The use of Electronic Information Systems in social work. A scoping review of the empirical articles published between 2000 and 2019

Figures & data

Figure 1. The process of scoping review.

Table 1. Description of included articles.

Authors/Year	Country of study	Aim of study	Methods and sample of study	Identified themes^a
Burton and van den Broek (2009)	Australia	To examine changes in social work after the introduction of new technologies.	Case 1: interviews with 5 caseworkers and 2 union officials (Helpline -call centre) and survey of 46 employees to corroborate interview data. Case 2: interviews with 5 managers, 4 team leaders, 2 support workers and 1 specialist caseworker.	1
Carrilio (2007)	USA	To understand factors associated with the utilisation of an EIS’.	Questionnaire of 245 social workers	2
De Corte et al. (2019)	Belgium	To find out how social workers use their agency when implementing top-down policy measures as street-level bureaucrats.	Interviews with 15 policy actors, 30 social work managers and 15 social practitioners	1, 3
Devlieghere et al. (2016)	Belgium	To find out policy rationales for installing an EIS.	Interviews with 18 policy actors	1
Devlieghere et al. (2017)	Belgium	To uncover the governmental rationales for installing an EIS.	47 government documents	1
Devlieghere and Roose (2018a)	Belgium	To capture the tension between an EIS and social work practice.	Interviews with 17 child welfare professionals	1, 3
Devlieghere and Roose (2018b)	Belgium	To capture the meaning of different strategies practitioners and managers are using when using an EIS.	Same as Devlieghere & Roose, 2018a	1, 3
Devlieghere and Roose (2019)	Belgium	To find out how the creation of transparency through an EIS is realised (or not realised) in daily practice.	Same as Devlieghere & Roose, 2018a, in addition 19 interviews with 29 managers	1
Devlieghere et al. (2019)	Belgium	To find out managers’ perspective on the role of EIS in creating accountability.	Interviews with 29 social work managers	1
De Witte et al. (2016)	Belgium	To find out the street-level strategies social workers develop regarding an EIS.	Interviews with 15 social workers	3
Gillingham (2013)	Australia	To understand interactions between practitioners and EISs.	46 interviews with practitioners, observation of practice and audits of 51 case files	1, 4
Gillingham (2014a)	Australia	To find out the interactions between practitioners and EISs for future development.	20 observations of meetings and workshops and 60 interviews with social workers, team leaders, managers, ICT staff and vendors	2, 4
Gillingham (2014b)	Australia	To find out who should have access to EISs to both enter and retrieve data.	Observations of meetings and workshops (80 staff members) and 31 interviews.	1, 4
Gillingham (2014c)	Australia	To find out the reasons why positioning EISs as a panacea for organizations is problematic.	Observations, sample size not mentioned	1, 4
Gillingham (2014d)	Australia/ England	To understand how and why the problems with current designs of EISs have arisen.	Observations, sample size not mentioned	1
Gillingham (2015a)	Australia	To understand the needs of managers in relation to EISs.	Policy documents and interviews with practitioners (25), administrators (5), managers (15), ICT professionals (7) and vendors (3), 9 workshops and a field diary	1, 4
Gillingham (2015b)	Australia	To provide some guidance for social workers to help them be active and effective participants in the future development of EISs.	12 workshops, 20 interviews with practitioners and a field diary	4
Gillingham (2015c)	Australia	To provide insights into the dynamics between the implementation of EISs in human service organisations, in order to avoid unanticipated consequences.	Same as Gillingham, 2015a	1, 4
Gillingham (2015d)	Australia	To draw attention to the gap that social workers have struggled to articulate their needs in relation to EISs and have been ill-prepared to engage in participatory design.	Observations in 11 workshops and 50 individual interviews with practitioners, administrators, managers and vendors	1,4
