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Blended human-technology service realities in healthcare

Dodds, Sarah, Russell–Bennett, Rebekah, Chen, Tom, Oertzen, Anna-Sophie, Salvador-Carulla, Luis, Hung, Yu-Chen (2022) Blended human-technology service realities in healthcare. Journal of Service Theory and Practice, 32 (1). pp. 75-99. ISSN 2055-6225. (doi:10.1108/JSTP-12-2020-0285) (The full text of this publication is not currently available from this repository. You may be able to access a copy if URLs are provided) (KAR id:107085)

The full text of this publication is not currently available from this repository. You may be able to access a copy if URLs are provided. (Contact us about this Publication)
Official URL:
https://doi.org/10.1108/JSTP-12-2020-0285

Abstract

Purpose

The healthcare sector is experiencing a major paradigm shift toward a people-centered approach. The key issue with transitioning to a people-centered approach is a lack of understanding of the ever-increasing role of technology in blended human-technology healthcare interactions and the impacts on healthcare actors' well-being. The purpose of the paper is to identify the key mechanisms and influencing factors through which blended service realities affect engaged actors' well-being in a healthcare context.

Design/methodology/approach

This conceptual paper takes a human-centric perspective and a value co-creation lens and uses theory synthesis and adaptation to investigate blended human-technology service realities in healthcare services.

Findings

The authors conceptualize three blended human-technology service realities – human-dominant, balanced and technology-dominant – and identify two key mechanisms – shared control and emotional-social and cognitive complexity – and three influencing factors – meaningful human-technology experiences, agency and DART (dialogue, access, risk, transparency) – that affect the well-being outcome of engaged actors in these blended human-technology service realities.

Practical implications

Managerially, the framework provides a useful tool for the design and management of blended human-technology realities. The paper explains how healthcare services should pay attention to management and interventions of different services realities and their impact on engaged actors. Blended human-technology reality examples – telehealth, virtual reality (VR) and service robots in healthcare – are used to support and contextualize the study’s conceptual work. A future research agenda is provided.

Originality/value

This study contributes to service literature by developing a new conceptual framework that underpins the mechanisms and factors that influence the relationships between blended human-technology service realities and engaged actors' well-being.

Item Type: Article
DOI/Identification number: 10.1108/JSTP-12-2020-0285
Subjects: H Social Sciences
Divisions: Divisions > Kent Business School - Division > Department of Marketing, Entrepreneurship and International Business
Depositing User: Professor Tom Chen
Date Deposited: 24 Sep 2024 11:40 UTC
Last Modified: 25 Sep 2024 13:17 UTC
Resource URI: https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/eprint/107085 (The current URI for this page, for reference purposes)

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