Electronic patient records in action: Transforming information into professionally relevant knowledge

Area of Science:

• Health Informatics
• Organizational Studies
• Knowledge Management

Background:

• Standardized information models in healthcare often conflict with the need for localized, practical knowledge among staff.
• Electronic Patient Records (EPRs) present challenges in translating standardized data into actionable insights for daily clinical work.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate how healthcare professionals practically transform information within EPRs into relevant knowledge for their everyday work.
• To identify strategies for bridging the gap between standardized healthcare information systems and the need for context-specific professional knowledge.

Main Methods:

• Empirical case study involving video recording of shift handovers on a rehabilitation ward.
• Qualitative analysis of how healthcare staff select and reorganize information from EPRs during handovers.

Main Results:

• Healthcare staff extensively select and reorganize information from EPRs to create professionally relevant accounts.
• The transformation process highlights the critical role of understanding institutional obligations and professional interpretations of information.

Conclusions:

• Bridging the gap between institutional standardization and professional knowledge requires recognizing how staff actively construe information.
• Future information system development in healthcare should incorporate the inherent professional knowledge used to unpack and utilize data, facilitating better integration between institutional and professional boundaries.