Digital Infrastructures for Patient Centered Care: Examining Two Strategies for Recombinability

This paper examines recombinability as a quality of digital infrastructures. The recombination of heterogeneous digital capabilities enables and increases the fit between the infrastructure and the practices it supports. However, there is yet limited understanding of how to design for recombinability in digital infrastructures. This issue is critical in the healthcare setting where information and data needs of patients and health personnel vary in scope and time. This study reports from a comparative case study on the design and use of two patient-centered digital infrastructures. We identify two design strategies for recombinability and analyze their rationales and challenges.