Maintaining a medical institution in a context of materiality change: Lessons from a Canadian university hospital

Abstract

This research aimed to better understand how institutions are maintained, and the role of materiality in this institutional work. More specifically, the present qualitative case study analyzed how different actors in a large academic hospital in Canada worked together (i.e. accomplished institutional work) to maintain the institution of medical record keeping as a new clinical information system (computerized physician order entry-the material entity) was enacted. The study reveals that, to maintain the institution at stake, the intertwinement of processes of creating and maintaining institutions took place. In fact, different forms of institutional work interact Results also strongly suggest that the design of computerized physician order entry and its implementation (i.e. the materiality involved in this institutional change) played an important role in the maintenance of the institution of medical record keeping: on the one hand, it was particularly present in three types of institutional work, namely enabling, policing, and deterring; on the other hand, it appeared to be an essential component of the routinization of work by allowing a better fit between the new technology and the organization of work