Développement de connaissances cliniques pour l’adaptation d’une technologie d’assistance cognitive pour soutenir des personnes ayant un traumatisme crânio-cérébral grave pendant la préparation de repas à domicile

Reconnu comme l’une des principales causes d’invalidité, le traumatisme crânio-cérébral (TCC) est une condition chronique pouvant occasionner des déficits physiques, cognitifs, émotionnels et comportementaux. Ces déficits interfèrent avec la capacité de la personne à s’engager dans ses activités quotidiennes, incluant des activités complexes comme la préparation de repas. Afin de soutenir cette population lors de la préparation de repas, une technologie d’assistance à la cognition (TAC) nommée Cognitive Orthosis for coOKing (COOK) a été développée en partenariat avec une résidence alternative pour des personnes ayant des incapacités graves à la suite d’un TCC. Suivant l’installation de COOK, trois résidents ont été en mesure de préparer des repas de façon sécuritaire et autonome. Toutefois, rien n’est connu sur la façon avec laquelle COOK pourrait répondre aux besoins des personnes ayant eu un TCC et vivant dans la communauté, ni comment cette technologie pourrait offrir de l’assistance personnalisée, minimale et contextualisée pour soutenir cette population. Cette thèse vise donc à développer des connaissances pour soutenir le développement d’une version bonifiée de COOK qui correspondrait aux besoins variés de ces utilisateurs, en répondant à trois objectifs : 1) définir les besoins d’assistance verbale des personnes ayant eu un TCC modéré à grave afin d’améliorer les capacités de personnalisation de COOK; 2) évaluer son utilisabilité et expérience utilisateur en laboratoire et en milieu réel; et 3) identifier les facilitateurs et obstacles pouvant influencer l’implantation de COOK auprès de personnes ayant eu un TCC et vivant dans la communauté. Suivant une démarche de conception centrée sur l’utilisateur, quatre études ont été réalisées : (1) une étude mixte avec transformation des données et analyse d’enregistrements vidéo pour documenter l’assistance verbale offerte à 45 participants ayant un TCC lors de la préparation d’un repas; (2) une étude d’utilisabilité mixte pendant laquelle 10 participants ayant un TCC ont testé COOK en laboratoire; (3) une étude mixte à sujet unique pour évaluer l’utilisabilité de COOK au domicile d’une personne ayant eu un TCC grave; et (4) une étude qualitative descriptive impliquant des personnes ayant eu un TCC, des personnes proches aidantes et des intervenants, pour explorer leurs perceptions quant aux facilitateurs et obstacles à l’implantation de COOK dans leur milieu respectif. La première étude a permis d’identifier neuf types d’assistance cognitive et un type d’assistance motivationnelle, et de documenter les difficultés pour lesquelles les ergothérapeutes offraient de l’assistance. Des enjeux d’utilisabilité ont ensuite été documentés pendant les essais en laboratoire (étude 2) et en milieu réel (étude 3), particulièrement au niveau du système de sécurité autonome. Plusieurs besoins de bonifications technologiques ont aussi été identifiés par les participants (études 2, 3 et 4). Enfin, la quatrième étude a identifié divers facilitateurs (p.ex. les fonctionnalités disponibles dans COOK) et obstacles (p.ex. la logistique entourant l’installation, l’apprentissage et le soutien) à l’implantation de TAC comme COOK pour soutenir les personnes vivant dans la communauté avec un TCC grave. Ultimement, ces connaissances cliniques pourront soutenir le développement continu et l’implantation de TAC comme COOK pour qu’elles répondent aux besoins d’une plus grande population.Defined as one of the main causes of disability, traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a chronic condition that can cause physical, cognitive, emotional, and behavioral deficits. These deficits may interfere with the person's ability to engage in daily activities, including complex activities such as meal preparation. To support this population during meal preparation, an assistive technology for cognition (ATC) called Cognitive Orthosis for coOKing (COOK) was recently developed in collaboration with an alternative residence for people with severe TBI. Following the installation of COOK, three residents were able to prepare meals safely and independently within their home. However, little is known about how COOK could meet the needs of people with TBI living in the community, or how it could provide personalized, minimal and contextualised assistance to support this population. This thesis aimed to develop a knowledge base to support the development of an improved version of COOK that would meet the varied needs of this new population, by meeting three objectives: 1) define the verbal assistance needs of people with moderate to severe TBI to enhance COOK's customization possibilities; 2) evaluate the usability and user experience of COOK in a laboratory setting and in a real-world environment; and 3) identify the facilitators and obstacles that may influence the implementation of COOK within the homes of people with TBI and in clinical settings. Integrated in a user-centered design process, four studies were conducted: (1) a study using conversion mixed design and video data analysis to document the verbal assistance provided to 45 participants with TBI during a meal preparation task; (2) a usability mixed-methods study during which 10 participants with TBI tested COOK in a laboratory setting; (3) a mixed-methods single-case study to assess the usability of COOK with a man with severe TBI living in the community; and (4) a qualitative descriptive study involving people with TBI, caregivers and healthcare professionals, to explore their perceptions of the facilitators and obstacles to the potential implementation of COOK in their respective settings. The first study identified nine types of cognitive assistance and one type of motivational assistance that were provided by occupational therapists to support people with TBI, and documented the difficulties for which these assistances were provided. Several usability issues were also documented when testing COOK in a laboratory setting (study 2) and in a real-world environment (study 3), particularly with the self-monitoring security system. Modification needs were also identified by the participants (studies 2, 3, and 4) to improve COOK. Finally, the fourth study highlighted many facilitators (e.g., the functionalities available in COOK) and obstacles (e.g., the logistics surrounding installation, learning and support of COOK) to consider before implementing ATCs like COOK. Ultimately, this knowledge base will support the continued development and the implementations of ATCs such as COOK to meets the needs of a larger population

