’We want to save lives with data’: BI Data Work as a Matter of Care

TY - ABST

T1 - ’We want to save lives with data’: BI Data Work as a Matter of Care

AU - Pedersen, Asbjørn Malte

PY - 2023/6/8

Y1 - 2023/6/8

N2 - Through an ethnographic study of a healthcare Business Intelligence unit, this paper explores BI data work as a ‘matter of care’. Big Data in its various forms - be it data science, machine learning, or business intelligence - promises to solve healthcare challenges and make healthcare data-driven. These aspirations for data-driven healthcare are often found in political and management strategies that anticipate new technologies to enhance management, research, and patient treatment. Meanwhile, Big Data in general have been criticized for data fetishism, mass surveillance, and disregarding the ethical implications and the human impact of data practices.Despite this, the desire for data-driven healthcare is not solely imposed from the outside: Big Data and its practitioners (the so-called data professionals) are no longer placed in distant centers of calculation but have moved in with healthcare. In other words, they are situated within the messy, social-technical practices of healthcare, co-creating data technologies, practices, and politics with healthcare professionals. I suggest exploring these data work practices of data professionals as a matter of care. In this case, entangled practices that involve not only caring for data, but also for healthcare professionals and patients; navigating local needs and demands; entering critical dialogues on data and data representations; and ultimately aiming to save lives with data.

AB - Through an ethnographic study of a healthcare Business Intelligence unit, this paper explores BI data work as a ‘matter of care’. Big Data in its various forms - be it data science, machine learning, or business intelligence - promises to solve healthcare challenges and make healthcare data-driven. These aspirations for data-driven healthcare are often found in political and management strategies that anticipate new technologies to enhance management, research, and patient treatment. Meanwhile, Big Data in general have been criticized for data fetishism, mass surveillance, and disregarding the ethical implications and the human impact of data practices.Despite this, the desire for data-driven healthcare is not solely imposed from the outside: Big Data and its practitioners (the so-called data professionals) are no longer placed in distant centers of calculation but have moved in with healthcare. In other words, they are situated within the messy, social-technical practices of healthcare, co-creating data technologies, practices, and politics with healthcare professionals. I suggest exploring these data work practices of data professionals as a matter of care. In this case, entangled practices that involve not only caring for data, but also for healthcare professionals and patients; navigating local needs and demands; entering critical dialogues on data and data representations; and ultimately aiming to save lives with data.

KW - Data work

KW - Business intelligence

KW - Healthcare

KW - Ethnography

KW - data work

KW - Business intelligence

KW - Healthcare

KW - Ethnography

M3 - Conference abstract for conference

T2 - 6th Nordic STS Conference 2023

Y2 - 7 June 2023 through 9 June 2023

ER -