1.
Andersson, Anders-Petter, 1969-, et al.
(författare)
Designing empowering vocal and tangible interaction :
2013
Ingår i: The International conference on new interfaces for musical expression. - Kaejeon, Korea : Seoul National University. ; , s. 406-412
Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat) abstract
Our voice and body are important parts of our self-experience, and our communication and relational possibilities. They gradually become more important for Interaction Design due to increased development of tangible interaction and mobile communication. In this paper we present and discuss our work with voice and tangible interaction in our ongoing research project RHYME. The goal is to improve health for families, adults and children with disabilities through use of collaborative, musical, tangible media. We build on the use of voice in Music Therapy and on a humanistic health approach. Our challenge is to design vocal and tangible interactive media that through use reduce isolation and passivity and increase empowerment for the users. We use sound recognition, generative sound synthesis, vibrations and cross-media techniques to create rhythms, melodies and harmonic chords to stimulate voice-body connections, positive emotions and structures for actions.
2.
Andersson, Anders-Petter, 1969-, et al.
(författare)
Vocal and tangible technology for music and health
2013
Ingår i: Book of abstracts. - Oslo : The Norwegian Academy of Music. ; , s. 24-24
Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat) abstract
Our voice and body are important parts of our self-expression and self-experience. They are also essential for our way to communicate and build relations cross borders like abilities, ages, locations, backgrounds and cultures. Voice and tangibility gradually become more important when developing new music technology for the Music Therapy and the Music and Health fields, due to new technology possibilities that have recently arisen. For example smartphones, computer games and networked, social media services like Skype. In this paper we present and discuss our work with voice and tangible interaction in our ongoing research project. The goal is to improve health for families, adults and children with severe disabilities through use of collaborative, musical, tangible sensorial media. We build on use of voice in Music Therapy and studies by Lisa Sokolov, Diane Austin, Kenneth Bruscia and Joanne Loewy. Further we build on knowledge from Multi-sensory stimulation and on a humanistic health approach. Our challenge is to design vocal and tangible, sensorially stimulating interactive media, that through use reduce isolation and passivity and increase empowerment for all the users. We use sound recognition, generative sound synthesis, vibrations and cross- media techniques, to create rhythms, melodies and harmonic chords to stimulate body- voice connections, positive emotions and structures for actions. The reflections in this paper build on action research methods, video observations and research-by-design methods. We reflect on observations of families and close others with children with severe disabilities, interacting in three vocal and tangible installations.
3.
Andersson, Johanna, et al.
(författare)
Assessing outcome in collaboration : the impact of assessment on collaboration practice
2013
Ingår i: Critical Management Studies Conference 2013.
Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
Today the concept of efficiency is a guiding light in public management. Increased efficiency is thought to control spending and provide better services. Two approaches to achieve this are through assessments such as evaluation and audits; and collaboration between different actors. Collaboration can imply e.g. networks or partnerships and vary in intensity and formality. Regardless of form, collaborative efforts are generally thought to achieve services better adapted to address complex social problems, and diminishing overlaps and unclear responsibilities caused by fragmentation. Assessments are used to determine whether or not a program or a service is efficient, but the act of assessment itself is also intended to increase efficiency. Thus, the act of assessment influences the practice it is assessing. Furthermore, in order to be assessed, a program or a service has to be “evaluable”, which may also influence practice. Collaboration is often a solution to previous sector failure, and at the same time it is perceived as difficult to both achieve and sustain. Assessments are used as a tool to determine whether or not collaborative advantage is achieved and if the investments in collaboration should be pursued.Assessments of collaboration are a challenge since it confronts the regular vertical forms of organizing and thereby the focus of assessment. The challenge can be boiled down to the question of what collaborative arrangements can, and should, be held accountable for.Based on an ethnographic study and two years of field work, this question is critically analyzed with an example from Sweden. The financial coordination of rehabilitation measures act came into effect in 2004, and regulates the construction of coordination associations. The foundation of an association is a pooled budget to which all members, four different public authorities in the field of vocational rehabilitation, contribute. An important condition behind the law was the notion that public services were not adapted to, and therefore had trouble handling, some groups with complex problems needing support from two or more organizations at the same time. The overall, and ultimate, aim with financial coordination is to improve the working ability in the target population. Though the objective of the associations is, according to the law, to support collaboration, finance efforts within the collected area of responsibility and evaluate these efforts. The financed efforts may be both operative and strategic, and should in some way complement the operations of the member organizations or aim at development of new knowledge or methods. The associations have no power to make decisions of authority in relation to the target population, which remains with the professionals in the member organizations. Following this, it may be argued that the first target group of the associations is the regular organizations and next, as a secondary target group; the individuals in the target population. This means also that the target population is not the associations’ own but the regular organizations’ target groups. The aim with the associations is thus to contribute to the regular organizations working better in relation to this group. The associations have no tools at their disposal to contribute to the overall goal but the pooled budget. Their responsibility is to construct the budget, distribute the resources and follow up.However, as the findings presented and discussed in this paper show, the associations are generally held accountable to more than that in the frequent assessments being performed on both the associations and the efforts they finance. First, the associations are generally seen by others as being the efforts they finance. This makes the view of them almost like a new organization or authority, even though the efforts actually are organizationally owned and performed by regular organizations. Second, they are held accountable to the aim of improved working ability of the target group, i.e. the overall policy goal. Their objective to support collaboration and the notion that the law was introduced in order to ensure that, through collaboration, those individuals in the intersection of different organizations get the needed help is thus overlooked and focus is turned to effects on individuals.This paper argues that the assessments have highly influenced practice in the associations, and has shifted focus from organizational outcomes such as increased equity and quality of services due to decreased fragmentation, to individual outcomes such as employment and dependency of benefits. These latter outcomes are easier to account for and are also in line with conventional more hierarchical assessments. Since many associations perceive themselves to be questioned due to lacking efficiency, they may start seek legitimacy and thereby behave in line with the focus of assessments and start to “produce” improved working ability instead of supporting collaboration. Furthermore, the assessments and their focus on individuals tend to treat the associations not as a collaborative structure between four actors with a supportive aim, but as a regular organization with authoritative power. When the associations are held accountable for a group’s outcome, this group has been “passed on” from ordinary organizations on to the associations. Organizational outcome related to collaboration is greatly overlooked, in line with the “common wisdom” that collaboration is not an end in itself, and an end in public management collaboration must thus be measured as individual benefit. Increased quality and equity in services are thus outcomes that are not only not being assessed but might also be at risk of being lost with the current assessment focus. Last, there is an evident risk that the narrow and vertical assessment focus increases, instead of decreases, horizontal fragmentation within the welfare system due to its impact on coordination association practice.
