Minna M. Rantanen

Problem in Patient Information System Acquirement in Finland: Translation and Terminology

Healthcare information systems and their development has risen to be an issue discussed widely amongst Finnish media and public. The discussion varies from the many faults in design, functionality, usability and the enormous costs these systems produce to the citizens as well as how to best fix these problems. Yet it seems that common terminology with eHealth systems in the discussion is lacking rendering the quality of the discussion far from where it could be. Hence this paper will focus on the issue of terminology-based problems in Finnish public eHealth development discussion.

Do We Have What Is Needed to Change Everything

The fourth industrial revolution is expected to bring major changes both in society as well as in the modern industry. Naturally, it will also shake the labour market—however, not only by replacing blue collar duties by robots, but also by renewing the set of skills and competencies needed in new kinds of work duties. In this study, we use a data (n = 160) from a survey to the Finnish software businesses to evaluate how software companies perceive the labour shortage and its implications in the verge of the new industrial revolution. The results show that already now there are signs that the labour shortage might harm the growth and innovations in the ICT field. This study presents the results from the survey and discusses whether there are enough competent resources to support the industrial revolution.

The War of Talents in Software Business

The modern business world is undergoing digitalisation in fast pace and, therefore, more jobs are born in the field of information and communication technology (ICT). Only in Finland, one of the leading countries in digitalisation, there is an estimated need for 7,000–15,000 software professionals while the demand for skilled labour is growing every year. The skill set required from professionals is also changing and different skills are needed in the future. ICT companies are facing problems of finding highly skilled professionals to ensure their rapid growth and new innovations. At the same time, when companies are fighting for the talents, there are ICT professionals unemployed. Offered and requested skills are not meeting in the ICT industry, which can lead to bigger problems in the eyes of workers and companies. This study focuses on the skill polarisation between software professionals at the war of talents by using data collected with a survey (n = 90) to software businesses. The results reveal some signs of ongoing skill polarisation in the field and its possible impacts are discussed.

Where is patient in EHR project

In this paper, we do a literature review on electronic health records (EHR) and patient involvement. It seems that patients are not included as much as one would presume. After our analysis of both literature and ethical nature, we suggest that research on why this is so and whether they should be included needs to be done.

Three Views to a School Information System: Wilma from a Sociotechnical Perspective

Visma Wilma has become a standard in Finnish school system as the de facto school information system for teachers, parents and students to use. Whereas the digitalisation of the school system seems inevitable there have been some issues in the information system design to promote practices and values that are suboptimal – or even substandard for a school as an entity.

PHR, We’ve Had a Problem Here

Personal health records (PHRs) have been a global trend in recent decade. It has been seen as a concept and tool that could help patients maintaining health, improving their well-being, and supporting communication with healthcare professional etc. Despite the great amount of research about PHR there is no consensus what a PHR actually means in academic literature or other arenas. There are multiple terms in use and multiple definitions which set challenges for rational discourse between citizens/patient, healthcare providers, system developers and policy makers. Especially, when citizens—as key stakeholder—should also be able to understand what those systems are we need clear and understandable definition for PHR’s. In the paper, we conduct a brief survey for different definitions and show the problems that arise with the incoherent use of the term “PHR”.

The Human Resources Debt in Software Business

This conceptual-analytical paper presents and defines the concept of ‘human resource debt’ (i.e., HR debt). The presented concept draws from the software engineering field’s recent work in the technical debt management, yet it departures from the existing conceptualizations by focusing on skills and competences of individual employees as well as emphasizing the need to manage the skill pool with conscious decisions. As with its paragons, this novel concept aims to help to understand, control and utilize better the phenomenon by using a simple metaphor. In addition, the metaphor, borrowed from the economics, also emphasizes the potential price that has to be paid back later. In the discussion, the ever-changing software industry is used as an example industrial domain; however, the concept should be generalizable to other fields. Finally, the paper lays foundations for future work and proposes initial actions needed for forming a proper research agenda.

Need for eHealth Ethics

The healthcare is an area where ethics has justifiably gained a central position, and this fact has acted as a safeguard for people and society. However, the increasing use of information technology has brought forth new kind of situations that the traditional medical ethics approach has not faced before. There is need for a new approach of eHealth ethics that covers the needs for modern healthcare to ensure that the ethicality will be ensured today and future likewise. We argue that a fruitful approach for this is the synthesis of traditional medical ethics and IS-ethics. In this article we look the four principles of medical ethics together with IS-ethics approaches by Moor and Brey to see what kind of values should be protected and what are the needs for justified use of information technology in healthcare.

Unworthy Guardians: Nappula Child Welfare Information System

In this paper we examine a Finnish child protective service software Nappula. We point out some of the problems with the system in relation to the information stored and used. It shares some of the problems which are prevalent in patient information systems without exactly being one. Some of these problems include, but are not limited to privacy problems and a lack of possibility of correcting data in certain situations, amongst other ethical issues. We point out that the system has issues which cannot be justified in accordance to what the values of child protective services, social services, and the society are.