Abstract
Designing technologies is a process that relies on multiple interactions between design and use contexts. These interactions are essential to the development and establishment of technologies. This article seeks to understand the attempts of healthcare organisations to integrate use contexts into the design of healthcare technologies following insights of the theoretical approaches of social learning and user representations. We present a multiple case study of three healthcare technologies involved in improving elderly care practice. These cases were part of a Dutch quality improvement collaborative program, which urged that development of these technologies was not “just” development, but should occur in close collaboration with other parts of the collaborative program, which were more focused on implementation. These cases illustrate different ways to develop technologies in interaction with use contexts and users. Despite the infrastructure of the collaborative program, interactions were not without problems. We conclude by arguing that interactions between design and use are not naturally occurring phenomena, but must be actively organised in order to create effects.
Highlights
In healthcare, just like many other service sectors, there is enduring attention for improving service delivery in durable ways
We undertook a multiple case study, based on our research within a Dutch quality improvement collaborative program for long-term care, called Care for Better (Zorg voor Beter). This approach enabled us to go beyond snapshot studies, because it focuses on multiple projects initiated by multiple healthcare organisations, which we studied at multiple times
The research question of this article is: How can we understand the attempts of healthcare organisations to integrate use perspectives into the design of healthcare technologies? We structure the article in the following way: First, relevant literature on the design-use relation is discussed
Summary
Just like many other service sectors, there is enduring attention for improving service delivery in durable ways. Scholars from a broad range of disciplines, such as innovation studies, organisational studies, science and technology studies and cultural and media studies have for long been involved in trying to understand the relation between design and use and between technologies-in-use, after these have been put on the “market” [1]-[6] Core in this literature is the idea that interactions between design and use are essential to the process of developing and establishing technologies, and user involvement might lead to a more successful uptake of those technologies into their intended contexts [7]. The collaborative program started in 2005 and aimed to improve quality of care at the level of clients and care professionals The evaluation of this collaborative was undertaken by the Department of Health Policy and Management, involving a research team of nine persons, among which the first and third author of this article. Such iterative and reflexive learning approaches show similarities with the social learning approach, that urges for more feedback loops in learning and understanding improvements
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
