The development of a hospital secure messaging and communication platform: a conceptualization.

Abstract

Pagers and phone conversations have been the stalwarts of hospital communication. With good reason, they are simple, reliable and relatively inexpensive. However, with the increasing complexity of patient care, the need for greater speed and the general inexorable progress of health technology, hospital communication systems appear to be increasingly inefficient, non-secure, and inadequate. It is unsurprising then, that methods other than pagers and phone-calls, are often utilized; be it residents communicating with other residents, nurses seeking consultant feedback, or patients seeking advice from their clinicians. Thus, this study seeks to develop a conceptual framework for the theoretical underpinning for a larger study and to answer the key research question: How can ICT (information communication technology) solutions ameliorate the current challenges regarding communication inefficiencies within healthcare? To answer this question, this study has served to develop a theoretical research framework by integrating two socio-technical theories namely Actor-network theory and Activity Theory to investigate the possibility of designing a bespoke ICT solution for a specific context at one of the largest private hospital in Australia.