Accountable technology appropriation and use

Abstract

In recent years, there has been growing interest in the ethnomethodological notion of accountability and discussion of how it can be used to understand technology use and inform design. This paper hopes to contribute to this ongoing discussion by exploring how local understandings of accountability affect technology use and how the introduction of new technologies in turn affects those local understandings of accountability. The paper explores this phenomenon by describing the introduction of a device into an intensive care unit. The appropriation and use of this device was affected by local understandings of accountability but the technology itself also created new means by which staff could demonstrate themselves as competent practitioners, thus creating new local understandings of accountability. Copyright 2004 ACM.