Quality’ on the Dashboard: How Datafication Changes the Measurement of Work and Performance in Public Healthcare Services

Abstract

Modern welfare states have a long tradition for measuring the quality of work and performance in public health and care services. Datafication is currently changing how this is done and thus, how quality is known. This chapter uses the ongoing case of the Health Platform (EPIC) in Central Norway to investigate consequences of datafication to quality data work. The platform aims to launch a joint journal system across all health and care services and service levels in the region. This includes an automation of quality indicator data production to tailor the services to focus on specific management goals and benefits realization. The new view into the services introduces new conceptualizations of quality and new possibilities for regulating and coordinating work. The chapter suggests that the case illustrates a shift towards deductive statecraft. Quality indicators do not emerge as categories inductively from data, but data is made to fit categories. Indicator categories become models of quality that get tested through the ongoing activities of the services. They do not necessarily fit easily with the observations of service employees and users but are often used as if they represent real activity that speaks directly to stakeholders. Data on quality is, in the end, core decision-making material for service planning and policy. It is therefore important to further explore how changes in speed, time and visualization of quality known and done affect this material.

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