Friday, March 27, 2009

The "paperless" world...

The presentation on centralized medical databases started my thinking about this topic. Specifically how the group presented the fact that President Obama is requiring all hospitals to become 'computerized' by 2014, and pushing it forward with his administration planning on spending $19billion to modernize medical-record keeping. This would be helpful in many ways, and I fully support this modernization, agreeing with all the positives that the team presented on Wednesday. Also, this week in the DTH there were letter's to the editor about the University cutting back on paper supplies in order to cut back simple expenses in the budget. This letter talked about the ridiculous amount of paper that is printed from the ITS printers each day, much of it for class notes, etc.

The recent activity mentioned above started my thinking about the eventual "paperless world". What will this involved? Basic digitalization of nearly everything, inclduing every form of media and eventually money. Now, some of you may be thinking, "Most media are digitized already, and we use plastic cards very frequently", well yes this is very true, but think about if the hardcopy didn't exist. Hardcopy forms still exist and are printed all the time for mass communication, but eventually will there ever be a time where we use and read digital copies of everything? I think this will happen, sooner than later, and so does Bill Gates. An article (http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/columnists/article584108.ece) I found, has Gates quoting that the world is on the verge of this digital age. Though the article is somewhat dated (2005), this still does not change his nor my opinion about this topic.

There are several potential problems with complete digitization, including the ease of corruption by hackers and various other unethical problems we have touched on in lecture that could occur. But if you think about the positivies, and how our society thrives on the ease of gaining information then this really is feasible. It will start with healthcare, as they will eventually throw away (burn) all medical records, and then mass media will begin the stoppage of hard copies. Textbooks will become electronic and we'll all be taking notes on our tablet PCs. What do you think our society will be like when the digital age fully takes over? What are your views on absorbing current media only through the screen on your computer? Do you think a complete modernization into the "paperless world" is even feasible? Do the benefits outweigh the negatives of this ever happening? These are a few of the questions that come to mind as I conclude, so I leave it to you... what do you think about where our technology is taking us?

17 comments:

  1. I recently had an experience with this. I'm currently working on my thesis, and needed to turn in a copy to one of my readers by Friday at 5. As things turned out, I was still wildly editing and revising at 5 and wrote him an email asking if I could electronically turn it in. He absolutely REFUSED and demanded that I MAIL a copy to his house by the next day as he wouldn't be in his office. Having hard copies of things, especially when one is not in the same location, is downright frustrating and difficult sometimes! Regardless, the situation worked out and he got his hardcopy, but I've become so accustomed to turning things in electronically that his response baffled me!

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  2. Personally I think there will always be the option of a hardcopy. The world may go digital, but I'm doubtful of there being a time when paper is completely obsolete, at least in the near future. Someone will always hate reading articles off the internet or typing up notes on their PC and chose a paper form. I can't read long articles off a computer screen to save my life so I hope for at least the near future printer's are still in use. Perhaps when all of "us" who are used to a hardcopy are gone the new generations who never had an option of a hardcopy will eventually phase paper out. If this does eventually happen then it’s just a new form of doing things and isn't necessarily a negative. The trees would be happy :)

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  3. In class my group received the article on property that we didn't' get time to discuss. It mentioned that not having an actual paper copy of records to rely on causes a confusion with the ownership of the information. This confusion may hinder the medical databases ability to function as an integrated network. It will make it difficult for medical professionals to gain access to the patients' information that they will need. I do wonder however, if gaining access to the information will be any more difficult than it is now. If not, then there are still the benefits of saving time, materials, and money. Overall I agree that if these issues were attended to then this could be a much more efficient and effective way of record storage and retrieval.

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  4. I'm all for electronic records/information for all realms. While there are of course inherent risks with any new technology, I believe the positives out weigh the cons. It’s where our future is heading and we need to continue adapting to the changes. It’s the best alternative to our current system of healthcare which can be easily called inefficient. As mentioned in the presentation, privacy, security and cost are the main concerns. As with any new technological endeavor, all three of these concerns will be improved with time. It was stated that in the long run, the system could potentially save 81 billion dollars in healthcare costs. And as for security and privacy, I’m willing to bet there will be new and clever ways of protecting your most personal information.

