Persistent institutional breaches: Technology use in healthcare work

Daskalopoulou, Athanasia ORCID: 0000-0003-0859-1143 and Palmer, Mark (2021) Persistent institutional breaches: Technology use in healthcare work Social Science & Medicine, 289. p. 114399. ISSN 0277-9536, 1873-5347

Text SSM paper.pdf - Author Accepted Manuscript Download (504kB) | Preview

Abstract

Various mobile phone applications (hereafter apps) challenge instituted ways of working in healthcare. This study explores the institutional breaches arising from the use of apps in doctor-patient interactions. This paper argues that institutional breaches, however small, are important occasions for observing the contextual intersections between healthcare, regulation and technology in a hospital setting. Based on healthcare professionals’ normative judgements, the paper offers an empirically grounded understanding of institutional legitimacy-claiming; safeguarding responses deployed by the instituted regime, and the case-building responses deployed by the instituting persuaders. Institutional breach persistence arises from the moral dimension of legitimacy and is grounded in asymmetrical dynamics between two virtuous healthcare narratives. The paper concludes with a discussion of the contextual intersections between healthcare, regulation and technology, paying particular attention to institutional breaches as experimentation, the contestation of normativity and patterns of technology indulgency in healthcare work.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Institutional breaches, Technology, Legitimacy, Healthcare, Institutions
Divisions:	Faculty of Humanities & Social Sciences > School of Management
Depositing User:	Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited:	28 Sep 2021 07:26
Last Modified:	01 Mar 2026 11:07
DOI:	10.1016/j.socscimed.2021.114399
Related Websites:	Author Publisher
URI:	https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/3138461
Disclaimer:	The University of Liverpool is not responsible for content contained on other websites from links within repository metadata. Please contact us if you notice anything that appears incorrect or inappropriate.