needs. In the next chapter of this article I do my best to envision the future of such systems.
I see that future as two-sided coin. Let’s see what the sides keep inside of them.
Two Sides of the Coin
Side One: Big Data
Big data is a term which is a term which is used to describe large amounts of data stored in a digital form. This kind of data should be very detailed, easily stored and accessed and valuable. The exsistance of big data is possible because of the so called digital revolution, which means the ongoing movement from using analog technology to using digital technology. For example, this article for the university is not written with a typewriter or pen but a laptop. In terms of storing data, it means using cloud technology or server rooms to store data rather than file cabinets and folders.
From a point of view of information system for social and health care system, the big data is a interesting phenomenon. The amout of data that can be collected during a simple health check of a person is huge. Be it something as simple as height and weight of a person, health questionnaire or something more complex as X-ray image, all the data can be now stored to single person’s patient records. When the data of a person is stored in the information system from a longer period of time, it helps the health care staff to see more complete image of single patients health history. And when you have large amount of data of multiple patients you can evaluate the need of health care services of a certain area. Artifical intelligence could help planning treatments for a single or a larger group of patients. Big data is more data. And more data can help in making better decisions.
This of course is easier said than done. Laws and other legal acts determine what kind of information can be stored in the information systems, who can see the info and how should the information be used. And this is for a good reason. Let’s flip the coin, shall we?
Side Two: Cyber security
Cyber security means the protection of digital systems and machines from various threats. These threats may misuse the systems or the machines or the data stored in them. Cyber security is currently a hot topic. There are not many days when attempted cyber attacks or cyber thefts don’t make it the news. And the reason is simple. Most of our data these days is in some digital form. And that data is valuable. It is everything from your shopping preferences to your address and credit card credentials.
The more an information system for social and health care services contains sensitive data from a patients the more valuable that information is. And that makes it a interesting target for cyber attacks. This sets huge responsibility for the owners of the system and for the users of it: if a cyber attack steals or destroys personal data of the patients, who is responsbile? A succesful cyber attack to such system can ruin lives and even cause deaths. That’s why the big data is both an opportunity and a risk to these kinds of systems. The usage of big data in social and health care is tempting idea for it could benefit a large number of patients and clients, but it definitely shouldn’t be rushed in anyway. The way I see it, the risks are currently bigger than the possible benefits. We will see if the situation changes in the future.
Risks of open digital society
Based on the two sides of the coin above, I see similar risks in the progress of the digitalization in society. To tackle these risks the European Union legislated the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in 2018. The GDPR defines for example how a persons data should be handled in digital services, be it a private service or a public service. It for example sets the standards on how the data should be stored and protected and for how long. The aim of GDPR is to give the person submitting the data the ownership of the data. Without the legislations such GDPR, the data submitted such personal details might the property of the party which is collecting the data. That idea sounds absurd and therefore I think it’s good that it’s controlled via EU. I wonder what the situation is like in the rest of the world. It once again comes down to the benefits and risks of digitalization. Totally open digital society with all it’s risks sound more like dystopia than utopia, even though digitalization brings benefits as well.
In my work I deal a lot with topics such personal information and information security. That’s why the princples of GDPR are the principle of my employee. To not follow or disregard the principle of GDPR would get my employee in big trouble. That is why our staff is regularly educated about the topics concerning data protection and information security. Thinking about is something that is present in my everyday work and I would like to say, in every decision I do at work. I see that working with these kinds of topics and principles has affected my personal life too. I am now more concious about how I submit my data to anywhere and my rights with it. I also try to teach my son, who is using digital platforms more and more every day, about what kind of data he should share or not. You could say GDPR is present quite a lot in my life! And I am happy about that.
Chatting with Chat GPT
When Chat GPT was first released to public couple of years ago, I was stunned. It seemed like the future and the revolution of AI had arrived. But quite fast, the enthusiasm toned down and I started to view Chat GPT and other generative AIs as just tools that could potentially help to solve small problems. For example I have used Chat GPT when I have had trouble with using Excel and when I have had writers block while working on my studies or other writing projects. While writing this article, I tried asking Chat GPT a couple of questions related to my working field with client and patient information systems.
I asked Chat GPT how does it see the future of information systems in social and health care. It gave me a answer with seven key points which included predictions about arrival of more integrated systems which use AI and machine learning. The points also included mentions of more customer-centered services, doing meetings with video connections and the increasing use of big data. After that I asked that when does Chat GPT see these changes happening. I got the answer that some of the changes could be reality in a few years and some of them would take up to 10 years to happen. Then i asked that whether it thinks that the pace of the change is too fast. I got the answer that included both benefits and risks about the progress of information systems. Benefits included for example the expectations of patitens and clients and the improvment of patient security via changes. A bit controversialy Chat GPT also saw the data protection and information security as one of the biggest risk with the quick pace of the progress.
With the brief chat i had with Chat GPT I saw a improvements in the answers it provided. It gave me many valid points in very structurised manner, which I think it couldn’t have done when it was first released. So it’s learning and developing. The problem with the answers is that it can only discuss the topic in a general level. I wonder I had started to ask more detailed questions, it could have not provided me as detailed answers that I would have liked. And here is the problem of AI. Even though Chat GPT and such services are great in collecting and processing data, they rarely can dive deep enough to provide answers to complex questions. They can and will answer to anything, what we cannot rely on those answers. If we blindly trust the asnwers generated by AI, we will face trouble in ”real world”. I think AI is very nice and helpful tool but it should be treated as such. Let it help you, but do the thinking yourself.
Self evaluation
I found writing this article very useful. Previously I for example had hard time understading the concept of Big Data but while writing I think I understood it better. I also hadn’t tought about the relationship with GDPR and my work so profoundly before. What I should know more about in the future is the progress of AI. While I found Chat GPT more improved than before, I should see where the progess is now in general. I today’s world, one should really try to keep up with all the recent twists and turns. You never really know what is going to happen tomorrow in the field of digitalization. The future is going to bee vibrant and everyone should keep an eye out for it – to evaluate this risks and benefits every single day.
Blog comments
I commented on:
I found it interesting how you presented both sides of the coin and you history with field. Naturally, this brought to mind recent data breaches and how crucial it is to restrict access to personal information. The field of early childhood education has also advanced in terms of technology. Curriculum discussions and planning meetings can now conducted remotely, making communication more flexible and accessible. However, as discussions about child development and education, along with data collection, move online, new challenges inevitably arise.
Hi Ville,
Thank you for an interesting article on digi society. It was clear from your article that you have a deep understanding of the subject. Your article was interesting, easy to follow, and I learned from it. You had a good approach to the topic, and it progressed consistently.
Hello Ville! I loved your post about digitalization in the healthcare sector because I always felt very drawn to it since the inception of my career in 2020 as researcher in neuroscience (and later as software engineer).
I was a still a kid back in 2008 when you started your practice, so I don’t know how it was back then and has been interesting to read your experience.
I agree with your statements about big data, since I worked with clinical data to predict mortality in ICUs using AI and help clinitian to make better decisions to save lives. The more data we get the more we’re able to help people and their care, so, even if it is difficult to handle privacy and collecting data has some concerns, I’m all in BigData and AI for a safer and more pleasent world.
Thank you for sharing!