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Changes in healthcare professional work afforded by technology: the introduction of a national electronic patient record in an English hospital

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  • Petrakaki, Dimitra
  • Klecun, Ela
  • Cornford, Tony

Abstract

This article considers changes in healthcare professional work afforded by technology. It uses the sociology of professionals’ literature together with a theory of affordances to examine how and when technology allows change in healthcare professional work. The study draws from research into the introduction of a national electronic patient record in an English hospital. We argue that electronic patient record affords changes through its materiality as it interacts with healthcare professional practice. Its affordances entail some level of standardisation of healthcare professional conduct and practice, curtailment of professional autonomy, enlargement of nurses’ roles and redistribution of clinical work within and across professional boundaries. The article makes a contribution to the growing literature advocating a cultural approach to the study of technological affordances in organisations and to studies that explore healthcare professional practice in conjunction with the materiality of technology. Two main lines of argument are developed here. First, that technological affordances do not solely lie with the materiality of technology nor with individual perceptions, but are cultivated and nurtured within a broader cultural–institutional context, in our case a professional context of use. Second, that technological affordance of change is realised when healthcare professionals’ (individual and collective) perceptions of technology (and of its materiality) fit with their sense of (professional) self. In this respect, the article shows the extent to which the materiality of technology plays out with professional identity and frames the level and extent to which technology can and cannot afford restructuring of work and redistribution of power across professional groups.

Suggested Citation

  • Petrakaki, Dimitra & Klecun, Ela & Cornford, Tony, 2016. "Changes in healthcare professional work afforded by technology: the introduction of a national electronic patient record in an English hospital," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 59475, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
  • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:59475
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    File URL: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/59475/
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Standing, Holly & Patterson, Rebecca & Dalkin, Sonia & Exley, Catherine & Brittain, Katie, 2020. "A critical exploration of professional jurisdictions and role boundaries in inter-professional end-of-life care in the community," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 266(C).
    2. Hauge, Amalie Martinus, 2018. "Situated valuations: Affordances of management technologies in organizations," Scandinavian Journal of Management, Elsevier, vol. 34(3), pages 245-255.
    3. Carboni, Chiara & Wehrens, Rik & van der Veen, Romke & de Bont, Antoinette, 2022. "Conceptualizing the digitalization of healthcare work: A metaphor-based Critical Interpretive Synthesis," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 292(C).
    4. Masashi Goto, 2021. "Accepting the Future as Unforeseeable: Sensemaking by Professionals in the Rise of Artificial Intelligence," Discussion Paper Series DP2021-05, Research Institute for Economics & Business Administration, Kobe University.
    5. Gill, Michael J. & Naughton, Bernard D. & Field, Megan & Shaw, Sara E., 2024. "Perceptions of impure innovation: Health professionals’ experiences and management of stigmatization when working as digital innovators," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 360(C).
    6. Michiel Bal & Jos Benders & Lander Vermeerbergen, 2022. "‘Bringing the Covert into the Open’: A Case Study on Technology Appropriation and Continuous Improvement," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(10), pages 1-17, May.
    7. Ghis Malfilatre, Marie & Louvel, Séverine, 2025. "A medical profession towards empowerment? The uncertain future of digitalization in private general practice," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 365(C).
    8. Masashi Goto, 2020. "Theorization of Institutional Change in the Rise of Artificial Intelligence," Discussion Paper Series DP2020-12, Research Institute for Economics & Business Administration, Kobe University.

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    JEL classification:

    • J50 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor-Management Relations, Trade Unions, and Collective Bargaining - - - General

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