Digitalisation of medicines: artefact, architecture and time

Digitalization:  'The encoding of analogue information into a digital format and the possible subsequent reconfigurations of the socio-technical context of production and consumption of the associated products and services'.1

This edition includes two papers reporting research from a 5-year study of electronic prescribing in English hospitals.2 3 The papers each address a significant safety and quality issue drawing data from the wider study. These issues are the level of coordination and integration that electronic prescribing systems achieve,3 and the emergence of 'workarounds' as managers and clinical users adapt electronic prescribing systems' capabilities to their needs and working environment.2 The risks to patient safety posed by these systems, their implementation and use are further explored in a third associated paper published elsewhere.4

Workarounds were found to be either 'informal' or 'formalised' practices, the former derived from user...

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