Medical CSCW

The global healthcare industry is charging ahead on the path to practice-wide and nationwide computerization on the heels of exciting developments in electronic health record, medical imaging, and ubiquitous computing fields. While the prospects for benefits such as increased quality of care and increased return on investments abound, we must also address the critical need by systems designers, healthcare decision makers, and care providers to deal with the underlying socio-technical implications of these technologies and how it affects workflow, coordination, and collaboration in medical practice.

Medical computer supported cooperative work, or Medical CSCW is one term that may be used to describe this area of research.