Process Innovation With Lightweight It at an Emergency Unit

Abstract

In this paper, we are studying the role of lightweight IT in process innovation. Our research question is how can lightweight IT support process innovation within an established e-health information infrastructure? Our empirical evidence is a qualitative case study at a primary care emergency service in Oslo. We provide two contributions. First, applying the lens of business process innovation to the literature on information infrastructures, we retain the value of the installed base, while we at the same time ad speed to the implementation project. Second, we demonstrate the role of lightweight technology in improving logistics and message interaction within and between health units. The lightweight technologies availability on the commercial market makes acquisition and implementation faster. Based on this, we briefly suggest a “bypassing strategy” where a new layer of technology is built separately from the existing infrastructure in order to effectively address process innovation efforts.