Kia Halvorsen og Katja Prause: Digitalization of coordination mechanisms: An ethnographic analysis of the feasibility of digitizing key artifacts used in the coordination among three hospital wards. - Master Thesis in Danish [Digitalisering af koordinationsmekanismer: En etnografisk analyse af mulighederne for at digitalisere centrale artefakter brugt i samordningen mellem tre hospitalsafdelinger], IT University of Copenhagen 2002. - Download thesis.
In the design of technologies that support articulation work, it is interesting to focus upon the artifacts that are used in the work. This paper investigates coordinating artifacts within a hospital setting enabling us to examine and discuss how the artifacts play an important role in designing technologies that support cooperation.
The study is based on ethnographic studies undertaken at three hospital wards at Rigshospitalet in Copenhagen. The wards, studied were an intensive care unit, an operating theatre and a standard unit. The operation theatre performs heart and lung operations on critical patients. When a patient is being admitted to the hospital they are hospitalized at the standard unit, where they spend a short amount of time before surgery. After surgery the patient is transferred to the intensive care unit where they stay for 24 hours or until they are well enough to return to the standard unit. The patients remain here until they are released. The three wards have to coordinate with each other in order to get the patient through the system.
In the coordination work central artifacts are being used. The paper shows a sophisticated use of two central artifacts in the coordination process between the wards. The artifacts being the plan of operations and the 24-hour schedule over nurses and patients at the intensive care unit. We argue how both artifacts can bee seen as coordination mechanisms and how the plan of operations can be perceived of as a boundary object.
Based upon the detailed analysis of the artifacts the paper argues how artifacts as coordination mechanisms play a vital role in designing CSCW-technologies. We discuss how a system will support the actors in some of their coordination tasks but also how it raises critical questions. Finally the thesis discusses the meaning of negotiation in articulation work.