"More" work for nurses: the ironies of eHealth

Area of Science:

• Healthcare Informatics
• Nursing Studies
• Digital Health

Background:

• eHealth applications offer potential solutions for healthcare challenges like burnout and chronic disease management.
• The impact of eHealth on healthcare professionals' work environments is under-researched.
• This study investigates how eHealth utilization alters work, focusing on nurses.

Purpose of the Study:

• To explore the evolution of work for healthcare professionals, particularly nurses, during eHealth application utilization.
• To identify the nature and extent of labor associated with eHealth implementation.

Main Methods:

• Qualitative case study with an interpretive approach.
• Interviews conducted with 75 healthcare professionals, including 47 nurses.
• Verbatim transcription and qualitative content analysis of interview data.

Main Results:

• Identified three themes: ignored work, actions for visible work, and increased sedentary activities.
• Nurses predominantly perform the work associated with eHealth application utilization.
• eHealth implementation leads to additional, often invisible, labor for nurses.

Conclusions:

• The extra work generated by eHealth applications is largely invisible at the organizational level.
• Nurses undertake the majority of this invisible labor while using eHealth tools.
• Organizational recognition of this invisible labor is essential for successful eHealth integration.