Becoming Data-Driven: Exploring Data Work and Tensions in Healthcare Data Journeys

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Abstract

Encouraged by the vast amounts of data produced in healthcare,
political ambitions for a data-driven approach have led to significant
investments in healthcare infrastructures. This paper explores how healthcare
professionals engage in data work to realize ambitions of becoming data-
driven within regional healthcare settings. Drawing on the notion of data
journeys (Leonelli, 2020), the study examines how data is produced,
processed, mobilized, and repurposed through Business Intelligence tools
and a data warehouse. Based on qualitative interviews and fieldwork, the
paper identifies three central forms of data work: ‘re-configuring data
infrastructures', ‘managing data quality in practice’, and ‘visualizing and
recontextualizing data’. The findings show that data journeys are not linear
but cyclical, negotiated, and shaped by infrastructural constraints,
professional judgment, and institutional tensions. These tensions, such as
breakdowns, ontological ambiguity, and disputes, are not mere disruptions
but central to how data becomes actionable. The paper introduces the
concept of the ‘productive paradox of error’ to capture how error management
generates new epistemic and ontological work, positioning tensions as
generative forces in the pursuit of becoming data-driven.
OriginalsprogEngelsk
TidsskriftScandinavian Journal of Information Systems
ISSN0905-0167
StatusAccepteret/In press - 2025

Emneord

  • data infrastructures
  • data journeys
  • data work
  • decontextualization
  • healthcare
  • recontextualization
  • qualitative research

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