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PurposeThe purpose of the study is to examine enterprise searching practices across different work areas and work tasks in an enterprise search system in an international biotechnology company.Design/methodology/approachA mixed-method... more
PurposeThe purpose of the study is to examine enterprise searching practices across different work areas and work tasks in an enterprise search system in an international biotechnology company.Design/methodology/approachA mixed-method approach studying employees' authentic search activities during a 4-month period by log data, questionnaire survey and interviews. The log data analysed the entire active searcher group, whereas the questionnaire and interviews focused on frequent searchers.FindingsThe three studies provided insight into the searching activities and an understanding of the way searchers used the enterprise search system to search for information as part of their work tasks. The data identified three searcher groups, each with specific search characteristics. Four work task types were identified, and for all four types the searchers applied a tracing searching technique with use of contextual and historical relationships as paths.Practical implicationsThe findings p...
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Aalborg University Hospital in Farsø uses data from a patient-reported outcome (PRO) questionnaire in order to predict if patients diagnosed with osteoarthritis will benefit from surgery. The purpose of including PRO in the... more
Aalborg University Hospital in Farsø uses data from a patient-reported outcome (PRO) questionnaire in order to predict if patients diagnosed with osteoarthritis will benefit from surgery. The purpose of including PRO in the decision-making is to ensure quality and transparency, to include patients in their own treatment, and to make the patients central to both the decision-making and the dialogue. Our evaluation of the use of the PRO questionnaire is based on the observation of patients filling out the questionnaire and interviews with 7 patients and a doctor. We found that there were several usability issues especially for the patients, such as navigation problems and a lack of consistency in the layout of the measurement scales. Furthermore, some questions were difficult for the patients to interpret. The interviewed patients did not report any value from answering the questionnaire. We argue that it may take more than filling out a questionnaire for the patient to feel involved ...
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Research Interests: Business and Health Care
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The Danish healthcare system has transformed toward shorter hospital stays and increased dependency on primary care in municipalities. General practitioners (GPs) are key to preventing the (re)admission of elderly patients to the... more
The Danish healthcare system has transformed toward shorter hospital stays and increased dependency on primary care in municipalities. General practitioners (GPs) are key to preventing the (re)admission of elderly patients to the hospital, but visits to elderly, bedridden patients are not always compatible with GPs’ office hours. This paper presents and discuss experiments with video in intermediate care paths for the elderly. The first experiment presents an ethical design guideline and playbook for cross-sectorial collaboration between a GP, home nurse and patient with video. The second experiment tries out video consultations with GPs in patient care paths. An ideographic, in-depth analysis of the communication and interaction between a 72year-old male patient at a rehabilitation unit, his GP and municipality nurse give insights into clinical, organizational and technical aspects of video-mediated health care services. The analysis is reflected and discussed from a systemic persp...
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Traditionally there has been a clear distinction between curriculum based and problem based approaches to accomplish learning. Preferred approaches depend of course on conviction, culture, traditions and also on the specific learning... more
Traditionally there has been a clear distinction between curriculum based and problem based approaches to accomplish learning. Preferred approaches depend of course on conviction, culture, traditions and also on the specific learning situation. We will argue that it is not a question of either/or but rather both/and. In this paper we describe an approach to design and delivery of online courses in computer science which on the one hand is based on a specified curriculum and on the other hand gives room for different learning strategies, problem based learning being one of them. We discuss the challenges in applying problem based learning strategies in a context where several universities, with different cultures of teaching, collaboratively develop and deliver online courses. We present a pedagogical framework embracing both problem based and curriculum based strategies and show how we used this as a basis for trying out various online learning strategies. .
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In this paper we present a study on the extent, level and content of e-Health in existing formal educational systems in Lithuania, Germany, Finland, Norway and Denmark with the objectives of identifying future educational needs within... more
In this paper we present a study on the extent, level and content of e-Health in existing formal educational systems in Lithuania, Germany, Finland, Norway and Denmark with the objectives of identifying future educational needs within this area. The study was carried out as a desk-top study and took place within the context of the ICT for Health project. The results of the study on the one hand revealed a wide range of programs and courses that included e-Health, but on the other hand also showed that in the educations of health care professionals (physicians, nurses etc.) the integration of e-Health elements are often marginal or non-existing. Thus the study indicates that there is a need for a higher integration of e-Health in the education of health care professionals. We discuss what kind of knowledge of e-Health is needed and how it could or should be integrated in these educations. We argue that providing possibilities for applying and experimenting with e-Health system in a c...
