Digital Healthcare Technologies in a Comparative Perspective: The Case of Taiwan and Sweden

Abstract

In discussing the potential benefits and drawbacks of healthcare technologies, questions arise within a social perspective as to what digital healthcare technologies have to offer. Objective: To analyze the symbolic interaction framework to understand the implementation of digital healthcare technologies and the resulting interaction with medical doctors. Methods: Interviews were conducted with eight doctors; five Taiwanese and three Swedish doctors were participated. Semi-structured interviews were used to collect data from the participants. Interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed, and data analysis guided by symbolic interaction theory. Results: Four themes were identified from the interviews: 1) Interpreting digital healthcare technologies, 2) Interaction with digital healthcare technologies, 3) Digital dilemma and (4) Future of digital culture. Conclusions: The results reveal many issues regarding digital healthcare technologies, such as: symbolic meanings, purposes of usage, expectations, problems, and possible solutions. To the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the first study to explore the perspectives of Taiwanese and Swedish medical doctors towards digital healthcare technologies using symbolic interactionism.