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  5. There are definitely benefits to digitization--save money, save lots of trees, make things more efficient...But I really don't like the idea of absolutely everything going digital with no hard copies of anything. What if the entire medical record system crashes and there's no paper record left to help treat patients in urgent care? And on a less serious level, I don't like reading long articles online/on the computer. I have to print them out and mark/highlight things to really feel like I'm reading them. I think this kind of connects to the Google articles we read at the beginning of the semester--how people tend to skim through things online. I know I have the habit of not reading through things thoroughly if they're in a digital format.

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  6. I think that it is a very scary thing to think about. Modernizing is something that is inevitable in our lifetime and eventually everyone, by 2014, will have computerized medical databases. This is just one step in modernizing our technology and the way we operate. Obama thinks that this will, in the end, be a more efficient way of organizing our medical records. He says that in the end it will end up saving us billions of dollars each year in the reduction of malpractice issues. Whether or not this is true has yet to be seen in any kind of evidence or research. These assumptions are made but are not backed up by anything to prove that it will save us any money or lead to better treatment of patients. I don't know how much I agree with that statement but I do think this will be an easier way of treating patients because the files are just so easy to access and send. Most hospitals who have switched over still have their hard copies just in case and I think this is important just in case there is a glitch or a system crash.

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  7. Reading articles for class in a .pdf format from the computer screen is a task that I also do not enjoy. I feel like I digest and absorb more information when it comes from a printed source. Perhaps, this is because I learned to read from books and paper material. As new generations learn to read from digitized formats, perhaps they will not mind reading from computer screens.

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  8. As far as I know, there are some grad school programs digitalize all their required textbooks and require students to use laptops for all their learning. Although I would love to read hard copy textbooks so that it would be easy for me to highlight information, I believe electronic textbooks would be a trend for schools in the future. I also believe that people will eventually get used to all these digitalized way of learning, just like the way we get used to live with our laptops.
    However, it is undeniable that once everything becomes completely digitalized, security issues would fellow afterward. Just like how much convenience it would be brought from complete digitization, the same amount of secure issues would arise as well. Centralized personal or medical databases would be convenient to track or manage data, while a paperless world would be environmentally friendly. However, no one can be sure about how these databases could be maintained without encountering security issues. Even now our medical databases have not been completely digitalized yet, some personal information can already be found easily through some search engines. In fact, once databases have some flaws and personal information is ever revealed, I doubt that if there would be any one to be responsible for this problem. Or, it might be another case for the medical device- Therac-25
    ?

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  9. I too think we won't end up a completely paperless society, or at least not in our lifetimes. I also must note that I had to chuckle bitterly about the whole 'hardcopy' of money thing since really, our paper money isn't exactly 'real' when there's no gold behind it, but excuse my cynical moment. In any case, I could see people wanting digitalization because in some ways it could speed things up and make some aspects of life more convenient, but at the same time I can't help but feel we'd end up with more problems than benefits. Without a paper trail, it's awfully hard to really prove much of anything. If it's all digital, how do you say who owns what or who is really who? There're also the problems of power supply failure and data corruption/accidental deletion. I mean, one would hope that if everything was digital, there'd at least be backups of it all to try and prevent those aforementioned problems, but that would require enough hard drive/storage capacity to have duplicate information on every person, which would likely be costly in the long run, unless our population starts shrinking. I just don't see us entering a 'paperless' world anytime soon and if we do, I think we may be opening a can of worms too big to handle.

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  10. when it comes to worrying about where technology is taking us, i can safely say that i am excited about where it is taking us. I think by the time the digital age completely "takes over," our generation will be so well adjusted that we will not experience too many adverse effects. as with anything, there are pros and cons and the digital takeover is no different. simply knowing that there are going to be snags along the way is the best way to prepare for a world that is completely digital.
    having said this, i believe the pros of a digital world overwhelmingly outweigh the cons. for example, if everything becomes digital, the price of electronics would drop tremendously because they would be so readily available. This would also help for examples such as the one mentioned in the blog about text books. if textbooks were provided online are electronically, it would not only be much more efficient but also much cheaper as well.
    overall, i believe there are truly too many benefits of a completely digital world to fully discuss in a simple comment to a blog. i definitely feel like we are on the path to this digital takeover, and i feel like it would be the best thing for our society.

