Department of Health Sciences in Ålesund, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Larsgårdsvegen 2, 6009, Ålesund, Norway.
Center for Care Research, Department of Health Sciences in Gjøvik, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Teknologivegen 22, 2815, Gjøvik, Norway.
BMC Health Serv Res. 2022 Feb 1;22(1):136. doi: 10.1186/s12913-022-07526-0.
Digital tools for social communication have been deployed in care facilities during the COVID-19 pandemic to facilitate social connectedness between older people and their next of kin in a safe manner. This study explores how and why health care professionals facilitate the ad hoc and prompt use of a technology for social communication, known as KOMP, in care facilities in western Norway to promote communication and social engagement among residents and their next of kin during the crisis.
To investigate the perspectives and practices of health care professionals, we conducted focus groups, individual interviews, and participant observation in public short- and long-term care facilities in western Norway. An explorative investigation with inductive content analysis was applied to analyse interview transcripts and fieldnotes from participant observation.
The resulting qualitative data reveal that prompt implementation of interactive technology to cope with social distancing during the pandemic added new routines to the staff workload. Using this interactive technology entailed new forms of collaborative work among residents, next of kin, health care professionals and technology facilitators. Additionally, the staff articulated a sense of responsibility towards using KOMP as a meaningful and practical tool for social communication in an extraordinary period of reduced social contact.
Improvised implementation of KOMP as an interactive technology shapes work routines, introduces new tasks and creates additional responsibilities. Despite creative efforts by health care staff, however, using KOMP remains constrained by the physical and cognitive abilities of its users. We suggest that health care managers ask a deceptively simple question when introducing novel technologies in health care contexts, namely: what kind of invisible work do these devices entail?
在 COVID-19 大流行期间，数字社交工具已在护理机构中使用，以安全的方式促进老年人与其近亲之间的社交联系。本研究探讨了医疗保健专业人员如何以及为何在挪威西部的护理机构中临时且迅速地使用一种名为 KOMP 的社交通讯技术，以促进居民及其近亲在危机期间的沟通和社交参与。
为了调查医疗保健专业人员的观点和实践，我们在挪威西部的公共短期和长期护理机构中进行了焦点小组、个人访谈和参与式观察。我们采用了一种探索性的调查方法，对访谈记录和参与式观察的现场记录进行了归纳内容分析。
定性数据表明，在大流行期间，为了应对社交距离而迅速实施交互式技术，这给工作人员的工作量增加了新的内容。使用这种交互式技术需要居民、近亲、医疗保健专业人员和技术促进者之间开展新形式的协作工作。此外，工作人员认为在社交接触减少的特殊时期，使用 KOMP 作为一种有意义且实用的社交通讯工具，是他们的责任。
临时实施 KOMP 作为一种交互式技术，塑造了工作流程，引入了新的任务，并增加了额外的责任。然而，尽管医疗保健工作人员付出了创造性的努力，但是使用 KOMP 仍然受到其用户身体和认知能力的限制。我们建议医疗保健管理人员在引入新的医疗技术时，提出一个看似简单的问题，即：这些设备需要什么样的无形工作？
