TOWARDS EFFECTIVE AND EFFICIENT INFORMATION SYSTEM SUPPORT FOR HEALTHCARE PROCESSES ? A HEALTHCARE PRACTITIONER PERSPECTIVE

Healthcare processes require the cooperation of different healthcare providers and medical disciplines. In such an environment, the quality and safety of care rely heavily on the ability to exchange information from one software to another, and from one person to another. However, information systems that support a seamless flow of information along healthcare processes are not broadly used in healthcare environments. Usually, healthcare organizations have their own autonomously developed information systems that do not support the cooperation of different organizational units and medical disciplines. This has led to the fragmentation of the patients’ information in proprietary heterogeneous systems across healthcare organizations. The aim of this paper is to: (1) explore how healthcare practitioners´ in Sweden experience information system support in their daily work activities, and (2) present and illustrate how key design principles of a process support system prototype can support healthcare practitioners in their work practice. An important conclusion from this research is that a process support as the one described in this paper creates new opportunities to organize and coordinate healthcare.