Using Activity Theory Successfully in Healthcare: A Systematic Review of the Theory's Key Challenges to Date

Abstract

Collaborative tools in organizations become more and more apparent. These tools are being realized by novel information technology. Particularly, healthcare is a fast-evolving industry in terms of information system innovation. As the evolution is fast, and new systems are always error-prone due to socio-technical complexity, new analysis tools and methods for quality assurance must be adapted. In earlier research, we proposed Activity Theory as a fitting analysis tool due to the reason that it has advantages over other HCI theories, such as Actor-Network Theory or Distributed Cognition. However, several limitations became apparent during our studies. In the present work, we are conducting a systematic literature review of activity theoretical limitations and challenges to provide design guidelines for an improved version of Activity Theory. These implications can help to develop more advanced Activity Theory concepts and contributions; which in turn can improve the analysis results of socio-technical systems in healthcare.