Création d'un outil d'aide à la décision sur les niveaux de soins dans une unité de soins intensifs : entre la théorie et la pratique

Lors de l’admission aux soins intensifs, les médecins devraient discuter avec leurs patients des traitements de maintien des fonctions vitales que le patient pourrait nécessiter en cas de dégradation de son état de santé. Les niveaux de soins sont un outil de communication qui permet de traduire les volontés du patient en un plan de traitement cohérent avec ses valeurs, ses préférences et son pronostic vital. En l’absence d’une telle discussion, des interventions qui peuvent prolonger la vie tout en réduisant sa qualité peuvent être utilisées sans le consentement du patient. Le modèle de la prise de décision partagée est recommandé pour faciliter les discussions entre les patients et les médecins à propos des niveaux de soins. Les outils d’aide à la décision peuvent soutenir un processus de prise de décision partagée. Toutefois, il n’existait aucun outil d’aide à la décision en français adapté au contexte d’une unité de soins intensifs francophone au Québec. Ce mémoire présente les étapes ayant mené à la création d’un outil d’aide à la décision sur les niveaux de soins en français adapté au contexte d’une unité de soins intensifs à Lévis, Québec. Nous avons utilisé la conception centrée sur l’utilisateur pour adapter un outil d’aide à la décision sur la réanimation cardiorespiratoire et une règle de prédiction. L’outil d’aide à la décision final comprend: 1) une section de clarification des valeurs; 2) des questions sur l'autonomie fonctionnelle du patient avant son admission à l’unité de soins intensifs et le déclin fonctionnel qu'il jugerait acceptable au congé; 3) les risques et les avantages de la réanimation cardiorespiratoire et de la ventilation mécanique invasive; 4) des statistiques populationnelles sur la réanimation cardiorespiratoire; 5) une section résumé. Nous avons également utilisé un wiki pour programmer un calculateur en ligne de la règle de prédiction Good Outcome Following Attempted Resuscitation que nous avons lié au logiciel de représentation des risques IconArray.com. L’outil final et le calculateur sont disponibles au www.wikidecision.org. Ce mémoire comprend aussi une revue de la littérature scientifique sur les barrières aux discussions de niveaux de soins ainsi que nos observations et réflexions sur les obstacles aux discussions et aux prises de décisions sur les niveaux de soins.Upon admission to an intensive care unit, doctors should engage in a discussion with their patients about the life-sustaining treatments (e.g., cardiopulmonary resuscitation and invasive mechanical ventilation) that could be needed in case of a degradation of their health condition. Documenting levels of care is a communication strategy that helps translate patients’ wishes into a treatment plan that integrates patients’ values, preferences and prognosis. Without such discussions, interventions that prolong life at the cost of decreasing its quality may be used without appropriate guidance from patients. Shared decision making is recommended to facilitate doctors' and patients' discussions about levels of care. Patient decision aids can support shared decision making. However, there existed no French language decision aid adapted to the context of our intensive care unit serving a francophone population in the Province of Quebec. This thesis presents the steps that led to the adaptation of a decision aid about levels of care in a single francophone intensive care unit in Lévis, Québec. We employed user-centered design to adapt a patient decision aid about cardiopulmonary resuscitation and a clinical prediction rule. The final patient decision aid includes: 1) a values-clarification section; 2) questions about the patient’s functional autonomy prior to admission to the ICU and the functional decline that they would judge acceptable upon hospital discharge; 3) risks and benefits of cardiopulmonary resuscitation and mechanical ventilation; 4) population-level statistics about cardiopulmonary resuscitation; and 5) a summary section. We also used a wiki to program an online risk calculator based on the Good Outcome Following Attempted Resuscitation prediction rule that we linked to the IconArray.com risk representation software. The final tool and calculator are available at www.wikidecision.org. This thesis also contains a review of the scientific literature about obstacles to discussions about levels of care. It also includes our observations and our thoughts on the obstacles to discussions about levels of care

