I am choosing the Healthcare industry as I currently work in IT for a large healthcare system. Computers play a large role in healthcare in many areas. PCs and Laptops are used all over the company, from the Corporate side to the hospitals, where doctors and nurses use them to enter patient information into online databases; the cafeterias and gift shops use them for transactions, and hospital administration uses them for daily operations. More and more medical equipment contains computers and requires computer skills. A great example is a PillCam, which is a tiny pill-sized computer that patients swallow. While it travels through the patient’s system, it takes pictures of the digestive tract and transmits them wirelessly to a recorder the patient wears on a belt. The doctor has to synch the recorder and camera and review the digital records, making computer skills crucial for this equipment.
When I first moved into IT, I took a job in AV at the beginning of 2020, when lockdowns from the pandemic began happening. This was an interesting time, as computers rapidly became important for remote meetings while as many as possible were sent to work from home. In the hospitals, I worked with many of the AV computer pieces to help connect remote meetings in large meeting rooms. One example was a weekly Tumor Board, where doctors working in the hospital would come into the large classrooms and socially distance as a meeting was connected to a projection screen. Other doctors would connect remotely to the video call from home or other hospitals to discuss patient cases and share knowledge.
With patient data being stored in clinical applications, it’s extremely important for hospital staff to be computer-literate when handling EPHI, especially as bad actors become more sophisticated in attempting to phish and trick staff to steal PHI.
Medical equipment has begun to evolve rapidly and includes more sophisticated computers and specialized software. I believe this is going to impact our industry as it’s going to make it increasingly difficult for someone who is computer literate to go through their day without requiring computer skills for the various equipment. As cyber security becomes more important, it will also require a level of awareness when operating computers to stay safe.
