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Socio-technical Betwixtness: Design Rationales for Health Care IT

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This chapter focusses on two challenges for socio-technical design: Having to choose between different rationales for design, and the adequate understanding and depiction of the work to be redesigned. These two challenges betwixt the otherwise strong tenets of socio-technical design of pointing out the intrinsically social and technical interwovenness of design, and the necessity of including affected people and stakeholders in the design process. This betwixtness of socio-technical design is demonstrated by the analysis of two IT systems for healthcare: a foundational model for electronic healthcare records, and an IT system organizing hospital porters’ work. The conceptual background for the analysis of the cases is provided by a short introduction to different rationales for organizational design, and by pointing to the differences between a linear, rationalistic versus an interactional depiction of work.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationDesigning Healthcare That Works : A Sociotechnical Approach
EditorsMark S. Ackerman, Sean Goggins, Thomas Herrmann, Michael Prilla, Christian Stary
Number of pages18
Place of publicationLondon, San Diego
PublisherAcademic Press
Publication year2017
Edition1st Edition
Pages77-94
Chapter5
ISBN (print)ISBN-13: 978-0128125830, ISBN-10: 0128125837
Publication statusPublished - 2017

    Research areas

  • clinical work, electronic health records, hospital porters, problem-oriented records, representations of work, socio-technical design, task management system, user involvement

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