The Development and Evaluation of a Learning Electronic Medical Record System

Electronic medical record (EMR) systems are capturing increasing amounts of data per patient. For clinicians to efficiently and accurately understand a patient’s clinical state, better ways are needed to determine when and how to display patient data. The American Medical Association envisions EMR systems that manage information flow and adjust for context, environment, and user preferences. We developed, implemented, and evaluated a prototype Learning EMR (LEMR) system with the aim of helping make this vision a reality. A LEMR system, as we employ the term, observes clinician information seeking behavior and applies it to direct the future display of patient data. The development of this system was divided into five phases. First, we developed a prototype LEMR interface that served as a testing bed for LEMR experimentation. The LEMR interface was evaluated in two studies: a think aloud study and a usability study. The results from these studies were used to iteratively improve the interface. Second, we tested the accuracy of an inexpensive eye-tracking device and developed an automatic method for mapping eye gaze to patient data displayed in the LEMR interface. In the two studies we showed that an inexpensive eye-tracking device can perform as well as a costlier device intended for research and that the automatic mapping method accurately captures the patient information a user is viewing. Third, we collected observations of clinician information seeking behavior in the LEMR system. In three studies we evaluated different observation methods and applied those methods to collect training data. Fourth, we used machine learning on the training data to model clinician information seeking behavior. The models predict information that clinicians will seek in a given clinical context. Fifth, we applied the models to direct the display of patient data in a prospective evaluation of the LEMR system. The evaluation found that the system reduced the amount of time it takes for clinicians to prepare for morning rounds and highlighted about half of the patient data that clinicians seek

Patina: a Method Oriented Design Environment for Parametric Analysis

The central issue to be addressed in this thesis is the provision of support for design tasks that require problem formation and evaluation and some inventive adaptation of products and design strategies. Hitherto, computer tools have failed to support the full range of design tasks. In particular, they have been focused upon solving previously formulated design tasks in well-defined domains where little inventiveness with materials or design strategies is required (Green, 1992a). A solution is offered in the form of an analysis that yields a new class of system, called Method Oriented Design Environments (MODEs), which provide support for some of these more complicated design tasks. An implementation of such a system is presented in the fom1 of Patina: a MODE to support parametric analysis. It is argued that the lack of support for design tasks involving problem formulation, evaluation and inventiveness with components and strategies has partly been due to usage of an overly narrow view of the design process as a basis for system development on the part of developers of knowledge aided design. To provide a more complete orientation for these developers, and 'to expand the theory of knowledge aided design, an alternative model of design tasks is developed in the form of a 'design activity space' by transferring knowledge from the field of design research to that of knowledge aided design. A mapping is constructed between this new design activity space and Green's model space of tools for knowledge aided design (Green, 1992a). The mapping is first used to analyse the range of utility of some recent alternatives to traditional knowledge based systems for design. It is then used to single out a 'niche' of design tasks that are not supported by traditional systems or their more recent alternatives. The design tasks which lie in this niche awaiting support from computer tools share the following characteristics: ( 1) they encompass the activities of analysis, synthesis and evaluation, (2) they require an intermediate degree of innovation with the product, and (3) they require an intermediate degree of innovation in design strategy. The class of tools that are proposed to offer support to tasks in this niche are named MODEs because their defining characteristic is that the majority of their constituent knowledge is derived from a design method or strategy. Therefore the main item that is being represented to the user of a MODE is such a structured method rather than an evolving artefact. This is radically different from the traditional knowledge based tools, where the item being represented is an artefact in a particular domain, and from a recent proposal for systems that depict an unstructured process (Blessing, 1994). To demonstrate the feasibility of implementing a MODE, the implementation of a system called Patina, to support designers in applying the technique of parametric analysis, is reported

