Data Work in Healthcare: Challenges for Patients, Clinicians and Administrators

Abstract

With the wide adoption of information infrastructures in healthcare (IIH), citizens and healthcare professionals now carry out intensive "data work' as part of their healthcare and self-management practices. For example, citizens use mobile apps to track personal health data for both formal and informal usages, clinicians rely on electronic health records (EHR) to document patient information, and hospital administrators use EHRs to generate data to monitor quality and efficiency of healthcare services. The creation, accumulation, management, and communication of data is increasingly central to patient work, clinical work, and management and governance of healthcare providers. To better understand data work in healthcare, this workshop aims to convene researchers from different disciplines to discuss data work performed among the entire ecosystem of clinical care delivery from patients to clinicians to administrators. Critical topics include but are not limited to: patient data work (both voluntary and compelled by clinicians as part of treatment); algorithmic authority of information infrastructure and effects on the exercise of expertise and discretion of healthcare professions; clinician demands for documentation (and balancing these demands with patient-centered care); new forms of healthcare data work, including new occupations and tasks; and data-driven accountability and management in healthcare.