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There is a widespread consensus that it is important to involve patient in their own care, both for the reasons of quality and safety in healthcare and for the sake of the patients' individual rights. The appreciation of patient... more
There is a widespread consensus that it is important to involve patient in their own care, both for the reasons of quality and safety in healthcare and for the sake of the patients' individual rights. The appreciation of patient participation and related notions such as patient empowerment, patient centered care, patient involvement, patient as co-producers of health et cetera, indicate that the role of the patient have changed over the last decades. It has changed from being a passive recipient of treatment to becoming an active and responsible agent. In this paper, we examine these new roles of the patients and discuss the challenges in realizing them. We include the notion of Patient Reported Outcome (PRO) and suggest that realizing this concept indicate a shift in the understanding of participation/empowerment. Participation of patients in a PRO paradigm means to provide patient with a highly-structured task both in terms of the kind of information the health care system req...
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Research Interests: Engineering and Design
Monitoring technology, especially sensor-based technology, is increasingly taken into use in care work. Despite the simplicity of these technologies - aimed to automate what appear as mundane monitoring tasks - recent research has... more
Monitoring technology, especially sensor-based technology, is increasingly taken into use in care work. Despite the simplicity of these technologies - aimed to automate what appear as mundane monitoring tasks - recent research has identified major challenges primarily related to the technology's ability to meet the complexity of care work. Understanding intersectional challenges between these care technologies and care work is fundamental to improve design and use of health informatics. In this paper we present an analysis of interaction challenges between a wet-sensor at the task of monitoring wet beds at a nursing home. The analysis identifies the multifaceted nature of monitoring work and the intricacy of integrating sensor technology into the complex knowledge system of monitoring work.
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This paper will demonstrate how avatar-mediated interactions and learning in networks might lead to identity formation and rehabilitation of language after a brain injury. With references to Vygotsky's notion of the social origins of... more
This paper will demonstrate how avatar-mediated interactions and learning in networks might lead to identity formation and rehabilitation of language after a brain injury. With references to Vygotsky's notion of the social origins of higher mental functions (1978) and Hutchins claims that cognition is something that is embodied and externally distributed. (Hutchins, 1995), we will discuss identity formation after a brain injury in relation to Networked Learning (NL). The discussion is based on data from the first author's research (Konnerup, 2015) on avatar-mediated rehabilitation of people with aphasia (PWA). Rehabilitation is conceived as a collaborative endeavour, conducted in a social virtual community with peer-to-peer interactions. Central is the comprehension that relearning language is embodied and related to social interactions and renegotiation of identity. Individuals who lose the ability to communicate find it difficult to re-tell their own story and are at risk ...
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The landscape of Participatory Design (PD) of Health Information Technology (HIT) is diverse and constantly evolving. This paper reviews the publications in the proceedings from the Participatory Design Conferences (PDCs) that have been... more
The landscape of Participatory Design (PD) of Health Information Technology (HIT) is diverse and constantly evolving. This paper reviews the publications in the proceedings from the Participatory Design Conferences (PDCs) that have been held every two years since 1990. We used the Matrix Method to identify, describe and synthesise HIT publications from the proceedings. A total of 47 papers were included in the review and analysed in relation to six themes. The analysis reveals a significant volume of HIT research at PDCs, with a large amount of attention to digitalisation of health information, work procedures, records, secondary healthcare and health professionals. However, the analysis also shows a development from a primary focus on health workers and hospitals to a recent attention on HIT in everyday life and PD with patients, relatives, neighbourhoods and citizens in general. Additionally, the review shows a growing number of PD methods being applied. This paper concludes that ...
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In this paper we present a qualitative study on motivations for avoiding sedentary work. Sedentary work has been recognized as a significant public health problem and many workplaces now invest in initiatives to support employees in... more
In this paper we present a qualitative study on motivations for avoiding sedentary work. Sedentary work has been recognized as a significant public health problem and many workplaces now invest in initiatives to support employees in avoiding it. The initiative in focus here include bikes, treadmills, step machines and adjustable workstations combined with a digital platform to keep track of activities and to make relevant information available. Experiences indicates that while employees are excited at the beginning, the use of exercise tools drop relatively fast. In order to understand motivation for use, clarify challenges and identify opportunities to support use of exercise tools through the digital platform we did interviews with employees and decision makers from four different companies. The overall challenge identified was pressure of busyness and reasons for use was due to individual objectives. Thus, in order to support employees in avoiding sedentary work the digital platf...