L'utilisation des habiletés de pensée pour mieux collaborer : développement, implantation et évaluation d'une approche de pratique réflexive en formation interprofessionnelle

Contexte La collaboration interprofessionnelle (CIP) s'impose maintenant comme une façon incontournable d'offrir des services concertés, coordonnés et cohérents aux personnes, aux proches et aux communautés. La formation interprofessionnelle (FIP) est une approche d'enseignement permettant à des apprenants d'au moins deux disciplines d'apprendre en interaction les uns avec les autres dans une visée d'amélioration de la collaboration et d'optimisation des soins et services. Il existe cependant de nombreux défis à la mise en place d'initiatives de la FIP. Au-delà des difficultés logistiques, différents enjeux psychosociaux peuvent survenir : rapports hiérarchiques entre les groupes d'étudiants, barrières communicationnelles, confrontation d'identités professionnelles ou de philosophies de soins, etc. L'une des voies les plus prometteuses pour faire face à ces enjeux est le recours à la pratique réflexive. La pratique réflexive est reconnue comme étant un facteur clé dans la formation des futurs professionnels en santé et services sociaux. Si son importance est de plus en plus soutenue, on retrouve cependant encore peu d'écrits à ce sujet et les initiatives mises en place sont souvent peu opérationnalisées, non fondées théoriquement ou pauvrement documentées. Objectifs L'objectif général de la thèse vise donc à développer une approche de pratique réflexive adaptée à la FIP et fondée théoriquement afin d'outiller les facilitateurs dans leur rôle et de soutenir la collaboration et les discussions interprofessionnelles entre les participants. Cinq objectifs spécifiques en découlent : 1) Examiner la pertinence au plan théorique et pratique, de la pratique réflexive dans un contexte de FIP; 2) Identifier les principes et caractéristiques à mettre en place pour développer une approche de pratique réflexive fondée théoriquement et adaptée à la FIP; 3) Élaborer une approche de pratique réflexive adaptée à la FIP fondée sur les principes et caractéristiques identifiés; 4) Implanter l'approche de pratique réflexive développée en contexte de FIP auprès des facilitateurs et des participants et 5) Évaluer les retombées de l'implantation de l'approche développée auprès des facilitateurs et des participants. Méthodes Le projet s'appuie sur un devis de recherche action collaborative basé sur une méthodologie de design pédagogique par prototypage issu de l'approche ADDIE (Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, Evaluation), qui comprend des cycles d'analyse, de design, de développement et se termine par une implantation et une évaluation. L'analyse s'est déclinée en trois méthodes : recension réaliste des écrits sur la pratique réflexive en CIP et en FIP, discussion focalisée auprès de facilitateurs impliqués en FIP et analyse de discussions interprofessionnelles entre des étudiants dans un cours de FIP. Des phases de pré-test ont mené au raffinement d'un prototype final. L'implantation de l'approche a été effectuée dans un cours de FIP à l'Université Laval au Québec, Canada. L'évaluation des retombées de l'approche a été basée sur trois méthodes : questionnaire pré-post sur le sentiment d'efficacité personnelle (SEP) envers le soutien des pratiques collaboratives (SEP-CIP) et discussion focalisée chez les facilitateurs et analyse de discussions interprofessionnelles entre les étudiants. Résultats Le projet a mené au développement d'une approche de pratique réflexive adaptée à la FIP intégrant un enseignement explicite du raisonnement (déductif et inductif) et l'utilisation d'habiletés de pensée ciblées pour leur pertinence dans le contexte. Suite à l'implantation de l'approche, les facilitateurs ont développé une plus grande aisance et confiance dans leur rôle et ont appris à diversifier leurs façons d'intervenir en réponse aux besoins des étudiants. Les étudiants, pour leur part, ont appris à questionner leurs collègues et à explorer différentes perspectives, ce qui n'était pas le cas avant l'implantation alors qu'ils arrivaient à des consensus sans examen ou évaluation des différentes propositions et sans exploration du rationnel les sous-tendant. Les étudiants ont appris à expliciter le raisonnement et les hypothèses sur lesquelles ils s'appuyaient dans leurs propositions et à construire, ensemble, un raisonnement clinique collaboration permettant une réponse plus cohérente et concertée aux besoins de la personne. Conclusion L'enseignement explicite et l'utilisation du raisonnement et des habiletés de pensée en FIP permettent de mobiliser une pratique réflexive collaborative en cours de discussion interprofessionnelle. L'utilisation des habiletés de pensée permettent à l'équipe