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Using the concept of hubots to understand the work entailed in using digital technologies in healthcare

Using the concept of hubots to understand the work entailed in using digital technologies in healthcare
Using the concept of hubots to understand the work entailed in using digital technologies in healthcare
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the human work entailed in the deployment of digital health care technology. It draws on imagined configurations of computers and machines in fiction and social science to think about the relationship between technology and people, and why this makes implementation of digital technology so difficult. The term hubots is employed as a metaphorical device to examine how machines and humans come together to do the work of healthcare.

Design/methodology/approach
This paper uses the fictional depiction of hubots to reconceptualise the deployment of a particular technology – a computer decision support system (CDSS) used in emergency and urgent care services. Data from two ethnographic studies are reanalysed to explore the deployment of digital technologies in health services. These studies used comparative mixed-methods case study approaches to examine the use of the CDSS in eight different English NHS settings. The data include approximately 900 hours of observation, with 64 semi-structured interviews, 47 focus groups, and surveys of some 700 staff in call centres and urgent care centres. The paper reanalyses these data, deductively, using the metaphor of the hubot as an analytical device.

Findings
This paper focuses on the interconnected but paradoxical features of both the fictional hubots and the CDSS. Health care call handling using a CDSS has created a new occupation, and enabled the substitution of some clinical labour. However, at the same time, the introduction of the technology has created additional work. There are more tasks, both physical and emotional, and more training activity is required. Thus, the labour has been intensified.

Practical implications
This paper implies that if we want to realise the promise of digital health care technologies, we need to understand that these technologies substitute for and intensify labour.

Originality/value
This is a novel analysis using a metaphor drawn from fiction. This allows the authors to recognise the human effort required to implement digital technologies.
1477-7266
556-566
Pope, Catherine
21ae1290-0838-4245-adcf-6f901a0d4607
Turnbull, Joanne
cd1f8462-d698-4a90-af82-46c39536694b
Pope, Catherine
21ae1290-0838-4245-adcf-6f901a0d4607
Turnbull, Joanne
cd1f8462-d698-4a90-af82-46c39536694b

Pope, Catherine and Turnbull, Joanne (2017) Using the concept of hubots to understand the work entailed in using digital technologies in healthcare. Journal of Health Organization and Management, 31 (5), 556-566. (doi:10.1108/JHOM-12-2016-0231).

Record type: Article

Abstract

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the human work entailed in the deployment of digital health care technology. It draws on imagined configurations of computers and machines in fiction and social science to think about the relationship between technology and people, and why this makes implementation of digital technology so difficult. The term hubots is employed as a metaphorical device to examine how machines and humans come together to do the work of healthcare.

Design/methodology/approach
This paper uses the fictional depiction of hubots to reconceptualise the deployment of a particular technology – a computer decision support system (CDSS) used in emergency and urgent care services. Data from two ethnographic studies are reanalysed to explore the deployment of digital technologies in health services. These studies used comparative mixed-methods case study approaches to examine the use of the CDSS in eight different English NHS settings. The data include approximately 900 hours of observation, with 64 semi-structured interviews, 47 focus groups, and surveys of some 700 staff in call centres and urgent care centres. The paper reanalyses these data, deductively, using the metaphor of the hubot as an analytical device.

Findings
This paper focuses on the interconnected but paradoxical features of both the fictional hubots and the CDSS. Health care call handling using a CDSS has created a new occupation, and enabled the substitution of some clinical labour. However, at the same time, the introduction of the technology has created additional work. There are more tasks, both physical and emotional, and more training activity is required. Thus, the labour has been intensified.

Practical implications
This paper implies that if we want to realise the promise of digital health care technologies, we need to understand that these technologies substitute for and intensify labour.

Originality/value
This is a novel analysis using a metaphor drawn from fiction. This allows the authors to recognise the human effort required to implement digital technologies.

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More information

Accepted/In Press date: 9 December 2016
e-pub ahead of print date: 21 September 2017
Published date: 21 September 2017
Organisations: Faculty of Health Sciences

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 403808
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/403808
ISSN: 1477-7266
PURE UUID: 997471c5-dddf-40a3-972c-e87e8555bcda
ORCID for Catherine Pope: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-8935-6702
ORCID for Joanne Turnbull: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-5006-4438

Catalogue record

Date deposited: 13 Dec 2016 09:48
Last modified: 16 Mar 2024 02:55

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Contributors

Author: Catherine Pope ORCID iD
Author: Joanne Turnbull ORCID iD

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