Information, technology and care

Researchers in this area explore the relationship between information, technology and care, drawing on insights from a range of disciplinary fields including: science and technology studies (STS), sociology of health, critical information systems and human-computer interaction.

Our research develops and applies sociotechnical approaches to understanding how information and digital technologies are transforming the practices of health and social care, as well as the everyday practices of care between friends, family and community.

We understand care as a social practice in which people, policies, protocols, norms and values, as well as different forms of knowledge and technical devices, are all necessary to the achievement of good care.

Our research highlights the importance of understanding how these elements combine to produce good care and we work closely with both providers and recipients of care in statutory, voluntary and community contexts to develop participative approaches to technology adoptions, implementations and uses that can help maximise opportunities for context-relevant benefits to be derived.

Flis Henwood

Professor Flis Henwood
Professor of Social Informatics

Current policy emphasises the transformative character of information and digital technologies for health and social care. Claims that more and better information, increasingly communicated via digital technologies, will lead to higher-quality, more efficient and cost-effective care, are now commonplace.

Our research challenges this assumption and undertakes empirical studies of the implementation and use of digital technologies in a range of care contexts to examine the everyday life and work practices associated with care. We do so in order to both explicate the more complex and contingent relationships that exist between information, technology and care and, where appropriate, to work collaboratively with service providers, users and citizens to develop more robust and participative methodologies for enabling benefits to be realised from the implementation and use of digital technologies in different health and care contexts.

Our recent research project and topics areas include:

  • Electronic patient records evaluation
  • Evaluation of mobile phone app. for use by stable HIV patients
  • Patient Record Enhancement Project (PREP)
  • Support for family carers in dementia care
  • Information for healthy living
  • Understanding older people’s experiences of online and offline communities

Research projects

Electronic Patient Records (EPR) evaluation

A collaborative approach to evaluating the implementation and ongoing use of an electronic patient record (EPR) system

Evaluation of mobile phone app. for use by stable HIV patients

An evaluation of the development and implementation of a mobile phone app. being piloted by staff and patients at Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals Trust.

Patient Record Enhancement Project (PREP) 

Research aimed at developing technological solutions for increasing the utility of Electronic Health Records, with particular focus on human-computer interaction.

Carer Information and Support Programme (CrISP)

A study of how an information and support programme for family carers of people with dementia impacted on the caring relationship

Information for healthy living

An empirical investigation into how mid-life and older adults in two locations respond to healthy living messages.

Older people’s experiences of online and offline communities

An investigation into what motivates older people to engage with online communities and the ongoing effect on local community involvement.

EmERGE

The EmERGE project will enable self-management of HIV in patients with stable disease.

Brighton Citizens' Health Services SurveyA survey focused on core values, current issues and future plans for health commissioning.

Related PhD project topics

  • The development of electronic patient record systems in an era of patient-centred healthcare (Martin Burns)
  • Caring online? Older people and social networking (Cara Redlich)
  • Technology, care and a sense of home: an ethnographic study of telecare (Gigliola Brintazzoli)
  • The use of mobile phones in health care practice: the case of ward rounds (Bethany Davies)

Research team

Dr Kepa Artaraz

Dr Mary Darking

Stephanie Fleischer

Dr Rebecca Graber

Dave Harley

Professor Flis Henwood

Naomi Smith

Professor Peter Squires

Dr Carl Walker

Undergraduate/postgraduate student researchers

Gigliola Brintazzoli

Martin Burns

Dr Bethany Davies

Catherine Lacy

Maggie Peake

Cara Redlich

Jenny Terry

Output

Brintazzoli, G (2017) Telecare is more than just technology – it has the power to create care networks for older people, The Conversation, 6 March.

Brighton Citizens’ Health Services Survey team (2016) Brighton Citizens' Health Services Survey - findings report

Barnes, M, Henwood, F and Smith, N (2014) ‘ Information and care: a relational approach’ Dementia

Darking M, Anson R, Bravo F, Davis J, Flowers S, Gillingham E, Goldberg L, Helliwell P, Henwood F, Hudson C, Latimer S, Lowes P, and Stirling (in press) ‘Practice-centred evaluation: the case for participative methodologies and the privileging of care in health information technology evaluation, British Medical Council Health Services Research

Harley, DA., Harris, E and Howland, K (2014) ’Trajectories to community engagement: Understanding older people’s experiences of engagement with online and local communities‘. Working Papers of the Communities & Culture Network+ Vol.3 (April 2014).

