Procedures and Collaborative Information Seeking: A Study of Emergency Departments

Hertzum, Morten; Reddy, Madhusudhana C

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-18988-8_4

Cited by 9 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 30 publications

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“…To spell out how a procedure facilitates situated action each information-seeking instance may be viewed as a specific configuration of components -such as information need, people, completion criteria, location, and time -that have to be properly integrated to succeed. Hertzum and Reddy (2015) argue that procedures facilitate information seeking by pre-specifying some of these components. Thereby, fewer components require ad hoc specification.…”

Section: Workplace Proceduresmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Relatedly, the timeout procedure specifies where and when the physicians meet to walk through the patients but for example leaves unspecified what information to look for, what criteria to apply in interpreting it, and how to divide the limited duration of the timeout among the patients. By pre-specifying (Hertzum & Reddy, 2015) some of the components in triage and timeouts the procedures structure and simplify the clinicians' performance of these tasks. But the clinicians' professional knowledge and experience remain critical to their competent application of the procedures.…”

Section: Novicesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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How is professionals’ information seeking shaped by workplace procedures? A study of healthcare clinicians

Hertzum

Simonsen

2019

Information Processing & Management

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Professional work is often regulated by procedures that shape the information seeking involved in performing a task. Yet, research on professionals' information seeking tends to bypass procedures and depict information seeking as an informal activity. In this study we analyze two healthcare tasks governed by procedures: triage and timeouts. While information seeking is central to both procedures, we find that the coordinating nurses rarely engage in information seeking when they triage patients. Inversely, the physicians value convening for timeouts to seek information. To explain these findings we distinguish between junior and expert professionals and between uncertain and equivocal tasks. The triage procedure specifies which information to retrieve but expert professionals such as the coordinating nurses tend to perform triage, which is an uncertain task, by holistic pattern recognition rather than information seeking. For timeouts, which target an equivocal task, the procedure facilitates information seeking by creating a space for open-ended collaborative reflection. Both junior and expert physicians temporarily suspend patient treatment in favor of this opportunity to reflect on their actions, though partly for different reasons. We discuss implications for models of professionals' information seeking.

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Section: Workplace Proceduresmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Novicesmentioning

confidence: 99%

How is professionals’ information seeking shaped by workplace procedures? A study of healthcare clinicians

Hertzum

Simonsen

2019

Information Processing & Management

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“…Although previous research in public sector organizations has reported the use of various arrangements for information intermediation in employees daily work (cf. Frederiksen and Hansen, 2022;Hertzum and Reddy, 2015;K€ ans€ akoski, 2017), our identification of the intertwined role of fixed and flexible gatekeeping structures that support public service delivery is a novel contribution to the fields of information management and public administration.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gatekeeping structures and trust development in public sector organizations

Norkin,

Byström

2023

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PurposeThis paper aims to examine the interaction between gatekeeping and trust in a public sector organization, where employees at lower hierarchical levels are expected to autonomously translate and transform directives into public services. This requires them to have access to operational steering information, i.e. information about directives and how to interpret and apply them. This study focuses on how gatekeeping structures regulate flows of operational steering information and how the gatekeeping structures affect the development of trust.Design/methodology/approachThe research design is qualitative. The data material consisted of semi-structured interviews with 26 employees in home care and schools and of eight complementary nonparticipant observations. Thematic analysis revealed the presence of static and dynamic gatekeeping structures, which are characterized by fixed and variable arrangements of information sources and channels, respectively.FindingsIn static gatekeeping structures, managers or domain experts typically act as gatekeepers, and employees also perform gatekeeping activities collectively. Gatekeeping structures allow employees to switch between acting as gatekeepers and being gated, depending on the situation. The results show that gatekeeping structures for intermediation of operational steering information may support or impede employees' work, thus affecting their trust in their peers and their work organization.Research limitations/implicationsAlthough the present study included both interviews and observations, these primarily occurred within scheduled and prearranged activities rather than capturing the nuances of the typical daily work of teachers and home care employees. As a result, certain perspectives may have been unintentionally omitted.Practical implicationsThe participants were recruited through the City of Oslo contact people, which may have impacted their status or perception in some way. Moreover, the study was conducted in the City of Oslo, a specific organization with its own unique set of values, norms and processes. The trust-based management in the City of Oslo is likely not representative of all public sector organizations.Originality/valueThis study contributes conceptually by introducing gatekeeping structures and operational steering information and empirically by providing evidence of their relationship to trust development in public service delivery. Thus, it contributes to the research fields of information management and public administration.

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“…In addition to being an information display, the whiteboard also creates a physical place where actors meet [13]. They may visit the area around the whiteboard to interact with the whiteboard or to consult a colleague, who is there to interact with the whiteboard, consult a colleague or make herself available for consultation [14]. While the three strengths are described on the basis of studies of electronic whiteboards, it appears likely that the same strengths exist for wall-size displays, tabletop interfaces, and other large, shared displays.…”

Section: Overview and Large Shared Displaysmentioning

confidence: 99%

Looking for “the Big Picture” on a Small Screen: A Note on Overview Support in Cooperative Work

Hertzum¹

2018

Lecture Notes in Computer Science

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Large, shared displays-such as electronic whiteboards-have proven successful in supporting actors in forming and maintaining an overview of tightly coupled cooperative activities. However, in many developing countries the technology of choice is mobile phones, which have neither a large nor a shared screen. It therefore appears relevant to ask: How may mobile devices with small screens support, or fail to support, actors in forming and maintaining an overview of their cooperative activities? This note contrasts the strengths of large, shared displays with those of small, mobile devices and briefly describes the mKrishi app for providing fishers in the Maharashtra state of India with an overview of the locations where there is likely to be many fish.

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Procedures and Collaborative Information Seeking: A Study of Emergency Departments

Cited by 9 publications

References 30 publications

How is professionals’ information seeking shaped by workplace procedures? A study of healthcare clinicians

How is professionals’ information seeking shaped by workplace procedures? A study of healthcare clinicians

Gatekeeping structures and trust development in public sector organizations

Looking for “the Big Picture” on a Small Screen: A Note on Overview Support in Cooperative Work

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