… , a nursing unit is not a nursing unit, and an IV pump is not an IV pump.
Last Wednesday, I used this quote in my presentation at the RSD15 conference (Relating Systems Thinking & Design), where I discussed the impact of diversity on technology adoption and use by nurses. This includes not only diversity of people, but also diversity and variation in processes, contexts, and technologies.
An important point takeaway is how our language can hide these differences. A nurse is not a nurse. We use language to highlight these differences; for example, we use 85 different job titles to describe the roles and responsibilities of the 2,300+ nurses in more detail. However, even within these functions, there is a lot of variation and nuance.
A nursing unit is not just a nursing unit. The essence of a nursing unit is, of course, consistent across units: a combination of care professionals working towards the care and treatment of patients with a specific clinical focus, supported by technology. We use names and labels to describe the focus, such as ‘cancer centre’ or ‘neurology unit’. However, the layout of the floor plans differs. Work processes and priorities vary. The treatments are related to the clinical focus. The work culture may also vary.
It is important to understand these differences, as they can (and did) impact the adoption of technology that nurses need. Still, the variety is hidden in words and categories.
Gobbledygook
We also face a challenge because we don’t have enough words to differentiate between or understand the variety of nuances. We try to add meaning to words and create new ones, but not everyone knows these words. Sometimes they are long or even domain-specific. This became clear when someone described text on the conference website as ‘gobbledygook’. Perhaps that word is the perfect example. I had never heard the word before and had to look up its meaning to understand the reaction.
It’s tricky, isn’t it? We have ‘bigger words’ with more specific meanings that are not part of our vocabulary, and we have to look them up to understand what someone is trying to tell us. At the same time, we have ‘simple words’ that we know the meaning of, but that trick us into thinking we are talking about the same thing.
We are not. A nurse is not a nurse…
Standing in the most amazing room of Castle Valentino.
“Gobbledygook: language that sounds important and official but is difficult to understand” (Cambridge Dictionary)