4.
Andersson, Johanna, et al.
(författare)
Integration in Vocational Rehabilitation : a Literature Review
2011
Ingår i: Integration inHealth and Healthcare.
Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
Context: With the increasing specialisation of services, integration has become important for health and other welfare organisations in order to address the complex problems of their patients or clients. This is particularly in care of the elderly, psychiatric care and vocational rehabilitation. The following presentation reports a review of literature on integration in vocational rehabilitation, focusing on models of integration as well as barriers and facilitators.Methods: The review was based on a search in scientific journals from 1995 to 2010. It generated 13132 articles, which were reduced to 1005 after an initial overview. The abstracts were read by members of the research group. Each abstract was read by two members independently. If they agreed the article was included or excluded, but if not the whole group discussed the abstract. This procedure reduced the number of articles to 205, which were read in full text. Finally, 62 articles were included for thematic content analysis.Results: Most of the studies came from Sweden, while others came from Canada, Australia, UK, Netherlands, Norway and Denmark. In these studies different models of integration were identified. They were classified as structural or process oriented. The structural models included case management, partnerships, co-location and financial coordination, while the process oriented models included informal contacts, interorganisational meetings and multidisciplinary teams. There were also a number of barriers as well as facilitators of integration. The barriers included structural and cultural differences, while communication, trust and continuity were important facilitators.Discussion: There are different models of integration, but also many combinations. Case management is often combined with interorganisational meetings or multidisciplinary teams. There are also informal contacts in all models. There is a clear mirror effect between the different barriers and facilitators. Leadership may be either a barrier or a facilitator. In the same way, differences between organisations may be both barriers and facilitators. These results seem to be valid also for other fields of integration, for example care of the elderly, psychiatric care, and other forms of community care.
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10.
Åhgren, Bengt, 1950-
(författare)
Competition-exposed integration : an impossible composition?
2013
Ingår i: What healthcare can we afford?. ; , s. 106-
Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
ContextSwedish health care, like many other health care systems, is in a constant development mode to meet never-ending demands for improved efficiency and quality. Competitive and integrative policies are for example concurrently introduced in Swedish primary care; citizens‘ choice of primary care is launched while primary care is expected to integrate its activities with other providers for the creation of =local health care‘. Competition has though a tendency fragment the provision of services. The aim of this study is therefore to explore whether or not these two strategies are compatible in practice.MethodsGroup interviews were conducted at four locations in Sweden. The groups included persons aged between 20 and 45 years, 46 and 64 years and 65 years or over. The interviewees were living either in a big town or in a small community. Altogether, 21 randomly selected individuals participated in the group interviews. A deductive approach was chosen: six question topics were formulated with guidance from a theoretical framework about choice of care. The group interviews were thus semistructured without any predetermined codes. Each group interview took between 1 and 1.5 h to complete. Moreover, the conversations were recorded and transcribed as verbatim reports. As a consequence of the deductive approach, directed content analysis was chosen for the analysis of the group conversations.ResultsChoice of care is executed from the perspectives of being a prospective or current patient, which, in practice, imply choices are performed passive and active respectively. If the later group perceive interpersonal continuity, accessibility and demeanour of health professionals as favourable, they remain faithful to their actively chosen provider. The only condition that seems to trigger this group of patients to reconsider their choices is if they been the subject of bad manners. Those executing passive choices are less faithful to their original choice. When these former prospective patients, often younger persons, are in need of primary care they often disregard their choice if waiting times are shorter at other providers. This group generally prefer accessible service and seldom consider where it is provided. The group of passive choices also include citizens accepting suggestions presented by the authorities, founded on the conviction that ―they know what is best for me.DiscussionMany patients that have made active choices are thus faithful to their choices. This is rare in a consumer-market, which is characterized by high degree of exchangeability of providers; a condition which by and large corresponds with the attitude of those making passive choices. Nevertheless, a majority of patients stay with their choice of provider, often selected among a limited number of options. Moreover, health care providers and patients have long-term relationships, which is typical of a producer-market. In other words, if politicians strive for a competition-exposed primary care, the competition concept ought not to be founded on the theories of a consumer-market. The principles of a producer-market seem instead to be more applicable, which imply that providers will be competitive if they are able to build stable relations with their patients, which, in turn, facilitate for integrative arrangements among health care providers.