de se remettre en question et de cheminer vers un but commun en conciliant les différents points de vue. La rigueur du dialogue qui en découle permet en ce sens de discuter des cas cliniques dans une perspective centrée sur les besoins de la personne et de ses proches.Context Interprofessional collaboration (IPC) is now established as a necessary way to provide concerted, coordinated, and consistent services to individuals, families, and communities. Interprofessional education (IPE) is a teaching approach that allows students from two or more professions to learn by interacting with each other in order to improve collaboration and optimize care and services. However, implementing IPE initiatives comes up against numerous difficulties. Aside from the challenge of logistics, various psychosocial issues can arise, including hierarchical relationships between groups of students, communication barriers, and confrontation of professional identities or philosophies of care. One of the most promising ways to address these issues is the use of reflective practice. Reflective practice is considered to be a key factor in the training of future health and social services professionals. Despite a growing recognition of its importance, the literature on the subject is still scarce and the initiatives implemented are often hardly operationalized, theoretically unfounded, or poorly documented. Aims The general objective of the thesis is therefore to develop a theoretically grounded reflective practice approach that is tailored to the needs of IPE in order to support facilitators in their role and to promote interprofessional collaboration and discussion among participants. This overarching purpose translates into five specific objectives: 1) Examining the theoretical and practical pertinence of reflective practice in the IPE context; 2) Identifying the principles and characteristics that should underlie the development of a reflective practice approach in order to ensure that it is theoretically sound and suited to IPE; 3) Developing an IPE-specific reflective practice approach based on the principles and characteristics identified; 4) Implementing the reflective practice approach developed with facilitators and participants in a context of IPE; and 5) Evaluating the impact of the approach implemented on facilitators and participants. Methods The project is based on collaborative action research using a pedagogical design-based research methodology through prototyping derived from the ADDIE approach (Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, Evaluation), which includes cycles of analysis, design, development, and finally implementation and evaluation. The analysis was carried out using three methods: realistic review of the literature on reflective practice in IPC and IPE, focus group discussion with facilitators involved in IPE, and analysis of interprofessional discussions among students in the context of an IPE course. The prototype was fine-tuned following pre-testing. The approach developed was implemented in an IPE course at Laval University in Québec City, Canada. Three different methods were used to evaluate the impact of the approach: pre-post questionnaire on self-efficacy, focus group discussion among facilitators, and analysis of interprofessional discussions among students. Results The project led to the development of a reflective practice approach that is suited to IPE and that integrates explicit teaching of reasoning (deductive and inductive) and use of a number of thinking skills targeted for their relevance to the context. Following the implementation of the approach, facilitators developed greater ease and confidence in their role and learned to diversify their ways of responding to student needs. Students, for their part, began to explore their colleagues' perspectives and ask questions, in contrast to how they proceeded before the implementation of the approach, i.e. arriving at a consensus without examining and evaluating the various views, or exploring the rationale behind the proposals on hand. Students also learned to make explicit the reasoning and assumptions on which they based their suggestions and to build, together, collaborative clinical reasoning that is conducive to a more consistent and concerted response to the needs of the individual. Conclusion Explicit teaching and the use of reasoning and thinking skills in IPE foster the development of collaborative reflective practice in interprofessional discussion. The use of thinking skills enables the members of a team to challenge themselves and move toward a common goal by bridging differing perspectives. The rigour of the resulting dialogue contributes to centering the discussion of clinical cases on the needs of the individual and his or her friends and famil

