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The “biosecuritization” of healthcare delivery: Examples of post-9/11 technological imperatives

This paper develops the concept of “biosecuritization” to describe new instantiations of the technological imperative in healthcare. Many discourses and practices surrounding hospitals’ new investments in information and communication technologies tend to revolve around security provision. Oftentime...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Fisher, Jill A., Monahan, Torin
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Elsevier Ltd. 2011
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7130908/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21163565
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2010.11.017
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author Fisher, Jill A.
Monahan, Torin
author_facet Fisher, Jill A.
Monahan, Torin
author_sort Fisher, Jill A.
collection PubMed
description This paper develops the concept of “biosecuritization” to describe new instantiations of the technological imperative in healthcare. Many discourses and practices surrounding hospitals’ new investments in information and communication technologies tend to revolve around security provision. Oftentimes, however, scenarios of extreme and exceptional circumstances are used to justify the implementation of identification and tracking technologies that may be more about managerial control than patient care. Drawing upon qualitative research in 23 U.S. hospitals from 2007 to 2009, our analysis focuses on hospitals’ deployment of identification and location technologies that manage patients, track personnel, and generate data in real-time. These systems are framed as aiding in the process of managing supplies and medications for pandemic flu outbreaks, monitoring exposure patterns for infectious diseases, and helping triage or manage the location and condition of patients during mass casualty disasters. We show that in spite of the framing of security and emergency preparedness, these technologies are primarily managerial tools for hospital administrators. Just as systems can be used to track infection vectors, those same systems can be used on a daily basis to monitor the workflow of hospital personnel, including nurses, physicians, and custodial staff, and to discipline or reward according to performance. In other words, the biosecuritization modality of the technological imperative leads to the framing of medical progress as the “rationalization” of organizations through technological monitoring, which is intended to promote accountability and new forms of responsibilization of healthcare workers.
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spelling pubmed-71309082020-04-08 The “biosecuritization” of healthcare delivery: Examples of post-9/11 technological imperatives Fisher, Jill A. Monahan, Torin Soc Sci Med Article This paper develops the concept of “biosecuritization” to describe new instantiations of the technological imperative in healthcare. Many discourses and practices surrounding hospitals’ new investments in information and communication technologies tend to revolve around security provision. Oftentimes, however, scenarios of extreme and exceptional circumstances are used to justify the implementation of identification and tracking technologies that may be more about managerial control than patient care. Drawing upon qualitative research in 23 U.S. hospitals from 2007 to 2009, our analysis focuses on hospitals’ deployment of identification and location technologies that manage patients, track personnel, and generate data in real-time. These systems are framed as aiding in the process of managing supplies and medications for pandemic flu outbreaks, monitoring exposure patterns for infectious diseases, and helping triage or manage the location and condition of patients during mass casualty disasters. We show that in spite of the framing of security and emergency preparedness, these technologies are primarily managerial tools for hospital administrators. Just as systems can be used to track infection vectors, those same systems can be used on a daily basis to monitor the workflow of hospital personnel, including nurses, physicians, and custodial staff, and to discipline or reward according to performance. In other words, the biosecuritization modality of the technological imperative leads to the framing of medical progress as the “rationalization” of organizations through technological monitoring, which is intended to promote accountability and new forms of responsibilization of healthcare workers. Elsevier Ltd. 2011-02 2010-11-27 /pmc/articles/PMC7130908/ /pubmed/21163565 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2010.11.017 Text en Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Since January 2020 Elsevier has created a COVID-19 resource centre with free information in English and Mandarin on the novel coronavirus COVID-19. The COVID-19 resource centre is hosted on Elsevier Connect, the company's public news and information website. Elsevier hereby grants permission to make all its COVID-19-related research that is available on the COVID-19 resource centre - including this research content - immediately available in PubMed Central and other publicly funded repositories, such as the WHO COVID database with rights for unrestricted research re-use and analyses in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source. These permissions are granted for free by Elsevier for as long as the COVID-19 resource centre remains active.
spellingShingle Article
Fisher, Jill A.
Monahan, Torin
The “biosecuritization” of healthcare delivery: Examples of post-9/11 technological imperatives
title The “biosecuritization” of healthcare delivery: Examples of post-9/11 technological imperatives
title_full The “biosecuritization” of healthcare delivery: Examples of post-9/11 technological imperatives
title_fullStr The “biosecuritization” of healthcare delivery: Examples of post-9/11 technological imperatives
title_full_unstemmed The “biosecuritization” of healthcare delivery: Examples of post-9/11 technological imperatives
title_short The “biosecuritization” of healthcare delivery: Examples of post-9/11 technological imperatives
title_sort “biosecuritization” of healthcare delivery: examples of post-9/11 technological imperatives
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7130908/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21163565
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2010.11.017
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