Evaluating Personal Health Care and Health Promotion Web Sites

International Journal of Actor-Network Theory and Technological Innovation

2014

Healthcare insurance firms are experimenting with integrating self-managed healthcare elements into their product and service design and making these available through transnational healthcare information systems (THISs). The purpose of this article is to analyze this technology using a socio-technical theoretical lens. Drawing from a longitudinal case study, this paper unravels some of the design controversies presented by a self-managed nutrition technology, designed by a South African healthcare insurance firm for the local and UK market. Using key concepts (inscription, translation, enrollment, delegation, and displacement) from actor-network theory, this paper reveals why, in this context, the traditional face-to-face dietetic practice could not be completely entrusted to a THIS. The results demonstrate that firms are sometimes better off resorting to traditional channels for complex and high contact healthcare interventions. Practitioners need to be aware of potentially ‘tricky' socio-technical entanglements when designing a novel THIS and future researchers must account for the increasing complexity involved in operating these technologies in different national healthcare contexts. Guidelines are offered for firms contemplating off-shoring self-managed healthcare technology developments.

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Unravelling Design Controversies in a Transnational Healthcare Information System

International Journal of Actor-Network Theory and Technological Innovation

2014

“…Consequently, there is a great deal of expectation among national governments, regulators, healthcare organisations, and other stakeholders about the role of the Internet in healthcare service provision. Given the global crisis in healthcare services generally and the funding of healthcare services specifically (World Health Report, 2000), a number of policymakers view the advances in Internet-based self-service technology (SST) as a potential enabler of more efficient and effective healthcare service delivery (Lang & Collen, 2005;Bitner & Brown, 2008). Proponents of consumer-driven healthcare insurance in particular who seek to use the Internet to make consumers more informed about healthcare funding decisions and to reduce the cost of servicing consumers have been actively experimenting in this area (Cannon & Tanner, 2005;Herzlinger & Parsa-Parsi, 2004).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Observing the ‘Fluid’ Continuity of an IT Artefact

International Journal of Actor-Network Theory and Technological Innovation

Leonard

2012

Novel contemporary healthcare information systems offer the prospect of exploring unique features of the IT artefact and probing the finer, integral relations between society, technology, and humans. Some of these IT artefacts are innately complex and current theoretical perspectives are too limited to enrich their understanding. Using material from a longitudinal case study of an Internet-based self-service technology implementation in the private healthcare insurance context, this paper explores various aspects of ‘fluid continuity’ enacted by a technological object. The authors observe the object’s varying identities, its vague boundaries, its unexpected usage patterns, and its resourceful designers. They also analyze both the success and failure of the technological object, its complex and elusive relations, and the way in which it shaped new configurations of practice in the RSA and UK. This paper challenges conventional perspectives of a stable and enduring IT artefact and offers an alternative; it claims that a contemporary IT artefact is not necessarily delineated by firm boundaries or stable relations; instead they can be unpredictable and transitory. This paper furthers the understanding of how researchers can apply post actor network theory (ANT) concepts to study contemporary IT-based artefacts and offers several insights to practitioners on the virtues of a flexible implementation approach.

“…Understanding the strategies of key actors during the implementation journey of these contemporary technologies which radically alters the service encounter is crucial, yet has been a much neglected area. While the literature on implementation is replete with factor-based approaches, which aim to identify a group of variables relevant to ISST implementation outcomes (Naidoo & Leonard, 2007;Lang & Collen, 2005;Pandya & Dholakia, 2005;Zeithaml, Parasuraman, & Malhotra, 2002), some ISST researchers have been calling for the use of multiple theories, concepts, principles and methods to be used in the understanding of ISST problems and issues (Parasuraman & Zinkhan, 2002).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

A Socio-Technical Account of an Internet-Based Self-Service Technology Implementation

International Journal of Actor-Network Theory and Technological Innovation

2010

Despite the rampant growth in technology-based service delivery options, the implementation of these contemporary forms of service channels continues to be risky and problematic for organisations. Current conceptualisations of IS implementation is rather narrow and highlights only particular aspects of this phenomenon. This paper adopts a socio-technical lens to enhance our understanding of the implementation of an Internet-based self-service technology (ISST) at a major South African healthcare insurance firm. Actor-Network theory’s (ANT) key conceptual elements of inscription and translation are used to describe how the design and use of this self-service technology emerged from the co-entanglement between the technological and social. Drawing from a field study, this paper demonstrates the complex interdependencies and interactions among contrasting social, political, economic and technological issues and therefore advances implementation theory for these contemporary service channels in yet another important way.