FCI Webinar - Putting the social back into sociotechnical: principles to support co-design in health

On 11th February 2021, the FCI held the webinar 'Putting the social back into sociotechnical: principles to support co-design of technology-supported health services', presented by Dr Chrysanthi Papoutsi (Senior Researcher, Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences, University of Oxford).

The webinar was Chaired by Maggie Lay, Clinical Informatics Lead & Clinical Safety Officer at NHS South Central and West Commissioning Support Unit, and FCI Council member.

Summary

Co-design has the potential to drive user-oriented change in health informatics and service improvement and bring into focus sociotechnical aspects of clinical work and patient self-care. Yet, in many digital health projects co-design remains technology-oriented and firmly focused on optimising technical features, rather than engaging with social aspects of change.

Drawing on extensive fieldwork in 3 UK case studies, this talk will distinguish between mechanistic and complexity-informed approaches to co-designing in digital health. I will argue that co-design of technology-supported services (rather than just patient-facing technical components) needs to embrace a more open approach, departing from a predefined problem specification and largely fixed solution. Patients should be involved not just as prospective technology users, but in terms of their wider engagement with the service and their practices of self-care. Co-designing with healthcare staff also means taking into account their professional norms and values about what counts as good care; this is often less straightforward than assumed. In the talk I will present a number of guiding principles supporting co-design and ongoing adaptations of technology-supported health services, to improve their potential for successful implementation, spread and scaled-up.

Bio

Chrysanthi is a senior researcher at the Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences, University of Oxford. Her interests lie in the interdisciplinary study of digital health and in the complex reconfiguration of technology-supported health services to support patient care. In current projects she is evaluating the national roll-out of the NHS App in England, studying the introduction of group consultations as a new model of care provision in the NHS (face-to-face, video and hybrid forms), and also developing research on the implementation of new technologies for neonatal care in Kenya. She has significant experience with qualitative and ethnographic research methods across health and care settings, such as care homes, acute care units, outpatient clinics and GP surgeries. Chrysanthi is leading the Technological Innovation and Digital Health module on the MSc in Translational Health Sciences and also teaches and supervises projects around evidence synthesis, the social study of technology, complexity and spread and scale-up of innovations.

The Chair and presenter of the webinar are responsible for the content and views expressed in the webinar.

[sofee-jv]

Thanks for making this available - unfortunately I wasn't able to attend on the day