La collaboration interprofessionnelle au sein de communautés de pratique œuvrant auprès de patients atteints de maladies chroniques : synthèse des expériences rapportées dans la littérature

Le système de santé est aujourd’hui marqué d’une complexité attribuable aux maladies chroniques, dont la hausse anticipée de la prévalence génère l’urgence d’une organisation et d’une approche différentes des services dispensés. Ce réaménagement des soins de santé fait appel à un changement de paradigme basé sur la collaboration interprofessionnelle et l’ouverture à l’incertitude, aptes à favoriser une mise en commun des connaissances. Dans cette perspective, les communautés de pratique (CdeP) semblent un moyen qui favorise le développement de la collaboration interprofessionnelle et le partage des connaissances. Elles apparaissent donc comme une formule qui mérite une investigation, à savoir si elles peuvent favoriser une telle collaboration et faciliter la co-construction de connaissances permettant une pratique évolutive, centrée sur le patient. Notre recherche s’inscrit dans cette optique et s’intéresse aux expériences, rapportées dans la littérature, de collaboration interprofessionnelle au sein de communautés de pratique centrées sur le patient atteint de maladie chronique. Pour ce faire, nous avons d’abord développé un cadre conceptuel visant à identifier les fondements théoriques et conceptuels de la notion de communauté de pratique. Ceci nous a amené à : 1) analyser l’évolution du concept de CdeP dans les principales œuvres de Wenger et de ses collaborateurs; 2) positionner les CdeP eu égard à d’autres formules de travail collaboratif (communauté, communauté d’apprentissage, communauté apprenante, organisation apprenante, communauté épistémique); 3) comparer le concept de collaboration avec d’autres s’en rapprochant (coopération notamment), de même que les notions d’interdisciplinarité et d’interprofessionnalité souvent associées à celle de CdeP; 4) étayer les dimensions cognitive et collaborative inhérentes aux expériences de CdeP; et 5) identifier les avancées et les limites attribuées à la mise en application du concept de CdeP dans le domaine de la santé. La métasynthèse (Beaucher et Jutras, 2007) dans une approche « compréhensive interprétative », s’est imposée comme méthode appropriée à notre intention de mieux saisir les expériences de collaboration interprofessionnelle menées dans le cadre des CdeP dans le domaine de la santé. La métasynthèse nous a ainsi permis d’obtenir une vue d’ensemble de la littérature portant sur les CdeP dans le domaine de la santé et de catégoriser les 194 articles rassemblés, pour ensuite retenir 13 articles traitant d’une réelle expérience de CdeP. Ainsi, dans une perspective contributoire, basée sur notre cadre conceptuel, l’analyse des principaux résultats de la métasynthèse, nous a permis 1) d’identifier les flous conceptuels liés aux expériences de CdeP rapportées, ainsi que 2) de dégager les retombées et les difficultés de leur mise en application dans le domaine de la santé et, enfin, 3) de démontrer la nécessité de mener des recherches visant l’étude du processus de développement de CdeP sur le terrain de la pratique de soins, notamment mais non exclusivement, lorsqu’il s’agit de maladies chroniques.Today’s health system is increasingly complex due to the growth of chronic illnesses. The anticipated increase in the prevalence of chronic illnesses means there is an urgent need for a different type of organization and approach to providing services to the patient. This adjustment in health care delivery calls for a paradigm shift based on inter-professional collaboration and openness to uncertainty, which will in turn facilitate knowledge sharing. In this regard, communities of Practice (CoP) appear to be a way to facilitate the development of inter-professional collaboration and the sharing of knowledge, and therefore merit further investigation in order to determine whether or not they can foster such collaboration and facilitate the co-construction of knowledge leading to an evolving practice that is patient oriented and adapted to complexity. Our research is consistent with this view and is driven by an interest in the interprofessional collaboration experiences, as reported in litterature, that have taken place as part of communities of practice and have centred on patients suffering from chronic illnesses. In order to achieve this, we first developed a conceptual framework with the aim of identifying the theoretical and conceptual foundations of communities of practice. This has led us to 1) analyze the evolution of the concept of communities of practice in the major works of Wenger and of his collaborators; 2) position communities of practice by comparing them to other forms of collaborative work with which they are frequently associated and even substituted or mistaken for in the literature (such as community, learning community, learning organization, epistemic community); 3) compare the concept of collaboration with other similar concepts (including collaboration), as well as the notions of interdisciplinarity and inter-professionalism often associated with communities of practice; 4) support the cognitive and collaborative dimensions inherent to communitied of practice; and 5) identify the advances and limitations attributed to the implementation of the concept of communities of practice in the health field. Metasynthesis (Beaucher et Jutras, 2007) ), as part of a ‘‘comprehensive interpretative’’ approach, was determined to be the most appropriate research method for understanding the experiences of interprofessional collaboration as part of communities of Practice in the health field.. Metasynthesis provided us with an overview of the literature on the subject of CoP in the health field and allowed us to create a topology of the 194 collected articles. This overview led to the selection of 13 articles describing real experiences of CoPs. As such, in terms of contribution, this metasynthesis enabled us to 1) identify the reported conceptual vagueness associated with the implementation of CoPs; 2) identify the benefits and challenges of their implementation in the field of health; and 3) demonstrate that further research on the development process of communities of practice in the field of care practice, including but not limited to situations involving chronic illnesses, is necessary

