My time, your time, our time. Older patients’ and GPs’ time sensibilities around email consultations

ABSTRACT

In this study, we discuss how email consultations in general practice operate as a temporal technology, transforming working conditions and power relations between general practitioners (GPs) and patients. We draw on empirical material from Denmark in the form of a set of semi-structured interviews with 53 patients and 15 GPs, including two focus group discussions with 17 GPs. Our theoretical point of departure stems primarily from media theorist Sarah Sharma’s (2014) concept of power-chronography, which describes how power is embedded in temporal relations and everyday life and secondarily from sociologist, Judy Wajcman’s (2015) concept of multiple temporal landscapes. Patients and GPs calibrate their own time and attune their mutual time according to their expectations and ideas about the other party’s time. The patient and the GP can both be viewed as ‘time workers’ and the email consultation as a digital technology fostering the recalibration of one person’s time to that of another, requiring significant labour. The email consultation rearranges the GP-patient boundaries and thereby the power relations. Health institutions ought to consider whose time and labour is being ‘saved’ with digital systems.

KEYWORDS:

• Older patients
• general practice
• time
• power-chronography
• invisible labour
• email consultation

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the VELUX FOUNDATIONS Grant number 18158.

The study was approved by the institutional review board of the University of Southern Denmark, the Research and Innovation Organization (RIO) (Journal no. 10457) and conducted in accordance with the GDPR and AoIR's report Ethical Decision-Making and Internet Research (Markham and Buchanan, 2012).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the VELUX FOUNDATIONS Grant number 18158.

Notes on contributors

Anette Grønning

Anette Grønning holds a PhD in digital communication and is associate professor at the Department of Design, Media and Educational Science, University of Southern Denmark. Since 2003, Grønning’s research has focused on digital communication and social media, primarily in different workplace settings. Her research interests include various aspects of digital communication such as mediated discourse, memory, participation and social presence. Grønning is leading the project ‘Digital consultation’, funded by the Velux Foundations, and the Danish part of the project ‘Demography and Democracy - Healthy Ageing in A Digital World’, funded by the Kamprad Family Foundation.

Line Maria Simonsen

Line Maria Simonsen holds an interdisciplinary Ph.D. that bridges humanistic research of healthcare, media and technology, professional collaboration, and patient treatment with ecological psychology, cognitive science, sociology, and dialogism. Her research profile pivots on microsociological and ethnographic investigations of social interactions, organizations and societal changes emerging in real world settings.

Elle C. Lüchau

Elle Christine Lüchau, Master of Arts, Media Studies. PhD Student at the University of Southern Denmark, Research Unit for General Practice, Department of Public Health, [email protected]. She carries out research into societal, organizational and relational aspects of the use of video consultations in general practice.

Elisabeth Assing Hvidt

Elisabeth Assing Hvidt is an associate professor at the University of Southern Denmark, Department of Public Health, Research unit of General Practice. Her key research areas are person- and relationship-centred medicine, empathy and digital consultations in general practice.

Maja Klausen

Maja Klausen is an associate professor at the Department of Design, Media and Educational Science, University of Southern Denmark. Her work combines perspectives from media and cultural studies and research areas include critical digital health, datafication, participation and ageing. These topics are explored through bottom-up user/patient/citizen perspectives.