Fitzpatrick, G, Huldtgren, A, Malmborg, L, Harley, D and Ijsselsteijn, W (2013) Design for Agency, Adaptivity and Reciprocity: re-imagining AAL and telecare agendas. In: Designing Socially Embedded Technologies: A European Challenge, Randall, D, Schmidt, K and Wulf, V (eds) Springer.

Henwood, F, Harris, R and Spoel, P (2011) ‘Informing health? Negotiating the logics of choice and care in everyday practices of “healthy Living” ’, Social Science and Medicine, Vol 72, No 12, pp. 2026-2032.

Axelrod, L, Fitzpatrick, GA, Henwood, F, Thackray, L, Simpson, B, Nicholson, A, Smith, H, Rait, G and Cassell, J (2011) 'Acted Reality' in Electronic Patient Record Research: A Bridge Between Laboratory and Ethnographic Studies. In: Interact 2011: 13th IFIP TC13 Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (Interact), 5-6th September, Lisbon, Portugal. View further information

Axelrod, Lesley, Fitzpatrick, GA, Henwood, F, Nicholson, A, Rait, G, Smith, H and Cassell, J (2011) Secondary use of data recorded in primary care: insights from human computer interaction field studies. In: 40th Annual Scientific Meeting of the Society for Academic Primary Care (SAPC’11), 6-8th July, Bristol, UK. View further information

Axelrod, L, Fitzpatrick, GA, Henwood, F, Cassell, J, Smith, H, Nicholson, A and Rait, G (2011) Data Recording in Primary Care Field Studies. In: 5th International Conference on Pervasive Computing Technologies for Healthcare (PervasiveHealth) and Workshops, 23 - 26th May, Dublin, Ireland. View further information

Harley, D, Fitzpatrick, G, Axelrod, L, White, G and McAllister, G (2010) Making the Wii at home: game play by older people in sheltered housing. In: Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on HCI in Work and Learning, Life and Leisure: Workgroup Human-Computer Interaction and Usability Engineering (USAB'10), Gerhard Leitner, Martin Hitz, and Andreas Holzinger (Eds.). Springer-Verlag, Berlin, Heidelberg, 156-176.

Sources/links

The EPSRC Digital Economy ‘Communities and Culture’ Network+ (CCNetwork+)

The PREP project

Collaborations

Brighton and Sussex Medical School

Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals Trust (Sussex Kidney Unit and HIV Medicine)

NHS Support Federation

University of Essex

University of Surrey

University of Sussex (Informatics Lab)

University of Technology, Vienna

University of Western Ontario, Canada

Laurentian University, Ontario, Canada

Funding

The Wellcome Trust (£17,000) as part of large project led by Brighton and Sussex Medical School (total grant £672,000)

The Alzheimer’s Society (£76,000)

The Gilead Fellowship (£11,000)

Brighton and Sussex Universities Hospitals Trust (£15,000)

EPSRC Digital Economy Communities and Culture Network+ (£20,000)

Awards, recognition,  impact

Henwood, F. Invitation to present critical review of two new books on technologies and care relationship to Annual Meeting of the Netherlands Graduate Research School of Science, Technology and Modern Culture, Amsterdam, December 13-14, 2012.

Axelrod, L. and Henwood, F. ‘Understanding the balance between the use of free text and coded data in primary care electronic patient records (EPRs): an ethnographic study’. Invited presentation for the Human Computer Interaction Group, Institute for Design and Assessment of Technology, Vienna University of Technology, March 1, 2012.

Henwood, F. ‘Bringing a sociological imagination to e-health practice: Resisting policy-based evidence through participative research’. Invited presentation for panel on ‘Telemedicine: broken promises and sociological imagination’ at British Sociological Association Conference, London School of Economics, April 2011. 

Henwood, F. ‘Choosing health? Negotiating the logics of choice and care in everyday practices of “healthy living” ’. Invited presentation for the Faculty of Information and Media Studies, University of Western Ontario, Canada, November 1, 2010.

Invitation to Expert Workshop on ‘Implementing and integrating ehealth technologies: frameworks for understanding socio-technical change’, Institute of Health and Society, Newcastle University, May 19-20th, 2010.