Enacting workplace information practices: the diverse roles of physicians in a health care team

Abstract

Introduction.\n Information practices, i.e. collectively adopted information-related \nactivities such as needing, seeking, creating, sharing, valuing, and distributing \ninformation, are embedded in the ongoing work routines. In the practice-oriented \nresearch reported here, we have used the cultural-historical activity theory to examine \ninformation practices of physicians in patient care.\nMethod.\n A qualitative, interpretative case study method was applied. Nonparticipant \nobservations of a team of physicians and interviews with fifteen physicians were \nconducted over a period of four months in a university teaching hospital located in a \ndeveloping country. \nAnalysis\n. The data was analysed with iterative coding technique and the lens of cultural-\nhistorical activity theory.\nResults.\n Patient care appears as the central work activity in the hospital and is seen as \nembedded into a web of other activity systems in the hospital. It was thus found that work \nactivity in patient care was a major influencing factor, and that it determines many of the \nvarious information related activities and practices that physicians engage in. \nFurthermore, it was found that social positioning of the team members influenced how \ninformation practices were enacted.\nConclusions.\n Physicians adopt different roles to enact information in patient care. \nApplying cultural-historical activity theory to portray workplace information practices \nhighlights epistemological postulations that are seldom utilized in research on African \ndeveloping countries.