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Designing Work Oriented Infrastructures

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Abstract

Healthcare is making huge investmentsin information systems like Picture Archivingand Communication Systems (PACS) andRadiological Information Systems (RIS).Implementing such systems in the hospitals hasbeen problematic, the number of systems inregular use is low, and where the systems arein use the benefits gained are far below whathas been expected. This paper analyzes andidentifies a number of challenges one will beconfronted with when implementing PACS and RIS.To deal with these problems it is suggested toconsider them as ``work orientedinfrastructures''. This term is supposed to drawour attention to the fact that these systemshave the same general characteristics astraditional infrastructures at the same time asthey are developed to support specific worktasks. These are, and should be, designed andimplemented primarily by their users based ontheir actual use of the technology. Standardsare equally important for both work orientedand other kinds of infrastructures. But in thefirst case, the standardization process is moreof a ``cleaning up'' type which follows a periodwhere the infrastructures have been changed indifferent ways in different regions or communities.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of informatics, University of Oslo, Norway

    Ole Hanseth

  2. Department of Informatics, University of, Göteborg, Sweden

    Nina Lundberg

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  1. Ole Hanseth
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  2. Nina Lundberg
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Hanseth, O., Lundberg, N. Designing Work Oriented Infrastructures. Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) 10, 347–372 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1012727708439

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