The conceptual design of 3D miniaturised / integrated products as examined through the development of a novel red blood cell / plasma separation device

This thesis was submitted for the award of Doctor of Philosophy and was awarded by Brunel University LondonThe aim of this research is to examine the conceptual design issues concerned with integrating product capabilities that can only be generated at the micro- scale (through feature sizes generally of the order of 100nm to 100μm) directly into 3-dimensional products at the macro-scale. Such macro-scale products could accordingly contain internal devices that are too small to be seen or touched by unaided human designers, which begs the question as to how to enable designers to work with objects which are beyond direct human experience, and how can the necessary collective discussion take place within teams of designers, and between these teams and those responsible for product manufacture? This thesis examines and tests a concept that theoretical 2-dimensional diagrams of function may be transformed into 3-dimensional working structures using procedures allied to those used by graphic designers to create solid objects from 2-dimensional prototype geometries through, for example, extrusion or rotation. Applying such procedures to theoretical diagrams in order to transform them into scalable 3-dimensional devices is not yet in general use at the macro-scale, but with increasing recognition of the unique capabilities of the micro- scale the idea may grow in appeal to alleviate the difficulties of conceiving of functional structures that, when built, will be too small to experience directly. Furthermore this design method, through its basis upon a common currency of functional diagrams, may overcome many of the problems of describing and discussing the design and manufacture of normally intangible objects in 3 dimensions. Finally, it is shown through the example of a novel Red Blood Cell / Plasma Separation Device that the geometric transformation process can lead to the design of functional structures which would not readily be arrived at intuitively, and that may be effectively and efficiently integrated into host products

Memory as Concept and Design in Digital Recording Devices

This thesis focuses on scientists and technologies brought together around the desire to improve fallible human memory. Based on extended ethnographic fieldwork, it considers interdisciplinary collaborations among experts who design recording and archiving technologies that seek to maintain, extend, and commemorate life. How are everyday experiences translated as information, and for what purpose? How are our habits of drinking tea, talking on the phone, driving to work, and reminiscing with old photographs, turned into something that can be stored, analyzed and acted upon? How might information be used in real time to supplement the living in a recursive feedback loop? By addressing these questions, I reveal how these memory banks are inherently tied to logics of capital, of stock and storage, and to logics of the technological where, when it comes to memory, more is more. The first sections that make up this dissertation shift in scale from the micro to the macro: from historical national endeavors that turned ordinary citizens into a sensors and collectors of the mundane, to contemporary computational projects designed to store, organize and retrieve vast amounts of information. The second half of this dissertation focuses on two extreme cases of lifelogging that make use of prototypical recording technologies: Gordon Bell, who is on a quest to record his life for the sake of increased objectivity, productivity, and digital posterity, and Mrs. B, a woman who suffers from amnesia and records her life in the hopes of leading a normal life in which she can share the past with loved ones. Through these case studies, I show how new recording technologies are both a symptom of, and a cure for, anxieties about time. By focusing on the design of new objects and by addressing contemporary debates on the intentions that govern the making of recording machines, I examine how technologies take shape, and how they inform understandings of memory and the self as well as notions of human disability and enhancement. In short, I show that the past, as well as the present and the future, are always discursively, practically, and technologically informed