HOW LIGHTWEIGHT TECHNOLOGIES SUPPORT DIGITAL INNOVATION IN THE CONTEXT OF PATIENT-CENTERED CARE

A central challenge for healthcare is technology innovation. The literature has reported on the many challenges to IT innovation efforts in hospitals and in digital health services in general. Recently, the increased use of mobile apps, personal devices, web interfaces – so-called lightweight technology – has introduced a novel innovation logic where recombinability seems to emerge as a core capability to enable innovation. However, we still know little about how recombinability supports digital innovation in healthcare. Specifically, we explore the recombinability of lightweight technologies in the context of digital innovation for patient- centeredness. Our research builds on a comparative analysis of two case studies in Scandinavia. The two cases show that recombinability is crucial to enable flexible personalization. We discuss different strategies of recombinability to enable digital innovation for patient-centered health practice

BOUNDED RECOMBINABILITY OF DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES FOR PATIENT-CENTRED CARE

A central challenge for healthcare is technology innovation. The literature has reported on the many challenges to IT innovation efforts in hospitals and in digital health services in general. Recently, the increased use of mobile apps, personal devices, web interfaces – so-called lightweight technology – has introduced a novel innovation logic where recombinability seems to emerge as a core capability to enable innovation. However, we still know little about how recombinability supports digital innovation in healthcare. Specifically, we explore the recombinability of lightweight technologies in the con- text of digital innovation for patient-centeredness. Our research builds on a comparative analysis of two case studies in Scandinavia. The two cases show that recombinability is crucial to enable personalization and the collaborative management of illness between patient and healthcare and it entails reorganizing the healthcare practice. In addition, the findings show that the logic of recombinability was in both cases bounded by the patient and healthcare practice. We discuss bounded recombinability as a logic to maximize the value of digital innovation for a local practice

Strategic Responses to the COVID Pandemic: Empirical Evidence of Shifts in Digital Transformation Strategy

While there have been numerous reports on the increased utilization of digital solutions during the COVID pandemic, this says little about how organizations have reconfigured their digital transformation strategies. In this study, we utilize panel data from a national measurement of digital maturity conducted with over 300 organizations and over 15,000 respondents in the public sector to analyze the effect of the pandemic on the aggregate digital transformation strategy. As the results show, the pandemic was handled through the sequential combination of two unique digital transformation strategies. First, organizations responded by decreasing the emphasis on organizational capabilities and increasing the emphasis on technological capabilities in 2020. Second, organizations shifted over to a strategy that increased emphasis on organizational capabilities and decreased the emphasis on technological capabilities in 2021. This is discussed as an organizational response to exogenous disruption in general and digital transformation strategy in particular

Rhizomatic Strategizing in Digital Transformation: A Clinical Field Study

Most organizations today are involved in transformation initiatives; this has led to a burgeoning interest in the phenomenon of digital transformation strategy. Here, we present the findings of a clinical field study of a large Swedish municipality that has been involved in an ambitious digital transformation program since 2017. Despite explicitly not having a formal strategy, the organization utilizes a pseudo-formalized and emergent strategy-as-practice for digital transformation that involves a set of key traits that have emerged over the years. We show how these traits have emerged and theorize on how the process can be understood as rhizomatic strategizing. The strategy emerges over time through a series of de- and reterritorializations, expanding through amalgamating new concepts into a strategy-as-practice for digital transformation

Proxy Design: A Method for Involving Proxy Users to Speak on Behalf of Vulnerable or Unreachable Users in Co-Design

Designing digital artifacts is not a linear, straightforward process. This is particularly true when applying a user-centered design approach, or co-design, with users who are unable to participate in the design process. Although the reduced participation of a particular user group may harm the end result, the literature on solving this issue is sparse. In this article, proxy design is outlined as a method for involving a user group as proxy users to speak on behalf of a group that is difficult to reach. We present a design ethnography spanning three years at a cancer rehabilitation clinic, where digital artifacts were designed to be used collaboratively by nurses and patients. The empirical data were analyzed using content analysis and consisted of 20 observation days at the clinic, six proxy design workshops, 21 telephone consultations between patients and nurses, and log data from the digital artifact. We show that simulated consultations, with nurses roleplaying as proxies for patients ignited and initiated the design process and enabled an efficient in-depth understanding of patients. Moreover, we reveal how proxy design as a method further expanded the design. We illustrate: (1) proxy design as a method for initiating design, (2) proxy design as an embedded element in co-design and (3) six design guidelines that should be considered when engaging in proxy design. The main contribution is the conceptualization of proxy design as a method that can ignite and initiate the co-design process when important users are unreachable, vulnerable or unable to represent themselves in the co-design process. Based on the empirical findings from a design ethnography that involved nurses as proxy users speaking on behalf of patients, the article shows that roleplaying in proxy design is a fitting way of initiating the design process, outlining proxy design as an embedded element of co-design

The Laptop as an Alibi: Use Patterns of Unfocused Interaction

Based on a qualitative study of laptop-equipped university students, this article investigates the laptop’s role in educational practice. Goffman’s framework on unfocused interaction was used to develop and analyze three use patterns: screen peeking, online tics and screensaver fear. These patterns advance our understanding of laptop use, unfocused interaction and the the role of the laptop in the studied situations. The laptop introduces an interpretative flexibility that allows a greater range of different behaviors relative to the dominant involvement

Being Multisituated : Characterizing laptoping in networked situations

During the last 30 years mobile IT has gone from being an exotic ingredient to an everyday artifact. This thesis presents an ethnographic study of laptop use in a university setting. The thesis concludes that it is no longer enough to describe the use of portable IT as an activity in its own right, i.e. using a laptop computer as an activity similar to reading a book or writing an essay. Additionally, describing a person as merely a user of digital technology fails to capture the intervowenness between the technology, situation, person and other actors. In order to find more nuanced answers about laptop use the thesis discuss what characterize the use of laptops in everyday life. With support from Actor-Network Theory, the Interaction Order and Experiential computing the thesis explores the hybrid combination of a person-laptop. The contribution is a framework of the driving forces behind the laptoper’s everyday activities. Additionally a model of the networked situation is presented, that uncovers the effects of the laptoper over time, that is, the laptoping process. The contribution is a framework with key characteristics and typified interactions where the multisituated and network dimensions are understood as fundamental elements of hybrid interaction