Medical secretaries are centrally positioned at the center of data work within Danish hospitals. In the 1950s, they primarily transcribed physicians’ dictations, but their work task portfolio has since expanded as demands for patient record keeping and data coding grew, and as complex patient trajectories required more coordination. New technologies such as electronic health records and speech recognition have led to debates about the dying out of the profession, recently underscored layoffs as the electronic health records ‘Sundhedsplatformen’ was implemented. At the same time, they have acquired new tasks and work roles such as ICT super-users, patient supervisors, data controllers and coders. Thus, the profession of medical secretaries provides an interesting opportunity for investigating how data work becomes part of and shapes a profession and its relations to other professions such as doctors, nurses and other administrative staff.

The purpose is to identify the skills and tasks that constitute data work in a Business Intelligence unit (BIU) and local hospital wards as well as which roles and professions that conduct it. This will be done on the basis of ethnographic studies and qualitative methods.

The study is based on literature of data, data work, information technology, and professions, as well as an exploratory field study of a BIU in Central Region Denmark, which since its establishment in 2012 constantly has developed its task and competence portfolio. The field study involves participant-observation at the unit and semi-structured interviews with employees and managers. At the same time, this serves as a starting point for investigating who performs data work on hospitals and the local wards as well as what constitute this work. 

The aim of the project is to generate in-depth empirical knowledge of the staff’s data practices and accordingly, there will be a focus on the staff members’ skills and daily work, e.g., who conducts which tasks with data, what educational background and experience they have, as well as which skills and competences they had to acquire. In addition, there will be a focus on work practices in relation to work with data, who they collaborate with, and how cooperation takes place across the BIU and the relevant hospital wards. In continuation hereof the field study forms the basis for an exploration of how data work tasks and professions change within the healthcare system.

A national overview of the new competences, tasks and functions and involved professions that emerge with digitalization of healthcare in Denmark will be investigated a series of interviews with Business Intelligence managers and selected collaborators in Denmark’s five regions and at major hospitals. This broad strategy aims to provide an overview of the different ways data work can be organized; which skills and competences are required; and which professions are involved.