Driving Digital Transformation During a Pandemic: Case Study of Virtual Collaboration in a German Hospital

Abstract

Background The COVID-19 pandemic has not only changed the private lives of millions of people but has significantly affected the collaboration of medical specialists throughout health care systems worldwide. Hospitals are making changes to their regular operations to slow the spread of SARS-CoV-2 while ensuring the treatment of emergency patients. These substantial changes affect the typical work setting of clinicians and require the implementation of organizational arrangements. Objective In this study, we aim to increase our understanding of how digital transformation drives virtual collaboration among clinicians in hospitals in times of crisis, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods We present the lessons learned from an exploratory case study in which we observed the introduction of an information technology (IT) system for enhancing collaboration among clinicians in a German hospital. The results are based on 16 semistructured interviews with physicians from various departments and disciplines; the interviews were generalized to better understand and interpret the meaning of the statements. Results Three key lessons and recommendations explain how digital transformation ensures goal-driven collaboration among clinicians. First, we found that implementing a disruptive change requires alignment of the mindsets of the stakeholders. Second, IT-enabled collaboration presupposes behavioral rules that must be followed. Third, transforming antiquated processes demands a suitable technological infrastructure. Conclusions Digital transformation is being driven by the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the rapid introduction of IT-enabled collaboration reveals grievances concerning the digital dissemination of medical information along the patient treatment path. To avoid being caught unprepared by future crises, digital transformation must be further driven to ensure collaboration, and the diagnostic and therapeutic process must be opened to disruptive strategies.

Change Management and Digital Innovations in Hospitals of Five European Countries

“…There are some factors that can be controlled and might have a positive impact on the result of change implementation: above all, leading and managing with a clear vision, engaging all stakeholders early and with clear rules, setting up communication channels and strategies, adapting to the local context, providing a technical base, proceeding step by step, and regularly seeking feedback including monitoring [102,129,135,136].…”

Collaborating with Virtual Assistants in Organizations: Analyzing Social Loafing Tendencies and Responsibility Attribution

“…Throughout decades of fundamental research, several terms evolved for systems behaving alike. Popular terms that are related to VAs and found in theory and practice are chatbots (Stieglitz et al, 2018 ), digital assistants (Maedche et al, 2019 ) and conversational agents (Frick et al, 2021a , 2021b , 2021c ). Scholars examined VAs from different perspectives (e.g., Luger & Sellen, 2016 ; Saffarizadeh et al 2017; Seeber et al, 2018 ).…”

“…In virtual collaboration, VAs use multiple communication styles, such as written or spoken natural language, and are capable to interpret and react to gestures or facial expressions (Laumer et al, 2019 ; Nakano & Fukuhara, 2012 ). They adapt to users with varying roles by addressing them via different languages (Gnewuch et al, 2020 ; Pfeuffer et al, 2019 ), interpret emotions of individual team members (McDuff & Czerwinski, 2018 ) and foster disclosing of relevant information (Frick et al, 2021a , 2021b , 2021c ). VAs are further inherently anthropomorphic since they use verbal, visual, auditory, and invisible social cues, for instance jokes, facial expression, laughing and response time, which makes users feel like talking to another human (Feine et al, 2019 ; Hussain et al, 2019 ; Pfeuffer et al, 2019 ).…”

“…Many teams in organizations collaborate in virtual teams, which might even be globally distributed (Andres & Shipps, 2019 ; Hassell & Cotton, 2017 ; Massey et al, 2003 ; Plotnick et al, 2016 ). Virtual collaboration happens through using simple tools such as Microsoft Teams or Slack (N. R. J. Frick, et al, 2021a , 2021b , 2021c ) and reaches to computer-generated virtual realities (Fromm et al, 2020 ; Litvinova et al, 2018 ). Existing research takes the standpoint that employees and VAs collaboratively working in virtual teams exert greater results (Seeber, et al, 2020b ; Waizenegger et al, 2020 ).…”

Artificial intelligence in disease diagnostics: A critical review and classification on the current state of research guiding future direction

“…Medical specialists' available time is usually limited [2,3] and diseases might evolve and patient dynamics change over time [6,7] making diagnostics a highly complex process [8,9]. However, an accurate diagnostic process is of central relevance to insure timely treatment and, thus, to achieve safe and effective patient care [10,11].…”