Many healthcare systems around the world are noted as fragmented, complex and low-quality, leaving patients and caregivers with no choice but to engage in “infrastructuring work” to make the systems function for them. However, the work patients do to construct their functioning health service systems often remain invisible, with very little resources and technologies available to assist them. This workshop aims to bring together researchers, health practitioners, and patients and caregivers to examine, discuss, and brainstorm ways to re-envision our healthcare service systems from the patients and caregivers’ perspectives, to unpack the types of work that they do to reconfigure, adapt and reconstruct the healthcare infrastructure, and to brainstorm possible design ideas that can provide better infrastructuring assistance to patients and caregivers. 

We invite researchers, health practitioners, and patients to examine, discuss, and brainstorm ways to re-envision our healthcare service systems from the patients and caregivers’ perspectives, and to unpack the types of work that they do to reconfigure, reconstruct and adapt the healthcare infrastructure. Specifically, we have the following goals:
  • Identifying different types of work that individuals engage in making the professional service system functioning
  • Sharing experiences, resources and strategies patients and caregivers develop when encountering complex healthcare services, facing different regulations, and policies from healthcare services systems from an international perspective
  • Reflecting on the role of materiality and spatiality and how they influence and transform both individuals' and health professionals’ experiences with care infrastructures
  • Leveraging the discussion from the workshop to brainstorm new thoughts into digital health system design that offers better connection than the traditional healthcare service infrastructure and to eliminate the burden individuals face in making the service work
  • Providing inspiration from multidisciplinary, cross-geography and cultural, and trans-national perspectives into the design of new sociotechnical solutions to support and sustain care infrastructures

To participate, please submit a two-page case description to: [email protected] by February 22, 2019. Each case should cover the following sections:
  • first, the infrastructure breakdowns and challenges from the healthcare system being described;
  • second, the work patients and caregivers do to reconfigure, connect, communicate and reconstruct their desired healthcare services;
  • third, the role of the care setting in relation to social and power structures, boundaries, material and spatial elements, and embodiment experiences; and last, the envisioned sociotechnical solutions to the problem. 
Position papers will be reviewed and selected by relevance and likelihood of stimulating the workshop discussion. Results of submission will be notified by March 1, 2019. We will select participants with diverse disciplinary, cultural and geographical backgrounds, and balance the cases in terms of medical conditions, healthcare systems, and sociotechnical context. The selected cases will be posted on the workshop website in early March 2019. At least one author of each accepted paper must register for the workshop and for at least one day of the conference. 

Contact
Submissions and questions about the workshop should be sent to: [email protected] 

Important Dates

February 22, 2019: case description deadline 
March 1, 2019: Notifications and registration instructions sent to authors
May 4, 2019: 14:30—20:30 pm: Workshop day

Submission

 Submission made to [email protected]

Submission format
Two page case description, 2-3 pages

More information

You can find our workshop proposal here.​

For your reference, we have compiled a list of examples of the infrasture breakdowns and patient/caregiver work here.

For transportation and accommodation information, please refer to CHI's official website: https://chi2019.acm.org/for-attendees/