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 language
English
Title of host publication
Designing Healthcare That Works : A Sociotechnical Approach
Editors
Mark S. Ackerman, Sean Goggins, Thomas Herrmann, Michael Prilla, Christian Stary
Number of pages
18
Place of publication
London, San Diego
Publisher
Academic Press
Publication year
2017
Edition
1st Edition
Pages
77-94
Chapter
5
ISBN (print)
ISBN-13: 978-0128125830, ISBN-10: 0128125837
Publication status
Published - 2017
Research areas
clinical work, electronic health records, hospital porters, problem-oriented records, representations of work, socio-technical design, task management system, user involvement