Caregiver-Patient-Information System Triad: Conceptualizing the workspace for mobile and ubiquitous computing in Health

The goal of this short paper is to bring to attention of both academics and practitioners that mobile computing or other ways of ubiquitized access to health information systems, might be better conceived as technology actors within a Caretaker-Patient-Information Systems triad. This triad is a form of what could be called a social workspace. When Hospital/Health Information Systems (HIS) were only accessible via Desktops, bringing together, doctor, patient, and information resources was only possible in situations when both human actors were able to move. Using MICT, given its fundamental property-mobility in physical space, HIS can be brought (by human actors or even, in autonomous ways, by robots) to the presence of the patient even in situations when patients are bed-bound patient and could not easily be moved, thus expanding the technical versatility of IT infrastructure. In this sense MICTs would act as space-adjusting technologies.