Understanding health innovation in practice

This project, focus on how local, professional and institutional arrangements shape and are shaped themselves by, how healthcare professionals and other actors view, experience, and work with various health technologies. Particular attention is paid to not only the intended consequences but also the unintended or unexpected consequences that often follow such introduction.

The project raises that there often is an overemphasis on the role of the technological aspects (e.g. design, development, and application) and a lack of contextual sensitivity, when studying how health innovations are being introduced and used in practice. Through the project, we will advance the understanding of why various health innovations often face resistance and skepticism among healthcare professionals when being introduced in practice. This will contribute with important knowledge for future implementations.

The project consist of a number of sub-projects that take place in different empirical healthcare contexts (e.g. emergency care, wound care, triage and anamnesis). The sub-projects share the same methodological approach i.e. being qualitative in nature and based on interview and or observational data. The idea is to be as close to daily work, practices and activities as possible.