Gillingham (2015e)	Australia	To highlight ideas that guide social workers as they engage in participatory design processes.	Observations, sample size is not mentioned	4
Gillingham (2016)	Australia	To present the perspectives of practitioners as end-users of EISs.	Interviews with 9 social workers and 2 managers. In addition, notes and a field diary	1, 4
Gillingham and Graham (2016)	Australia/ England/NZ/ Scotland	To find out why current forms of EISs have undermined frontline practice.	Same as Gillingham, 2015a	4
Gillingham (2018a)	Australia/ England	To find out why an application in an EIS failed to achieve its aims.	7 interviews with supervisors and IT professionals	1, 4
Gillingham (2018b)	Australia	To examine the issues and factors that should be considered in the development of EISs.	Observations of management meetings (4) and workshops (8). Interviews with 5 service area managers, 2 team leaders, 1 management consultant, 5 human resources/finance/administration staff and 7 practitioners.	2, 4
Hill (2014)	UK	To find out how policy change in the social sector is implemented through EISs.	Data collected form one local organisation in Countyshire, England. Data included field notes, minutes of meetings, project and progress reports, specification documents, emails, supervisory sessions with ICT staff, evaluation reports and one-to-one interviews with management and operational staff.	1, 3, 4
Huuskonen and Vakkari (2015)	Finland	To find out how, why and what type of information social workers filter out when storing it in an EIS, and what kind of information gaps appear when reading information.	23 interviews with social workers and 7 social managers and 12 observation sessions	1, 2, 3
Koskinen (2014)	Finland	To find out how social work was practised during a period of EIS change.	Observation of the employees (7) and document analysis.	1, 3
Lagsten and Andersson (2018)	Sweden	To find out the challenges facing EIS use in social services.	70 people took part in the first evaluation process in 2007. In 2012, the agency re-evaluated the system ending up with the same system. Document analysis of the requirements specifications in order to determine whether progress had been made in the system was made. In 2016, 5 interviews with the same users as in 2007 were made.	1, 2, 4
Pithouse et al. (2012)	UK	To find out the paradigm that emerges in relation to policy goals and social work through an EIS in England and Wales.	Interviews with 9 social workers and 3–4 team and senior managers. In addition, 14 focus groups, with about 5 social workers.	1, 3
Sarwar and Harris (2019)	UK	To find out the success/failure of an EIS’s policy objectives and the reasons for this in England.	28 interviews with different professionals (e.g. social workers, managers)	1
Savaya et al. (2006)	Israel	To find out what happens when a government introduces a new EIS to modernise public service.	Questionnaire of 136 rehabilitation social workers	2, 3
Shaw et al. (2009)	UK	To find out the use of an EIS and its usability in social work tasks in England and Wales.	14 focus groups interviews, a survey (n=52) of team leaders, social workers and others using the system, the statistical analysis of over 10,000 records, interviews with social workers, children and families and a documentary analysis of implementation processes.	1, 3
Smith and Eaton (2014)	USA	To find out how technology and EIS affect social work practice.	Interviews with 386 child protection employees and managers	1, 4
Wastell et al. (2010)	UK	To find out the problems that EISs have brought to social work and how workers oppose their use, as a result of a political will to make work more effective.	5 workshops observations in England and Wales	1
Wastell and White (2014)	UK	The study looks at the design of EISs for social professionals and what things should be considered.	3 workshops	1, 4
White et al. (2010)	UK	To find out what problems EIS have brought to social work as a result of political will, and how they should be further developed.	Observations, 12 focus group interviews and 60 individual interviews, field diaries and other documents	1, 3

