What is it about?
Call handling triage for NHS urgent and emergency care services uses a computer decision support system and much is made of this offering a chance for labour substitution. However when we look at this triage work in detail we discover that it still requires considerable effort, and emotional labour by human beings. We draw on a metaphor provided in a science fiction drama to help us think about this and argue that the imagined 'hubot' provides a better way to understand this work.
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Why is it important?
It is often argued that robots or computers will replace human workers. This idea is familiar in healthcare policy and research, but is also dominant in science fiction stories and films. This paper blends fiction, in the form of a TV drama about hubots (half human - half robots), with data from a study of a computer decision support system to argue that the kinds of digital technologies we use in health care simultaneously substitute for, and intensify, work.
Perspectives
We wanted to answer the question – what if we stopped seeing robots and computers as replacements for human workers and instead began to understand the work entailed in using these kinds of digital technologies in healthcare? It was an added bonus that we got to watch a TV show and learn about the use of metaphor to understand our data.
Catherine Pope
University of Southampton
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Using the concept of hubots to understand the work entailed in using digital technologies in healthcare, Journal of Health Organization and Management, August 2017, Emerald,
DOI: 10.1108/jhom-12-2016-0231.
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