3 research outputs found
Analysing healthcare coordination using translational mobilization
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to introduce translational mobilization theory (TMT) and explore its application for healthcare quality improvement purposes. Design/methodology/approach TMT is a generic sociological theory that explains how projects of collective action are progressed in complex organizational contexts. This paper introduces TMT, outlines its ontological assumptions and core components, and explores its potential value for quality improvement using rescue trajectories as an illustrative case. Findings TMT has value for understanding coordination and collaboration in healthcare. Inviting a radical reconceptualization of healthcare organization, its potential applications include: mapping healthcare processes, understanding the role of artifacts in healthcare work, analyzing the relationship between content, context and implementation, program theory development and providing a comparative framework for supporting cross-sector learning. Originality/value Poor coordination and collaboration are well-recognized weaknesses in modern healthcare systems and represent important risks to quality and safety. While the organization and delivery of healthcare has been widely studied, and there is an extensive literature on team and inter-professional working, we lack readily accessible theoretical frameworks for analyzing collaborative work practices. TMT addresses this gap in understanding
A formal framework for the specification of interactive systems
We are primarily concerned with interactive systems whose behaviour is highly reliant on end
user activity. A framework for describing and synthesising such systems is developed. This
consists of a functional description of the capabilities of a system together with a means of
expressing its desired 'usability'. Previous work in this area has concentrated on capturing
'usability properties' in discrete mathematical models.
We propose notations for describing systems in a 'requirements' style and a 'specification'
style. The requirements style is based on a simple temporal logic and the specification style is
based on Lamport's Temporal Logic of Actions (TLA) [74]. System functionality is specified as
a collection of 'reactions', the temporal composition of which define the behaviour of the system.
By observing and analysing interactions it is possible to determine how 'well' a user performs
a given task. We argue that a 'usable' system is one that encourages users to perform their tasks
efficiently (i.e. to consistently perform their tasks well) hence a system in which users perform
their tasks well in a consistent manner is likely to be a usable system.
The use of a given functionality linked with different user interfaces then gives a means
by which interfaces (and other aspects) can be compared and suggests how they might be
harnessed to bias system use so as to encourage the desired user behaviour. Normalising across
different users anq different tasks moves us away from the discrete nature of reactions and
hence to comfortably describe the use of a system we employ probabilistic rather than discrete
mathematics.
We illustrate that framework with worked examples and propose an agenda for further work
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A Metaphysics of Artifacts: Essence and Mind-Dependence
My dissertation explores the nature of artifacts β things like chairs, tables, and pinball machines β and addresses the question of whether there is anything essential to being an artifact and a member of a particular artifact kind. My dissertation offers new arguments against both the anti-essentialist and current essentialist proposals. Roughly put, the view is that artifacts are successful products of an intention to make something with certain features constitutive of an artifact kind. The constitutive features are often functional features, but may include structural, material, aesthetic, and other features. I further explore the ways in which artifacts are mind-dependent and I argue that this dependence is disjunctive. Not only do they depend on the intentions of their makers, but they also can depend on social groups or public norms and thus artifacts have an importantly social dimension and I argue that this disjunctive account applies not to artifact kinds but to individual artifacts depending on their context of creation