ABSTRACT
Organizational cognition and cognitive ethnography lack studies that account for conflicts emerging in contemporary sociotechnical systems. We explore how technology-induced tensions constrain human behavior in a case of interprofessional collaboration in a nursing home. We thus trace the investigation of social organizing to the hybrid encounter between a care assistant and a nurse as they engage with the nursing home’s digital communication system, in a troublesome decision-making process. While the digital system provides the professionals information about an earlier decision made, namely, a Do Not Attempt CardioPulmonary Resuscitation -decision, concerning a terminal ill patient’s treatment, the record states that the patient must receive “good and loving care,” which is a well-known, yet illegitimate expression of DNACPR to put in writing. Therefore, the record in the system is faulty, which creates a micro-dilemmatic situation: must the nurse and care assistant act according to the “good and loving care”—information conveyed in the record in line with the patient’s and relatives’ wishes, but then risk breaking the law, as the information is not in line with institutional policy or must the two professionals act according to policy, and retrieve the proper document, but then risk harming the patient and go against their professional judgment?
