The Problem of Objects in Design of Health Care Information Systems

Sammanfattning: This thesis is about two different theoretical interpretations of objects and object-orientation in design of health care information systems – the interpretations of Activity Theory/Developmental Work Research and Computer Science respectively. One motive to my interest in objects of work and software, is to better understand the problems and possibilities in an inter¬dis¬ciplinary research project. With an origin in 2001, a Wound Care Project began as a joint R & D endeavour with the initial idea of utili¬zing digital photos. Soon, an information system (“Hedvig”) was developed for the purpose of managing digital photos and related treatment records on wounds. Later, this work expanded in creation of a distributed information system (“Helar”), a digital prototype for support of wound care treatment. Eventually, the thesis is summing up reflections related to the object concepts. AT/DWR has its strength in analysis and design of required change in a work practice but is still weak in method and techniques for support of making specific computa¬tional systems. In a way this shortcoming is thought of to be balanced by the technological CS discipline of which one of its main forces is to develop theory and practice for construction of computational information systems. This thesis suggest, in the inter¬dis¬ciplinary field of Health Care Information Systems Design, a further developed object con¬cept, and related scenarios and use cases, as a way of taking advantage of a combination of those two different strengths.