^a Identified themes: (1) The effects of using EISs on social work; (2) factors that have an impact on the use of EISs; (3) social workers’ strategies in the use of EISs and (4) The development of EISs with social workers.

Burton, J., & van den Broek, D. (2009). Accountable and countable: Information management systems and the bureaucratization of social work. British Journal of Social Work, 39(7), 1326–1342. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjsw/bcn027

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Carrilio, T. (2007). Using client information systems in practice settings: Factors affecting social workers’ use of information systems. Journal of Technology in Human Services, 25(4), 41–62. https://doi.org/10.1300/J017v25n04_03

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De Corte, J., Devlieghere, J., Roets, G., & Roose, R. (2019). Top-down policy implementation and social workers as institutional entrepreneurs: The case of an electronic information system in Belgium. British Journal of Social Work, 49(5), 1317–1332. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjsw/bcy094

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Devlieghere, J., Bradt, L., & Roose, R. (2016). Policy rationales for Electronic Information Systems: An area of ambiguity. British Journal of Social Work, 47(5), 1500–1516. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjsw/bcw097

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Devlieghere, J., Bradt, L., & Roose, R. (2017). Governmental rationales for installing Electronic Information Systems: A quest for responsive social work. Social Policy & Administration, 51(7), 1488–1504. https://doi.org/10.1111/spol.12269

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Devlieghere, J., & Roose, R. (2018a). Electronic Information Systems: in search of responsive social work. Journal of Social Work, 18(6), 650–665. https://doi.org/10.1177/1468017318757296

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Devlieghere, J., & Roose, R. (2018b). Creating transparency through Electronic Information Systems: Opportunities and pitfalls. The British Journal of Social Work, 48(3), 734–750. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjsw/bcx052

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Devlieghere, J., & Roose, R. (2019). Documenting practices in human service organisations through information systems: When the quest for visibility ends in darkness. Social Inclusion, 7(1), 207–217. https://doi.org/10.17645/si.v7i1.1833

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Devlieghere, J., Bradt, L., & Roose, R. (2019). Electronic information systems as means for accountability: Why there is no such thing as objectivity. European Journal of Social Work. https://doi.org/10.1080/13691457.2019.1585335

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De Witte, J., Declercq, A., & Hermans, K. (2016). Street-level strategies of child welfare social workers in Flanders: The use of electronic client records in practice. British Journal of Social Work, 46(5), 1249–1265. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjsw/bcv076

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Gillingham, P. (2013). The development of electronic information systems for the future: Practitioners, ‘embodied structures’ and ‘technologies-in-practice’. British Journal of Social Work, 43(3), 430–445. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjsw/bcr202

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Gillingham, P. (2014a). Electronic Information Systems and social work: Who are we designing for? Practice: Social Work in Action, 26(5), 313–326. https://doi.org/10.1080/09503153.2014.958454

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Gillingham, P. (2014b). Information Systems and Human Service Organizations: managing and designing for the “occasional user. Human Service Organizations Management, Leadership & Governance, 38(2), 169–177. https://doi.org/10.1080/03643107.2013.859198

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Gillingham, P. (2014c). Repositioning Electronic Information Systems in Human Service Organizations. Human Service Organizations Management, Leadership & Governance, 38(2), 125–134. https://doi.org/10.1080/03643107.2013.853011

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Gillingham, P. (2014d). Technology configuring the user: Implications for the redesign of Electronic Information Systems in social work. British Journal of Social Work, 46(2), 323–338. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjsw/bcu141

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Gillingham, P. (2015a). Electronic Information Systems and Human Service Organizations: the needs of managers. Human Service Organizations: Management, Leadership & Governance, 40(1), 51–61. https://doi.org/10.1080/23303131.2015.1069232

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Gillingham, P. (2015b). Electronic information systems and social work: Principles of participatory design for social workers. Advances in Social Work, 16(1), 31–42. https://doi.org/10.18060/18244

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Gillingham, P. (2015c). Electronic Information Systems and Human Service Organizations: The unanticipated consequences of organizational change. Human Service Organizations: Management, Leadership & Governance, 39(2), 89–100. https://doi.org/10.1080/23303131.2014.987412

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Gillingham, P. (2015d). Implementing Electronic Information Systems in Human Service organisations: The challenge of categorisation. Practice: Social Work in Action, 27(3), 163–175. https://doi.org/10.1080/09503153.2015.1014334

