Randell, R, Wilson, S, Woodward, P et al. (1 more author) (2010) Beyond handover: Supporting awareness for continuous coverage. Cognition, Technology and Work, 12 (4). 271 - 283 . ISSN 1435-5558
Abstract
Hospitals are required to operate as a continuous system because patient care cannot be temporarily suspended and handover is seen as a key method for enabling this. This paper reports a study of handover in a medical admissions unit. We draw on the notion of awareness as conceptualised within the Computer-Supported Cooperative Work literature to explore the role played by a variety of cognitive artifacts in supporting continuous coverage. While such awareness is typically characterised as being 'effortless', our study reveals that maintaining awareness in a context such as the medical admissions unit is effortful due to invisible work. We suggest that the notion of awareness is beneficial for exploring the practices of continuous coverage because it moves attention away from the moment of handover, instead encouraging consideration of the variety of practices through which clinicians display their work to, and monitor the work of, colleagues on different shifts. We argue that efforts to support continuous coverage should focus on improving awareness by increasing the visibility of information.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2012, Springer Verlag. This is an author produced version of an article published in Cognition, Technology and Work by Springer Verlag. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. The final publication is available at www.springerlink.com |
Keywords: | Healthcare, handover, awareness, cognitive artifacts |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Medicine and Health (Leeds) > School of Healthcare (Leeds) > Nursing (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 19 Mar 2013 12:45 |
Last Modified: | 24 Oct 2016 20:39 |
Published Version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10111-010-0138-3 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Springer-Verlag |
Identification Number: | 10.1007/s10111-010-0138-3 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:75284 |