Biomedical subjects

Arjen P Stoop

Publications and source records attributed to Arjen P Stoop.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2006

OZIS and the politics of safety: using ICT to create a regionally accessible patient medication record.

In studies on success and failure of ICT applications in health care, the 'context' is often used to explain the failure of a system and seldom to explain the success of a system. Science and Technology Studies (STS) have showed that for understanding success and failure of phenomena, one has to take a symmetrical approach and thus use the same concept for analyzing success and failure. In this article we analyze the success of OZIS, a communication protocol that makes it possible for pharmacists to exchange medication data by sharing a regionally accessible electronic medication record. Though OZIS serves a common goal - reducing medication errors - the stakeholders that are involved also have other, competing, interests. By focussing on the context and more specifically the interests of the stakeholders, we will show how the success of OZIS can be explained. By doing this, we will also show that this context is highly dynamic and that continuously changing incentives and constraints within the context lead to both facilitating and threatening the success of OZIS.

Access to Information↗

PubMed2006

Bridging information gaps between primary and secondary healthcare.

Medication errors are harmful and costly for healthcare systems. Recent studies show that a major part of these errors are due to the problems in transferring the patient current medication-data between primary and secondary healthcare. Recent ICT development promises to improve the communication between primary and secondary healthcare. In order to find out the constraints that may hamper a communication project's productivity, an IT configuration for building a medication-data communication network between primary and secondary healthcare in the Netherlands was followed applying qualitative methods. We analysed some important problems that project faced and conclude that problems with the data integration and saving the data integrity are important challenges for the project to maintain its objectives.

Communication↗

PubMed2004

Theory and practice of waiting time data as a performance indicator in health care. A case study from The Netherlands.

In this article we investigate the use of waiting time data as a performance indicator in health care in The Netherlands. We explain why the current publication of waiting time data fails to achieve one of the main goals: to have consumers and general practitioners act upon this information. The reason, we claim, is that even seemingly clear-cut, easily measurable and objective numbers such as waiting times need interpretation to become meaningful. Discussing four themes - the patient behind the number, the treatment behind the number, the strategy behind the number, and the specificity of the number - we will discuss just how deeply this need for interpretation affects the usability of 'waiting times' for purposes such as informing consumers. We will argue that this problem is due to not making a clear distinction between performance indicators for internal use and for external use. We conclude that the usefulness of the publication of waiting time data for consumers strongly increases when waiting times are guaranteed and related to treatment options like booking possibilities and other performance indicators such as patient satisfaction.

Data Collection↗

PubMed2004

Using information technology for patient education: realizing surplus value?

Computer-based patient information systems are introduced to replace traditional forms of patient education like brochures, leaflets, videotapes and, to a certain extent, face-to-face communication. In this paper, we claim that though computer-based patient information systems potentially have many advantages compared to traditional means, the surplus value of these systems is much harder to realize than often expected. By reporting on two computer-based patient information systems, both found to be unsuccessful, we will show that building computer-based patient information systems for patient education requires a thorough analysis of the advantages and limitations of IT compared to traditional forms of patient education. When this condition is fulfilled, however, these systems have the potential to improve health status and to be a valuable supplement to (rather than a substitute for) traditional means of patient education.

Adult↗