Municipal healthcare professionals’ experiences as end-users in the digital-transformed healthcare
Author(s): Gloria Ziglioli
Thursday 15 | 10:00-10:20
Room: TP51
Session: Care and technologies in a digitalised society
Given the unprecedent technological development, a remarkable body of literature that examines digital technologies in the healthcare services domain is expanding. As digitalization is capillary flooding welfare services, unpacking the rationality(s) behind such digital transformation and the implications for political and legal responses, care practice and relations, healthcare services’ professionals and users, and citizens in general is vital. The study presented here belongs to the domain of critical digital health studies, positioning digital health technologies as “sociocultural products located within pre-established circuits of discourse and meaning” (Lupton, 2014: 1349).
In particular, the paper interrogates the meanings and the uses of a specific digital application from the perspective of the municipal, home-based healthcare services’ professionals working in Kristiansand (south of Norway). The municipal healthcare staff appears a valuable unit of analysis – that often is overlooked in the literature (Borg et al., 2023). Considering them as users of welfare technology, as well as facilitators has become crucial (Saborowski & Kollak, 2015) for deeper understanding the cultural transformation of care by means of digital health technologies.
When healthcare workers have been met and interviewed, the application was in the test phase as part of a broader regional project pointing to develop a seamless solution for welfare technology and digital home monitoring, while also reconfiguring the role and the responsibilities of municipal healthcare services.
The main findings from the qualitative study will be presented and discussed, touching upon the digital divide among the healthcare professionals (both nurses and healthcare workers) and technological resistance as elements that might have an impact in accepting and successfully integrating innovative digital solutions in the healthcare services. The presentation also extends to the discussion of healthcare personnel’s perceptions of their new role produced by the presence of welfare technology, and the trade-offs in negotiating patients’ engagement, technical experts’ knowledge and institutions’ purposes.