Infrastructural arrangements for integrated care: implementing an electronic nursing plan in a psychogeriatric ward

PURPOSE: The paper contributes to the conceptualisation of “integrated care” in heterogeneous work practices. A dynamic perspective is developed, emphasising how integrated care is malleable, open, and achieved in practice. Furthermore, we explore the role of nursing plans in integrated care practices, underscoring the inherent difficulties of building one common infrastructural system for integrated care. METHODS: Empirically, we studied the implementation of an electronic nursing plan in a psychiatric ward at the University Hospital of North Norway. We conducted 80 hours of participant observation and 15 interviews. RESULTS: While the nursing plan was successful as a formal tool among the nurses, it was of limited use in practice where integrated care was carried out. In some instances, the use of the nursing plan even undermined integrated care. CONCLUSION: Integrated care is not a constant entity, but is much more situated and temporal in character. A new infrastructural system for integrated care should not be envisioned as replacing most of the existing information sources, but rather seen as an extension to the heterogeneous ensemble of existing ones.