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Gillingham, P. (2015e). Electronic information systems in human service organisations: The what, who, why and how of information. British Journal of Social Work, 45(5), 1598–1613. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjsw/bcu030

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Gillingham, P. (2016). Electronic Information Systems to guide social work practice: The perspectives of practitioners as end users. Practice: Social Work in Action, 28(5), 357–372. https://doi.org/10.1080/09503153.2015.1135895

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Gillingham, P., & Graham, T. (2016). Designing electronic information systems for the future: Social workers and the challenge of New Public Management. Critical Social Policy, 36(2), 187–204. https://doi.org/10.1177/0261018315620867

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Gillingham, P. (2018a). Decision making about the adoption of digital technology in human service organizations: Some key considerations. European Journal of Social Work, 21(4), 521–529. https://doi.org/10.1080/13691457.2017.1297773

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Gillingham, P. (2018b). From bureaucracy to technocracy in a social welfare agency: A cautionary tale. Asia Pacific Journal of Social Work and Development, 29(2), 108–119. https://doi.org/10.1080/02185385.2018.1523023

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Hill, P. (2014). Supporting personalisation: The challenges in translating the expectations of national policy into developments in local services and their underpinning information systems. Social Policy & Society, 13(4), 593–607. https://doi.org/10.1017/S147474641400013X

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Huuskonen, S., & Vakkari, P. (2015). Selective clients’ trajectories in case files: Filtering out information in the recording process in child protection. British Journal of Social Work, 45(3), 792–808. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjsw/bct160

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Koskinen, R. (2014). One step further from detected contradictions in a child welfare unit—a constructive approach to communicate the needs of social work when implementing ICT in social services. European Journal of Social Work, 17(2), 266–280. https://doi.org/10.1080/13691457.2013.802663

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Lagsten, J., & Andersson, A. (2018). Use of information systems in social work – challenges and an agenda for future research. European Journal of Social Work, 21(6), 850–862. https://doi.org/10.1080/13691457.2018.1423554

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Pithouse, A., Broadhurst, K., Hall, C., Peckover, S., Wastell, D., & & White, S. (2012). Trust, risk and the (mis)management of contingency and discretion through new information technologies in children's services. Journal of Social Work, 12(2), 158–178. https://doi.org/10.1177/1468017310382151

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Sarwar, A., & Harris, M. (2019). Children’s services in the age of information technology: What matters most to frontline professionals. Journal of Social Work, 19(6), 699–718. https://doi.org/10.1177/1468017318788194

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Savaya, R., Monnickendam, M., & Waysman, M. (2006). Extent and type of worker utilization of an integrated information system in a human service agency. Evaluation and Program Planning, 29(3), 209–216. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evalprogplan.2006.03.001

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Shaw, I., Bell, M., Sinclair, I., Sloper, P., Mitchell, W., Dyson, P., Clayden, J., & Rafferty, J. (2009). An exemplary scheme? An evaluation of the integrated children's system. British Journal of Social Work, 39(4), 613–626. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjsw/bcp040

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Smith, R. J., & Eaton, T. (2014). Information and communication technology in child welfare: The need for culture-centred computing. Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare, 41(1), 137–160. Available at: https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/jssw/vol41/iss1/8

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Wastell, D., White, S., Broadhurst, K., Peckover, S., & Pithouse, A. (2010). Children's services in the iron cage of performance management: Street-level bureaucracy and the spectre of Svejkism. International Journal of Social Welfare, 19(3), 310–320. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2397.2009.00716.x

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Wastell, D., & White, S. (2014). Making sense of complex electronic records: Socio-technical design in social care. Applied Ergonomics, 45(2), 143–149. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apergo.2013.02.002

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White, S., Wastell, D., Broadhurst, K., & Hall, C. (2010). When policy o’erleaps itself: The “tragic tale” of the integrated children’s system. Critical Social Policy, 30(3), 405–429. https://doi.org/10.1177/0261018310367675

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