Abstract:

Part of the ongoing digital transformation process in health care organizations is to make use of different digital tools or Apps for patient contact, patient anamnesis and patient follow up. To develop such a tool for a specific target group and a specific illness or symptom group often requires extensive understanding of the illness. However, a developer is usually a good programmer or designer and not specifically trained in medicine. Inclusive design and early prototyping are then tools of great importance.

To bridge the competences between the two expert groups; the developers and the medical staff (In this paper a combination of nurses, specialized nurses and physicians), and to adapt the software to a specific context, a project was initiated with both software developers and the staff at a medical centre involved. Through work integrated learning methodology the idea is to exchange knowledge and ideas during development while working together with the staff and real patients.

A software App is developed for cognitive disorders based on physical tests and questionnaires that are usually used at memory clinics to evaluate the cognitive status of their patients. The App is developed in close collaboration with medical specialist. During 2021 the App is introduced at the medical centre of the project and they provide feedback directly to the developers on how well it works. The App is simultaneously also used at a number of medical centres.

In this study we have followed the development and how the App is used in a real context. Weekly meetings with the medical centre have given us insights in the development cycles but also understanding of how knowledge is exchanged between the developer and the medical staff. Our observations during the weekly meetings are followed up by interviews with medical staff at other medical clinics where the App is also used.

Our main focus of this paper is to understand the knowledge transfer between the different participants in this project and how Work Integrated Learning can function as a facilitator for learning and the creation of new knowledge between the different disciplines. We also realized that different medical clinics use different work procedures and follow different processes. Knowledge transfer is therefore also studied within the discipline but between organizations. In the study we try to look at how the App is used in different contexts and how the App is adapted based on usage. The practical usage by physicians and patients create better understanding of different organizational processes within the development team and that influence how the updates of the App turned out.

Keywords:

Knowledge transfer, App development, Cross-disciplinary.