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  11. To a degree, I think it is great that we are trying to cut back on the amount of paper we use. It is ridiculous the amount of trees we cut down just for paper. Deforestation is a huge problem, so I think we should be cutting back on paper. On the other hand, i'm not sure if we will ever be truly paperless. I think for starters there are way too many book lovers out there (myself included) and reading from a book and a computer screen are completely different. Even now I prefer to read a paper copy bc it doesn't strain my eyes like a computer screen does. Being able to fill out forms online is a convenience, but do we really want to destroy all the paper copies of information? What if there is a virus and completely wipes out all of that information? What are we to do then? With paper copies there are no worries about accidental deletion, or viruses, etc. We all know how the Internet can be, and I wouldn't risk having all my information deleted without having a backup copy at least.

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  12. I honestly do not like the fact that the world might go paperless. For one thing, it is completely possible for information to easily become lost or stolen. I think that it is ideal to go paperless but you should also being given the option to have a hardcopy. This way people can ensure it is in fact their creation and there would be no confusion. Also, I don't like the paperless idea because I find it harder to read on the internet than in a book. The internet poses too many distractions and for me, can take a lot longer than sitting down and reading a novel

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  13. I am a communications major and this year 3 out of my 5 teachers posted their syllabi on their course websites and explained that because of the budget they were not going to hand out hard copies. I do not necessarily believe this is a bad choice on their part because of internet availability all over campus. I like some have already said believe that hard copies will always be an option but I do see a trend in paperless documents. But, on the other hand it is extremely difficult for me to sit down at my computer and read an article for a class when the option of surfing the web is starring me in the face!

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  14. The transition is going to happen and there will always be arguments during every technological transition that the new way is dangerous, unstable, unreliable. When the automobile industry turned to gasoline as its fuel of choice, the media condemned the decision calling the new cars "bombs on wheels". Yet we have, as a society, learned to minimalize the risk of car fires.

    The ability to have instant access to vital information of would be universally valuable, no matter what field one works in. Yes there clearly will be problems associated with universal digitization, but like the automobile, and like the advent of electricity and more recently of the Internet, I believe we'll adjust our infrastructures to resolve them.

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  15. As technology keeps improving, people expect more. They want things done as fast as possible and as convenient as possible. This can be seen through the transition in technology today. Everything is becoming readily available on the internet. Hardcopies of material is transferred into digital files that are easy to access. The centralized medical database is a primary example of this transition of the so called “paperless” world. It will take time to establish a centralized medical database, but with the direction of technology today it is bound to happen. I agree that we are approaching a “paperless” world but I feel that there will still be hardcopies of certain documents and files. I believe it will not be appropriate to go completely paperless. With the growing digital world, there will always be issues and problems with security and privacy.

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  16. I feel as if hard copies, though they can't be erased by a virus, can be destroyed in floods, fires, etc. However, though these new digitalized files may be susceptible to virus', there will definitely be back up systems and even disks still containing information. Considering the direction our economy is headed, not only will digitalizing records provide new jobs, but jobs to the people who are equiped with the right skills. As the baby boomers begin to retire, it is the youth of today, who are extremely compatible with computers, that is going to reverse our economy, and they are going to do it with computers.

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  17. I generally have a positive outlook on a "paperless" society. The benefits are obvious, but I will address an aforementioned concern, then present a few concerns of my own.

    As we have discussed this topic, the issue of hackers gaining control of our information has arisen on multiple occasions. From what I have observed, hackers present problems at the initial stages of technologies, but rarely emerge into the mature stages of those technologies. I am confident that any risk of hackers will be eliminated by the time we choose to use a technology to store and transfer valuable information.

    Two concerns of mine carry very little value, but I am sure I'm not alone. First, with the immense amount of information available on the Internet, I often feel as though I simply cannot absorb all the information I need to stay informed. However, when I read a newspaper or magazine, there is a limit to the information, and I can complete the piece feeling like I have received an appropriate day's worth of news.

    As much time as I spend everyday in front of a computer screen, it is ironic that I fear for the damage long-term computer screen exposure can do to eyesight, but I think about it frequently. After viewing a computer screen for a long period of time, it is nice to transfer my eyes to a paper source, which I feel is much less harmful. In a "paperless" world, my retinas would have to remain continuously singed.

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