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A successful integration of an IT-system is dependent not only of the quality of the information and the user interface features of the system but also of the organizations ability to support the users learning process. As IT is becoming... more
A successful integration of an IT-system is dependent not only of the quality of the information and the user interface features of the system but also of the organizations ability to support the users learning process. As IT is becoming more and more pervasive in the Health Care sector as such there is a need for a systematic approach to the question on how to support end-users. Based on an empirical study of an implementation process in a Danish Primary Health Care Services the concept of end-user support is discussed and it is argued that there is a need for a distinction between different kinds of support depending of the type of activity involved. First the organizations strategy for learning when the system was implemented is described. The evaluation of the learning strategy revealed that there was a need for different kinds of knowledge involving qualitatively different kinds of learning. Second the area of end-user support is discussed and it is argued that the common under...
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New technologies enable a different organization of the public's admission to health care services. The article discusses whether online support groups in patient treatment are to be understood in the light of patient empowerment or... more
New technologies enable a different organization of the public's admission to health care services. The article discusses whether online support groups in patient treatment are to be understood in the light of patient empowerment or within the tradition of compliance. The back-ground material of the discussion is complementary data from quantitative research on characteristics of patient support groups, and from two qualitative, in depth studies of the impact of patient networks for lung patients and for women with fertility problems. We conclude that in spite of the potential of online communities of opening up health care to the critical voice of the public, the quantitative and qualitative studies surprisingly point to a synthesis of the otherwise opposite positions of empowerment and compliance in patient care. Thereby the critical potential of online communities in health care services seems reverted into configuring ideal patients from diverse users.
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Design of Health Technology for elderly and care personnel has a high priority because of a severe increase of elderly citizens in need of health care combined with a decrease of resources in the health care sector. Desires for... more
Design of Health Technology for elderly and care personnel has a high priority because of a severe increase of elderly citizens in need of health care combined with a decrease of resources in the health care sector. Desires for maintaining and improving the quality of care while reducing costs has resulted in a search for approaches that support co-operation between technology designers, elderly persons and health care professionals on innovating future care technology. Living laboratories, where areas of a care environment are transformed into a so-called platform for technology innovation, are popular. Expectations for living laboratories are high but examinations of how such laboratories support the intended participatory innovation are few. This paper presents and examines eight living laboratories set up in Danish nursing homes for technology innovation. We present the notion of a living laboratory and explicate the aspirations and expectations of this approach, and discuss why...
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Staff training is acknowledged as an important activity when implementing health information systems (HISs). This paper reviews the literature on staff training in connection with HIS implementation. The aim is to identify critical issues... more
Staff training is acknowledged as an important activity when implementing health information systems (HISs). This paper reviews the literature on staff training in connection with HIS implementation. The aim is to identify critical issues to reflect on when planning or evaluating this type of training. Searches were conducted in three research databases, resulting in 423 hits. Sixty-four papers were retrieved for more detailed examination, and 12 papers were selected for analysis. The analysis focused on the content, organization and pedagogical approach. In general, the review revealed minor primarily descriptive studies focused on aspects of staff training rather than strategies for staff training. The review revealed specific agreed-upon issues that are considered important for the success of the training. The issues identified are transfer of knowledge and skills is not enough, ongoing training is important, training should be related to practice and address individual learning ...
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At Aalborg University, an important part of the distance education program within Health Informatics is problem oriented project work. Traditionally, distance education has been characterized by one-way communication and self study... more
At Aalborg University, an important part of the distance education program within Health Informatics is problem oriented project work. Traditionally, distance education has been characterized by one-way communication and self study whereas the problem oriented project study form is based on cooperation and dialogue. In this paper, we describe the way in which we have implemented the problem oriented study form in a program within Health Informatics which is based on distance learning. First, we describe the program with regard to student, structure, aim, and activities. Second, we introduce the problem oriented project study form and present the basic principles behind this approach. Third, we explain important concepts and distinctions within the area of distance education. Finally, we describe the way in which we try to put the ideals of the problem oriented project work into practice. The use of a computer conferencing system is essential but in our experience, it is not in itsel...
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ABSTRACT This study is part of a design-based research project aimed at designing a learning intervention for enabling Costa Rican older people to use information and communication technologies for cognitive activity and social... more
ABSTRACT This study is part of a design-based research project aimed at designing a learning intervention for enabling Costa Rican older people to use information and communication technologies for cognitive activity and social interaction. Data from relevant literature, a focus group with older adults, and interviews with professionals teaching older adults how to use information and communication technologies were analyzed, in order to create context-sensitive design principles that could guide the design of learning interventions that meet the needs of older learners. The analysis derived context-sensitive design principles that include wider topics that influence the learning process, such as emotions and stereotypes related to learning about and using information and communication technologies, as well as the social support to that learning. The resulting eight design principles argue for respectful learning environments, in-depth comprehension of changes related to aging, time and space to reflect on emotions related to the learning process, and acknowledgment of participants’ individuality.