Emotional labour in the collaborative data practices of repurposing healthcare data and building data technologies

Abstract

This article focuses on emotions, conceptualised as emotional labour, evoked during data practices used to repurpose and enable healthcare data journeys for Finnish public healthcare. Combined approaches from critical data studies and the sociology of emotions were used to contribute to a better understanding of the mundane but often invisible work of the emotions of experts involved in data practices, such as facilitating data journeys and building data technologies. The article is based on a two-and-a-half-year ethnographic study conducted in a Finnish regional public healthcare and social service organisation. The study results were derived from the analysis of 39 interviews and fieldnotes produced by observing 170 h of various meetings, events and work activities performed by experts. The results were organised into three forms of observed experts’ emotional labour related to three phases of healthcare data journeys: (a) caring for data production and preparing data for travel, (b) managing excitement and frustration in data processing for continually building the data management system, and (c) reassuring users in making sense of obtained data analytics. The results contribute to a greater understanding of the emotions and emotional labour generated by healthcare data journeys and in relation to the volatile nature of healthcare data and the collaborative character of data practices. This work advocates for a better recognition of the emotional aspects of data practices and their implications on data-based knowledge and datafication processes in healthcare.

(In)visible everyday work of fostering a data‐driven healthcare and social service organisation

“…(interview with the middle manager) Yet, because of the complexity of these technologies, the practitioners appeared to need many training sessions, which were initially organised en masse, and were thereafter offered to individuals or small groups. It was essential that these sessions reassured the care staff about their capacity to use these often complex technologies (see Choroszewicz, 2022). In some cases, the sessions did not necessarily match the speed of technological developments.…”

“…The issue of data work was examined in another article from the same project (seeChoroszewicz, 2022).2 This article is based on the fieldwork that was conducted as part of the 'Data-Driven Society in the Making' research project(2018)(2019)(2020)(2021)(2022). Here I describe the ethnographic research practice that is specifically relevant to this article.…”

“…Here I describe the ethnographic research practice that is specifically relevant to this article. In my two other articles, I provide additional information (for more, seeChoroszewicz, 2022;Choroszewicz & Alastalo, 2023).3 As the number of KT experts changed during the fieldwork, so too did the size and composition of the team.That said, there were around 16 experts on the team at any given time during the course of the fieldwork. Due to this small size of the KT, no meta-information is provided, and I refer to the team only as the 'knowledge production and technology expert team (KT)'.…”

“…11The issue of data work was examined in another article from the same project (see Choroszewicz, 2022). …”

“…Here I describe the ethnographic research practice that is specifically relevant to this article. In my two other articles, I provide additional information (for more, see Choroszewicz, 2022; Choroszewicz & Alastalo, 2023).…”