ABSTRACT
Health information technology projects are highly complex social and technical endeavors. Social interactionist theories in informatics were developed and extended by the late Rob Kling, the father of social informatics, during his tenure at the University of California, Irvine, and then at Indiana University. Kling thought that many information and communications technology (ICT) professionals have an inadequate understanding of ICT, the actions and interactions of people who use them, and the organizational and social contexts in which they are used. Most important of all is critical thinking about ICT projects; that is, developing the ability to examine ICTs from perspectives that do not automatically and implicitly adopt the goals and beliefs of the groups that commission, design, or implement specific ICTs. Some authors in the healthcare informatics sphere have begun to challenge the dominant paradigm, but not without raising significant controversy and receiving considerable criticism.
