Catching up with rapid technology implementation: mobilities, electronic medical records, and primary care work in the Philippines

Abstract

ABSTRACT There is an increasing demand for the rapid implementation of technologies that can address persisting and evolving needs of the health sector. However, to make technologies work in local health settings, a mutual alignment between technologies and local context is needed. Despite existing scholarship on health technology implementation, few have examined how human and non-human actors move towards technology implementation. Using the mobilities lens, we explore how healthcare providers negotiated the varied and conflicting movements of human and non-human entities in health technology implementation. We draw our findings from the experiences of Filipino primary care workers in implementing electronic medical records (EMR) in rural health units. We argue that conflicting speeds of mobilities make visible the workarounds employed by healthcare providers. These workarounds provide spaces for technology users to perform their routine practices and spaces for technologies to perform its work. Furthermore, we show how attention to mobility and speed reveals how preoccupation with fast-tracked, rapid intervention implementation may undermine the value of technologies in the practice of their intended beneficiaries. We conclude this article by discussing how a focus on mobility can further complicate the discussion on health technology implementation.