Aligning Process and Meaning Innovating in Complex Healthcare Delivery Systems

Abstract

For some time now, successive generations of more sophisticated information and communication technologies (ICTs) have been adopted by organisations to enhance or replace more traditional methods of accessing, recording and communicating information used in problem-solving activities. Professionals in most industries have had some experience of the impact of ICT innovation and might be expected to resist innovations which they perceive to have the potential to disrupt crucial processes. This appears particularly likely to occur where there is a substantial tacit knowledge component. In this paper, we report the perceptions of key groups of healthcare professionals of the barriers to adoption of videoconferencing into knowledge-intensive processes mediating high-level problem-solving. While there was some shared perception of the critical problems, the interpretations of the underlying issues differed. The findings give some insight into the conceptualisation issues surrounding innovation management within complex systems which are emerging in the adoption of ICTs. The nature of their impact on pre-existing core communication routines involving high level expertise and tacit knowledge is considered.