Purpose: Facilitation activities support implementation of evidence-based interventions within healthcare organizations. Few studies have attempted to understand how facilitation activities are performed to promote the uptake of evidence-based interventions in hospitals from resource-poor countries during crises such as pandemics. This paper aims to explore facilitation activities by infection prevention and control (IPC) professionals in 16 hospitals from 9 states in Brazil during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Design/methodology/approach: Primary and secondary data were collected between March and December 2020. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 21 IPC professionals in Brazilian hospitals during the COVID-19 pandemic. Public and internal documents were used for data triangulation. The data were analyzed through thematic analysis technique.

Findings: Building on the change response theory, this study explores the facilitation activities from the cognitive, behavioral and affective aspects. The facilitation activities are grouped in three overarching dimensions: (1) creating and sustaining legitimacy to continuous and rapid changes, (2) fostering capabilities for continuous changes and (3) accelerating individual commitment. Practical implications: During crises such as pandemics, facilitation activities by IPC professionals need to embrace all the cognitive, behavioral and affective aspects to stimulate positive attitudes of frontline workers toward continuous and urgent changes.

Originality/value: This study provides unique and timely empirical evidence on the facilitation activities that support the implementation of evidence-based interventions by IPC professionals during crises in hospitals in a resource-poor country.

© 2021, Luís Irgang, Magnus Holmén, Fábio Gama and Petra Svedberg

Despite the advances in modern medicine, the use of data-driven technologies (DDTs) to prevent surgical site infections (SSIs) remains a major challenge. Scholars recognise that data management is the next frontier in infection prevention, but many aspects related to the benefits and advantages of using DDTs to mitigate SSI risk factors remain unclear and underexplored in the literature. This study explores how DDTs enable value creation in the prevention of SSIs. This study follows a systematic literature review approach and the PRISMA statement to analyse peer-reviewed articles from seven databases. Fifty-nine articles were included in the review and were analysed through a descriptive and a thematic analysis. The findings suggest a growing interest in DDTs in SSI prevention in the last 5 years, and that machine learning and smartphone applications are widely used in SSI prevention. DDTs are mainly applied to prevent SSIs in clean and clean-contaminated surgeries and often used to manage patient-related data in the postoperative stage. DDTs enable the creation of nine categories of value that are classified in four dimensions: cost/sacrifice, functional/instrumental, experiential/hedonic, and symbolic/expressive. This study offers a unique and systematic overview of the value creation aspects enabled by DDT applications in SSI prevention and suggests that additional research is needed in four areas: value co-creation and product-service systems, DDTs in contaminated and dirty surgeries, data legitimation and explainability, and data-driven interventions. © 2023, The Author(s).

Eye-tracking technology is gaining significance in the healthcare industry because it can potentially reduce the need of physical contact between professionals, patients and contaminated surfaces, thereby reducing the risk of transmitting infections during healthcare. Despite its wide range of applications, the use of eye-tracking remains suboptimal, primarily due to data interpretation challenges and the effects on resource management, information flow, and internal workflows. This study explores value co-creation (VCC) interactions between technology providers and technology end-users that enable the adoption and use of eye-tracking in digitalized and hands-free healthcare settings. Adopting a qualitative approach, this study assembles data from exploratory and semi-structured interviews with professionals at eye-tracking providers and with physicians who use eye-tracking in clinical practice and research. Thematic analysis was used to analyze these data. The findings indicate that the VCC interactions in value co-production are driven by the alignment of technology potentialities and end-user needs, co-development of manuals and guidelines, and collaborative sensemaking of legal and scientific requirements. The findings also indicate that the VCC interactions in value-in-use focus on the alignment of technology performance and end-user experience, co-development of implementation strategies, and collaborative interpretation and assessment of outcomes. This study provides evidence on how technology end-users are involved in the development of technology with technology providers in the co-production of value and how the active participation of technology providers in the adoption and use of technologies helps end-users understand the benefits of the technology. The findings also shed light on interactions between technology providers and technology end-users that can help overcome barriers to the adoption of eye-tracking in healthcare. 

The use of artificial intelligence (AI) is changing how manufacturing firms create new value, shifting their business models from product suppliers toward product- service systems (PSS) providers. To create value for customers and users, firms need to internally develop or externally access new or modified capabilities to be integrated into the development of PSS value propositions. Currently, the PSS literature does not systematically show which capabilities are complementary to the focal firm’s capabilities and from which actors they are acquired. Therefore, this study characterizes and explains the necessary complementary capabilities for MedTech firms to diversify into PSS, identify external actors, and describe which business activities MedTech firms use to attract and integrate external complementary capabilities. The research design was an embedded case study of a multinational MedTech firm with four PSS innovation cases. The findings show that the complementary capabilities in PSS development by MedTech firms consist of 1) health-related capabilities; 2) data-driven capabilities; and 3) social capabilities. To attract and integrate these capabilities, MedTech firms rely on negotiations and formal contracts, additional benefits to current clients, after- sales contact and remote support, and exploration of partners’ networks and reputations. By drawing on the PSS, servitization, and capability-based views of the firm, the paper explains the limits to the internalization of complementary capabilities. 

Artificial intelligence (AI) is revolutionizing healthcare by introducing novel treatments and applications, thereby transforming the sector. However, the complexity, ambiguity, diversity, and inherent risks of AI can create tensions for healthcare workers, manifesting as dilemmas that lead to stress, anxiety, and discomfort in decision-making. These tensions are paradoxical in nature, as they present conflicting demands that persist over time and develop into seemingly irrational or absurd situations. Understanding how these paradoxical tensions affect healthcare workers’ responses to AI is crucial for successful integration and addressing potential concerns. This study investigates the role of paradoxical tensions and the paradoxical mindset in shaping healthcare workers’ responses toward AI. Specifically, the study examines how these factors influence end individuals’ intentions to adopt AI systems and tools and their satisfaction with them. Using a quantitative survey design, data were collected from 357 healthcare workers. The results, based on regression analysis, indicate that paradoxical tensions positively influence individuals’ intention to use AI systems and tools and their satisfaction with AI systems and tools, and that these relationships are mediated by paradoxical mindset.