Technology Design and Routes for Tool Appropriation in Medical Practices

This chapter aims to analyze the extent to which medical practitioners incorporate the use of digital technologies into their practices. In this process, it is recognized that significant developments of technologies not only transform ways in which people interact and access to information to make decisions related to individual and social functioning but also influence and demand changes in professional practices. Nowadays, it is common that patients consult online information during their medical treatments. How do medical doctors develop an expertise in the use of digital technologies to fully incorporate them into their regular practices? The authors discuss the process in which medical practitioners get involved to transform an artifact (webpage, catheter, stent, etc.) into an instrument to treat a particular patient's health problem. To this end, they focus on the development of the practitioners' cognitive schemata to analyze and describe the main phases associated with the practitioner appropriation of the tool.