Linking Health Workers’ perceptions to design for state of the art mobile health information systems and support tools.

Sammanfattning: Typical hospital setups comprise units such as clinics, inpatient wards, outpatient services, casualty services, operating theatres, laboratories, medical schools (for university hospitals) and out-reach medical camps. Healthcare professionals are required to support these different units hence the need to be constantly mobile in undertaking their duties. These duties require that they frequently consult colleagues, receive handover from previous duty staff or share information on previous work undertaken. Successful use and adoption of handheld devices such as PC tablets, PDAs and smartphones integrated to health information systems can minimize the physical mobility. Information sharing using M-health solutions in complex and diverse healthcare settings draw focus beyond the spatiality gains to the coordination of the teams, processes and shared artefacts in healthcare. CSCW research abounds with various concepts that can be useful in characterizing mobility and communication amongst collaborating health workers. Design for mobile health solutions, therefore, provides an opportunity to further ground theoretical frameworks from exemplary studies on health information systems. The overall objective of the study is to propose design suggestions that target successful information sharing in the deployment and use of M-health solutions. To achieve this objective, the thesis investigates and analyses factors influencing the use and adoption of M-health solutions. A qualitative literature review is used in the study to explore significant factors in the acceptance and use of health information systems. A questionnaire developed from these key factors is used to determine the perceptions of healthcare professionals on M-health solutions based on related literature and on a field study. Finally, the findings are discussed using concepts from CSCW literature namely, mobility, common information spaces, temporality and cognitive and coordinative artefacts. As a result, a conceptual model integrating constructs from the Technology acceptance model (TAM) and IS Success model was developed that can be useful in investigating perceptions in the use of M-health solutions. Design suggestions were proposed for the development of future M-health solutions that aim to achieve successful information sharing amongst healthcare professionals.