The role of quantification: Competing knowledge claims in intensive care and their effects on communication, team work and mastery

This project explores competing knowledge claims in critical care, that is: conflicting notions of what type of knowledge is possible and needed in patient care, as well as in clinic management and -development.

Earlier studies point to the central role of quantification in critical care – that which is identifiable, analyzed and presented in terms of numbers tends to be considered more true and more important than that which is not.

However, research also indicates that healthcare professionals express a certain ambivalence in relation to the dominance of quantification and measuring. This is the key tension that the project explores.

Based on previous research efforts on teamwork in intensive care, pertinent questions are posed regarding competing knowledge claims and knowledge bases and their potential effects on interprofessional communication, teamwork and notions of mastery among intensive care physicians, nurses and nursing assistants.The project is transdisciplinary; two intensive care units offer the researchers full access and involvement of staff and managers in the research process.

In-depth interviews and observations are combined with document analysis and experiments on effects of interprofessional communication after implementation of standardized scales measuring delirium in sedated patients.

The project also includes an action research phase consisting of workshops with physicians, nurses and nursing assistants on knowledge bases in intensive care.