Abstract
This research ascertained the characteristics of the work of Australia’s Health Information Managers (HIMs). It also explored the challenges (disorder) that they face and how they manage these (create order) to produce the official facts (“the truth”) of the patient. A qualitative approach involved in-depth interviews of 55 HIMs. The HIM-participants, employed throughout the healthcare system, had spent between seven and 40 years in the profession and were confident of their expertise. The domains of their work and professional knowledge were identified as: health information science and management, including data privacy; health classification; health informatics, and information and communication technologies; and health data analysis and epidemiological research. The HIMs’ articulation work involves complex, system- and data-based governance, data privacy, and technology-related functions intended to purify and establish the source of “truth” of health data for their ultimate construction of official facts. In curating, classifying and analysing the scientific facts of the patient they produce population health data and calculate hospital performance and revenues. Their ordering work necessitates constant problem-solving, intermediation, and interfacing between stakeholders, technologies and technicians amid systemic pressures and expectations of their outputs. Paradoxically, their data ordering and truth-making are invisible to patients and the public.
Recommended Citation
Robinson, Kerin Dr; Cummings, Elizabeth Dr; Barraclough, Simon Dr; and Iedema, Rick Dr, "Creating order from disorder in health data and health information systems: A problematic of invisibility of the “truth makers”" (2025). SJIS Preprints (Forthcoming). 23.
https://aisel.aisnet.org/sjis_preprints/23