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Collective Mindfulness and Processes of
Valentina LICHTNERa b,1 and Johanna I WESTBROOKb
a Department of Practice and Policy, UCL School of Pharmacy, UK
b Centre for Health Systems and Safety Research, AIHI,
Macquarie University, Australia
Abstract. High reliability organisations operate safely in situations of high risk by
organising for collective mindfulness. They do so through five ongoing processes
geared towards anticipating, containing, and making sense of the unexpected. The
five processes are: preoccupation with failure, reluctance to simplify interpretations,
sensitivity to operations, commitment to resilience, and deference to expertise. The
theory of collective mindfulness builds on Hutchins’s theory of distributed cognition
(the ‘collective mind’ of ship navigation teams) and on Langer’s theory of
mindfulness about individuals’ interpreting information in context. However, in the
theory of collective mindfulness, attention is paid not to individual cognition or
decision making, but to collective processes of sensemaking emerging from
individuals’ interactions in dealing with an equivocal environment. In health
informatics, the theory of collective mindfulness can be used to explain health
information technology (IT) development and implementation, across its life cycle,
and inform guidance towards mindful management of IT projects. For example,
applied to a case of electronic health record implementation in a hospital context,
the theory explains how mindful management of the sense-making challenges of
post-roll out adaptation processes contributes to a ‘successful’ IT project. Further,
the theory challenges a static and linear understanding of success (or failure) of
health IT initiatives, supporting instead an argument for outcomes – be it reliability
and safety, or IT project success – as collective, complex and dynamic achievements
of mindful organising practices.
Keywords. Mindfulness, Sensemaking, Organisations, Technology adoption.
Learning objectives
After reading this chapter, the reader will be able to:
1. Describe and explain the main tenets of the theory of collective mindfulness in
organisations.
2. Translate and apply the theory to health information technology (HIT)
implementation contexts.
3. Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the theory with respect to the insight
it can provide on HIT implementation.
1 Corresponding Author: Valentina Lichtner, E-mail: valentina.lichtner@mq.edu.au
Sensemaking in Health IT Implementation
Applied Interdisciplinary Theory in Health Informatics
P. Scott et al. (Eds.)
© 2019 The authors and IOS Press.
This article is published online with Open Access by IOS Press and distributed under the terms
of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License 4.0 (CC BY-NC 4.0).
doi:10.3233/SHTI190115
98
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book Applied Interdisciplinary Theory in Health Informatics - Knowledge Base for Practitioners"
Applied Interdisciplinary Theory in Health Informatics
Knowledge Base for Practitioners
- Title
- Applied Interdisciplinary Theory in Health Informatics
- Subtitle
- Knowledge Base for Practitioners
- Authors
- Philip Scott
- Nicolette de Keizer
- Andrew Georgiou
- Publisher
- IOS Press BV
- Location
- Amsterdam
- Date
- 2019
- Language
- English
- License
- CC BY-NC 4.0
- ISBN
- 978-1-61499-991-1
- Size
- 16.0 x 24.0 cm
- Pages
- 242
- Category
- Informatik