scholarly journals Dangers of the digital fit: Rethinking seamlessness and social sustainability in data-intensive healthcare

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 205395171775296 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Wadmann ◽  
Klaus Hoeyer

For years, attempts at ensuring the social sustainability of digital solutions have focused on ensuring that they are perceived as helpful and easy to use. A smooth and seamless work experience has been the goal to strive for. Based on document analysis and interviews with 15 stakeholders, we trace the setting up of a data infrastructure in Danish General Practice that had achieved just this goal – only to end in a scandal and subsequent loss of public support. The ease of data access made it possible for data to be extracted, exchanged and used by new actors and for new purposes – without those producing the data fully realizing the expansion of the infrastructure. We suggest that the case has wider relevance for a still more data-intensive healthcare sector and a growing data economy: when those who produce the data are not made aware of new uses of data, it makes it more difficult to resolve potential conflicts along the way. In the Danish case, conflicting views on legitimate data use led to the collapse of the infrastructure. Therefore, while seamlessness may be a solution to the old problem of a poor fit between user and technology, this celebrated virtue may also involve new problems relating to social instability. As digital solutions tend to be integrated still more seamlessly in still more of our activities, we need to develop political mechanisms to define and protect the rights and obligations of both data suppliers and users in order to ensure the long-term sustainability of digital infrastructures.

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 45-52
Author(s):  
Trigoni Maria ◽  
◽  
Mikits Militsa ◽  
Mpanagi Evaggelia ◽  
◽  
...  

Introduction Empathy in social work is one of the most important factors that can bring change in the patient, by developing a productive relationship. The purpose of this study is to explore empathy in the practice of social work, as it is used by professional social workers. Method Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 12 social workers in public health services in Crete. Responses were recorded, and content analysis was used to analyze the data. Findings There were differences in the way that social workers perceive the concept of empathy, depending on their prior experiences. It was also found that they are more “sensitive” when patients have a common problem with them. Among the difficulties that prevented them from being empathetic was having “a difficult personal period” that affected their work. This study has also identified the importance of professional training for the development of empathy skills, and the key-role of work experience. Moreover, it highlighted the importance of co-operation between the researchers and the social workers for generating efficacious and valuable information. Conclusion This study emphasizes the importance of empathy as a necessary skill in the relationship between social workers and patients, and the need for in-depth scientific research and analyze on this issue in Greece.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Niccolò Tempini

Much of the literature on value creation in social media-based infrastructures has largely neglected the pivotal role of data and their processes. This paper tries to move beyond this limitation and discusses data-based value creation in data-intensive infrastructures, such as social media, by focusing on processes of data generation, use and reuse, and on infrastructure development activities. Building on current debates in value theory, the paper develops a multidimensional value framework to interrogate the data collected in an embedded ethnographical case study of the development of PatientsLikeMe, a social media network for patients. It asks when, and where, value is created from the data, and what kinds of value are created from them, as they move through the data infrastructure; and how infrastructure evolution relates to, and shapes, existing data-based value creation practices. The findings show that infrastructure development can have unpredictable consequences for data-based value creation, shaping shared practices in complex ways and through a web of interdependent situations. The paper argues for an understanding of infrastructural innovation that accounts for the situational interdependencies of data use and reuse. Uniquely positioned, the paper demonstrates the importance of research that looks critically into processes of data use in infrastructures to keep abreast of the social consequences of developments in big data and data analytics aimed at exploiting all kinds of digital traces for multiple purposes.


Author(s):  
Joseph John Hobbs

This paper examines how the architectural, social, and cultural heritage of the United Arab Emirates and other Gulf countries may contribute to better development of this region’s lived environment. Modern urbanism has largely neglected heritage in architectural design and in social and private spaces, creating inauthentic places that foster a hunger for belongingness in the UAE’s built environment. The paper reviews recent urban developments in the UAE and the Gulf Region, and identifies elements of local heritage that can be incorporated into contemporary planning and design. It proposes that adapting vernacular architectural heritage to the modern built environment should not be the principal goal for heritage-informed design. Instead we may examine the social processes underlying the traditional lived environment, and aim for social sustainability based on the lifeways and preferences of local peoples, especially in kinship and Islamic values. Among the most promising precedents for modern social sustainability are social and spatial features at the scale of the neighborhood in traditional Islamic settlements. Interviews with local Emiratis will also recommend elements of traditional knowledge to modern settings. 


Author(s):  
P. C. Kemeny

Protestants criticized prostitution because it threatened the family and ultimately civil society, and the Watch and Ward Society devised a campaign to shut down Boston’s red-light districts. These Protestant elites espoused traditional gender roles and Victorian sexual mores and endorsed the “cult of domesticity.” In the late nineteenth century, a number of reform organizations turned their attention to the “social evil,” as it was popularly called. The Watch and Ward Society’s quest to reduce prostitution placed it squarely within the larger international anti-prostitution movement. Moral reformers resisted all forms of policy that officially sanctioned or tacitly tolerated prostitution, instead arguing for its abolition. Their attempt to suppress commercialized sex eventually collapsed because of the lack of public support.


