Beyond implementation and resistance: how the delivery of ICT policy is reshaping healthcare

Abstract

New information and communication technologies (ICTs) offer great promise for the organisation of healthcare. Despite difficulties in implementation, commitment to the use of ICT in healthcare policy remains strong. Using examples from Norway, this article argues that this has set in motion changes beyond concerns about implementation and resistance, tied to an emergent mode of policy delivery dependent on private sector contractors and ICT experts working inside healthcare bureaucracies. We explore the consequences of this, as new centres of knowledge driven by distinctive and often conflicting rationalities come to shape the policy outcomes of strategic importance in healthcare.