Digitalization is profoundly changing the healthcare ecosystem, with an enormous potential to provide improvements to healthcare professionals, patients and other healthcare stakeholders but is also affiliated with potential challenges and risks. Often clinicians encounter frustrating experiences, especially when digital solutions are developed and deployed with insufficient consideration and understanding of their needs and workflow requirements.
This project aimed to study the experiences of clinicians, including physicians and nurses, and their use of digital tools that are an integrated part of their daily work. The objective was to explore how the transformational processes of digitalization impact the work, the use of current tools and workflows, and the professional identities of clinicians, in order to better understand the human experience of healthcare professionals on digital transformation in the clinic. We were interested in notable successes as well as particular pain points and daily frustrations, across all medical specialties, clinical roles, and types of digital tools, including electronic health records, decision support systems, and workflow automation.
In our project, we performed interviews with clinicians in Switzerland to learn about their experience of using digital tools during their work in the clinic, and subsequently, we analyzed our findings aiming to understand how these tools affect their daily work life, workflow, and professional identity.
Link to study.