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Article
Publication date: 6 March 2017

Anne Asmyr Thorseng and Miria Grisot

E-health tools for patients aim to change current care practices. However the role of IT in transforming health care is not straightforward. The purpose of this paper is to…

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Abstract

Purpose

E-health tools for patients aim to change current care practices. However the role of IT in transforming health care is not straightforward. The purpose of this paper is to understand how this change process unfolds and what characterizes the process by which visions of new care practices become inscribed into digital tools.

Design/methodology/approach

The study adopted a qualitative research design and it is based on an interpretive case study on the digitalization of a tool for diabetes care used in a hospital in Norway. Data have been collected via interviews and observations. Digitalization activities are understood as institutional work in order to examine the relation between the decisions taken in the design process and the intended change of the practices of diabetes care.

Findings

The study identifies three types of activities of institutional work: inscription of self-reflection, inscription of legitimation and inscription of new usage. The analysis of these activities shows how the vision of patients’ more active, learning and reflection-oriented role is inscribed into digital technology; how institutional work strives both for change and for legitimation thus smoothing the transition to a new institutional arrangement; and how institutional work relates to digital materiality.

Originality/value

The study contributes to the institutional theory literature by conceptualizing digitalization as institutional work toward changing institutions. It also contributes to the IS literature on digitalization by providing an analysis of how the affordances of digital materials support the work toward new institutions.

Details

Information Technology & People, vol. 30 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0959-3845

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Article
Publication date: 1 January 2006

Ingunn Moser and John Law

Seeks to explore the assumptions and limitations of current programmes for the creation of electronic patient records by comparing ICT programme statements with hospital uses of…

2187

Abstract

Purpose

Seeks to explore the assumptions and limitations of current programmes for the creation of electronic patient records by comparing ICT programme statements with hospital uses of information.

Design/methodology/approach

Compares qualitative data from medical ICT programmes statements with data from ethnographic studies of hospital decision making. Uses actor‐network theory to develop a performative definition of information as that which secures a decision or “qualculation”, whether in the form of calculation or judgement.

Findings

Shows that decision making depends on a mix of formal and informal considerations that are, however, always restricted in scope and number. Shows that some of these are locally and organisationally contingent.

Research limitations/implications

The ethnographic findings illustrate the character of information rather than offering data about the character of decisions in different clinical locations.

Practical implications

Caution is needed in the face of claims about ICT programmes in health care. It is possible to anticipate neither all the uses of information nor what will count as information in advance.

Originality/value

The paper develops a performative definition of information. This is whatever secures a decision in practice. Information thus reflects a situated process of simplification and bounding of relevancies. This suggests that information not only flows (which is assumed in ICT programme statements) but also is fluid, unpredictably changing its form and character. This claim is relevant both to the design and use of ICT in health care and to the theory of information.

Details

Information Technology & People, vol. 19 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0959-3845

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Article
Publication date: 1 January 2006

Edoardo Jacucci, Ole Hanseth and Kalle Lyytinen

To give an overview of the papers contained in this Special Issue.

1772

Abstract

Purpose

To give an overview of the papers contained in this Special Issue.

Design/methodology/approach

Looks at how each of the papers reflects the theme of the Special Issue, “Complexity and IT design and evolution”.

Findings

The collection of papers in this Special Issue addresses complexity, drawing on multi‐faceted, multi‐theoretical lines of inquiry.

Originality/value

Frameworks from complexity science, institutional theory, social science, philosophy, and recent thinking in science and technology studies (STS) are used as theoretical lenses to conceptualize and analyze complexity in IS and to offer ways to mitigate it.

Details

Information Technology & People, vol. 19 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0959-3845

Keywords

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Article
Publication date: 7 November 2016

Nima Herman Shidende, Margunn Aanestad and Faraja Igira

This paper presents a work-centred study of how information systems practices and tools become shaped by their context. The purpose of this paper is to increase the understanding…

458

Abstract

Purpose

This paper presents a work-centred study of how information systems practices and tools become shaped by their context. The purpose of this paper is to increase the understanding of how practices and tools co-evolve, with a specific focus on the role of context, and based on this to offer relevant design implications. The empirical motivation comes from attempts to utilize information and communication technologies (ICT) in resource-constrained settings.

Design/methodology/approach

Empirical work was conducted in primary healthcare facilities in Tanzania that offer Prevention of Mother-To-Child Transmission services. Four health facilities with different organizational and socio-economic characteristics were studied using ethnographic methods (participant observation, interviews and document analysis). The authors have employed activity theory as the theoretical framework, since it explicitly places human activity within a cultural, social and temporal (developmental) context. Specifically, the concept of mediation breakdown was used for data analysis at activity, action and operation levels.

Findings

By focussing analytically on situations of mediation breakdown in the situation of use, at both an activity, action and operation level, the authors have achieved an understanding of how information tools are being adapted to both their contextual conditions and the information needs of the community of users.

Research limitations/implications

The study illustrates the decisive role that context may play in shaping the actual usage of information technology. While the detailed findings were specific to the concrete domain, time and place, in general, an increased awareness of the role of context may lead to more robust approaches to the introduction of ICT solutions.

Originality/value

While activity theory literature offers insight on how to analyse context, the discussion is limited to the understanding of how context can be modelled into artefacts. The paper suggests that the contradiction concept is useful for studying the role of context and its impact in co-evolution of work and information tools. The study also contributes to the discourse in health information systems in developing countries by emphasizing the crucial role of the front line health workers’ own problem solving, invention and adaptation of information tools.

Details

Information Technology & People, vol. 29 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0959-3845

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