Author(s):  
Li-Chung Pien ◽  
Wan‐Ju Cheng ◽  
Kuei-Ru Chou ◽  
Li-Chiu Lin

Work–family conflicts (WFCs) are common in the healthcare sector and pose significant health risks to healthcare workers. This study examined the effect of WFCs on the health status and nurses’ leaving intentions in Taiwan. A self-administered questionnaire was used to survey 200 female nurses’ experiences of WFC from a regional hospital. Data on psychosocial work conditions, including work shifts, job control, psychological job demands, and workplace justice, were collected. Health conditions were measured using the Beck Depression Inventory-II and self-rated health. Leaving intentions were measured using a self-developed questionnaire. The participants’ average work experience was 6.79 (Standard Deviation (SD) = 5.26) years, their highest educational level was university, and work shifts were mostly night and rotating shifts. Approximately 75.5% of nurses perceived high levels of WFCs. Leaving intentions were correlated with WFCs (r = 0.350, p < 0.01) and psychological work demands (r = 0.377, p < 0.01). After adjusting for age, educational level, and work characteristics, high levels of WFCs were associated with poor self-rated health, and depression, but not associated with high leaving intentions. Nurses’ experiences of high levels of WFCs greatly affected their health status.


2005 ◽  
Vol 48 (2) ◽  
pp. 437-469 ◽  
Author(s):  
BRETT BOWLES

Taking an anthropological approach, this article interprets Pagnol's critically acknowledged classic as a reinvention of a carnivalesque ritual practised in France from the late middle ages through the late 1930s, when ethnographers observed its last vestiges. By linking La Femme du boulanger (The baker's wife, 1938) to contemporaneous debates over gender, national decadence, and the definition of French cultural identity, I argue that the film recycles the charivari's long-standing function as a tool of popular protest against social and political practices regarded as detrimental to the welfare of the nation. In the context of the Popular Front, Pagnol's charivari ridiculed divisive partisan politics pitting Left against Right, symbolically purged class conflict from the social body, and created a new form of folklore that served as a focal point for the communitarian ritual of movie-going among the urban working and middle classes. In so doing, the film promoted the ongoing shift in public support away from the Popular Front in favour of a conservative ‘National Union’ government under Prime Minister Edouard Daladier, who in 1938–9 assumed the role of France's newest political patriarch.


2018 ◽  
Vol 187 ◽  
pp. 496-513 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leonardo A. Sierra ◽  
Víctor Yepes ◽  
Eugenio Pellicer

2017 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 528-544 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ioannis Giotopoulos ◽  
Alexandra Kontolaimou ◽  
Aggelos Tsakanikas

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore potential drivers of high-growth intentions of early-stage entrepreneurs in Greece before and after the onset of the financial crisis of 2008. Design/methodology/approach To this end, the authors use individual-level data retrieved from Global Entrepreneurship Monitor annual surveys (2003-2015). Findings The results show that high-growth intentions of Greek entrepreneurs are driven by different factors in the crisis compared to the non-crisis period. Male entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs with significant work experience seem to be more likely to be engaged in growth-oriented new ventures during the crisis period. The same appears to hold for entrepreneurs who are motivated by an opportunity and also perceive future business opportunities in adverse economic conditions. On the other hand, the educational level and the social contacts of founders with other entrepreneurs are found to drive ambitious Greek entrepreneurship in the years before the crisis, while they were insignificant after the crisis outbreak. Originality/value Based on the concept of ambitious entrepreneurship, this study contributes to the literature by investigating the determinants of entrepreneurial high-growth expectations in the Greek context emphasizing the crisis period in comparison to the pre-crisis years.


Global Jurist ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Davide Bresolin Zoppelli

Abstract Nowadays, a small part of the worldwide population, under the aegis of property on some commons, can find a way to increase their riches, intensifying the conflicts inside the society and damaging the environment. This is the “dark side” of globalization: through this phenomenon, humans economically and socially united most of our planet, simultaneously emphasizing the fragmentation that lies under this apparent unification. This conflict, however, is not between law and society, but it is inside the latter, where the only possible way to bridge the gap seems – mostly – to be through philanthropy. This work wants to find a possible enlightenment through the study of the regulation of the roman’s lands (ager publicus), which were granted under a payment: thus, they were subjected to revocation. This rule was strengthened for the most fruitful lands through the recognition of a supervisory power in the hands of the censors, census officers and controllers of the citizen’s morality, whose decadence was sanctioned with the loss of the right to vote. It was them who could decide to whom give these lands in lease through a public auction, never considering – through a direct sanction as revocation – the ethics of the winners, thus allowing to increase their assets and consequentially the social instability.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document