The rise of algorithmic management in healthcare: Exploring its manifestations and implications for the health and wellbeing of the health workforce. Visiting researcher, Dr. Virginia Gunn

This proposal concerns Assistant Professor Virginia Gunn from Cape Breton University, Canada, and includes research and delivery of lectures/seminars.

The work will take place during two one-month visits at the Unit of Occupational Medicine (UOM), Karolinska Institutet, and will continue between visits. The aim is to strengthen Dr. Gunn and her university’s partnership with Dr.

Håkansta and the research team at the UOM, with emphasis on strategically mapping a shared research agenda on the use of algorithmic management in healthcare and its health impacts on the workforce.This emerging, yet understudied phenomenon, refers to the use of software algorithms for managerial activities related to the health workforce and aspects of care delivery.

The UOM is keen to expand its existing focus on research on the occupational health impacts of algorithmic management in non-platform and platform economic sectors. As guest researcher, Dr.

Gunn will facilitate consultations with health professional researchers in Sweden and conduct a rapid scoping review to spearhead the mapping of research gaps on the use of algorithmic management in healthcare. Dr.

Gunn will strategize and prepare funding applications that enable comparative research on this topic in Sweden, Canada, and several other countries with different yet comparable healthcare systems.

She will also (i) deliver lectures on the use of algorithmic management in healthcare, health workforce challenges and structural solutions, and a policy analysis tool she developed and (ii) advance research work and manuscript writing on existing research projects she undertakes with members of the UOM team.

Dr.

Gunn’s extended clinical background and interdisciplinary education, her expertise in conducting systematic literature reviews, training in both qualitative and quantitative research methods, and existing collaboration with Dr. Håkansta, make her an excellent candidate for this visiting researcher opportunity.