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M. Berg, J. Aarts, J. van der Lei

ICT in Health Care: Sociotechnical Approaches

The importance of the social sciences for medical informatics is increasingly recognized. As ICT requires inter-action with people and thereby inevitably affects them, understanding ICT requires a focus on the interrelation between technology and its social environment. Sociotechnical approaches increase our understanding of how ICT applications are developed, introduced and become a part of social practices. Socio-technical approaches share several starting points: 1) they see health care work as a social, real life phenomenon, which may seem messy at first, but which is guided by a practical rationality that can only be overlooked at a high price (i.e. failed systems). 2) They see technological innovation as a social process, in which organizations are deeply affected. 3) Through in-depth, formative evaluation, they can help improve system design and implementation.

Methods of Information in Medicine, Schattauer

Print ISSN: 0026-1270
Volume: 42, 01/2003
Pages: 297 - 301

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